St. Agnes Kim Parish in Coquitlam commemorated the fifth anniversary of its establishment as a parish on Sunday, Sept. 25, with a Parish Day aimed at fostering a collaborating and praying community.
Earlier this year, Father Pio Kim set the goal of St. Agnes Kim becoming a “collaborating community” and “praying community.” During Lent, parishioners participated in a fundraising effort to support the local community and donated funds to The Door is Open.
To become a “praying community,” St. Agnes Kim worked on a rosary campaign. Every time a parishioner offered a prayer or a good deed, a bead was placed on the rosaries, which were handed out to the parishioners at the Parish Day event.
The event was held at Terry Fox Secondary School in Port Coquitlam and started with an opening Mass in the morning, followed by a sports day event for all parishioners.
The sports day was planned not only to commemorate the parish’s fifth anniversary but also to revitalize the parish community after the COVID-19 pandemic and help parishioners return to their former faithful life.
Each of seven regional communities formed a team to participate in a variety of games inspired by Squid Game, which was a global hit last year. These games enabled fun-filled collaboration and communication among all generations of parishioners.
At the commemorative Mass, Father Pio compared the parish’s journey during the past five years to Abraham’s journey, saying, “There were many difficulties, but looking back, it was the path the Lord provided.”
Father Pio also announced the purchase of the detached house property that it had been renting from All Saints Parish for use as a rectory, parish office, and meeting rooms. Father thanked all parishioners for their services and sacrifices that made it possible to purchase the building, which has been named the Yahweh Yireh Centre.
As the last event of the fifth anniversary, St. Agnes Kim is planning a Yeondo Prayer Competition for Sunday, Nov. 20. Yeondo is a Korean compilation of prayers for the dead that are sung and chanted using traditional Korean musical tones and rhythms. They include Psalms 62, 129, 50, and the Litany of the Saints.
Uniting communities
St. Agnes Kim Parish was established by a decree of Archbishop J. Michael Miller in September 2017.
As the second Korean parish in the Archdiocese of Vancouver, St. Agnes Kim has improved accessibility to church for Korean parishioners and united smaller communities.
- The parish has been renting and sharing local church buildings, which Father Pio has used as an opportunity for Korean Catholics to collaborate and work with local communities. The Yahweh Yireh centre became the first property that Agnes Parish owns. After renovations in the near future, it is expected to provide more space to accommodate various parish activities.
- To embrace various generations of parishioners, the parish introduced a “stroller mass” for parents with toddlers so that they can participate in religious activities without worrying about the disturbance that their children may cause to others.
St. Agnes Kim: steadfast in her faith
It’s been said that martyrdom is a total gift of oneself to God. No one can doubt this after learning details of the martyrdom of Kim Hyo-ju Agnes, who is known and revered today as St. Agnes Kim.
St. Agnes Kim was born in 1816 in Bamseom, on the banks of the Han River in Korea. She and five siblings were raised in a family by a mother who was beginning to embrace Catholicism even as her husband prohibited any mention of the Church in their home.
After the father died, the mother became a devout Catholic, leading her six children – Anthony, Benedicta, Hyo-im Columba, Hyo-ju Agnes, Francis, and Clara – to the faith. Following their baptisms, three of the sisters–Hyo-im Columba, Hyo-ju Agnes, and Clara–promised to offer their lives to God as virgins, resisting their mother’s wish that they find marriage partners.
The three earned the respect and praise of fellow Catholics for their charity and good works while living in Yongmori, about 50 kilometres southwest of Seoul.
Persecution of Catholics in Korea had begun as early as 1801 and flared again in 1839, leading to the arrests of Catholics throughout the country. The three sisters remained faithful and prayed daily for those who were suffering in prison. On May 3 of that year, an informant betrayed the family, and authorities arrested Agnes and Columba, binding the two sisters with a red rope and taking them to Seoul, where a judge interrogated them.
The sisters were steadfast in the defence of their faith, leading police to wield a spiked cudgel to beat them on their shoulders, arms, and knees. Yet the peaceful expression on their faces did not change.
Between each of five such beatings, the police enticed the sisters with promises if they would renounce their faith. The two sisters did not waver. Moreover, throughout their torture, the sisters continued to pray in silence, never uttering a sound.
This enraged their tormentors, who seared their skin with a red-hot poker and, later, strung them up and whipped them with bamboo canes.
When a magistrate saw that even this torture was not enough to force them to renounce their faith, he decided to destroy the young women’s virginity by stripping them of their clothes and throwing them into a cell among male criminals.
However, God protected them there and, for two days, they survived unharmed among men who were accustomed to every sort of evil.
On Sept. 3, 1839, Kim Hyo-ju Agnes was beheaded outside the Small West Gate of Seoul with five other Catholics. She was 24 years old. On Sept. 26, Kim Hyo-im Columba was beheaded at the same place with eight other Catholics. She was 26 years old.
Authorities finally granted Korean Catholics the right to practise their faith in the 1880s, a century after the Church was founded in the country, but not before persecutors had killed an estimated 10,000 Catholics.
The two sisters were among 10 French missionaries and 93 Koreans who were canonized by Pope John Paul II during his visit to Korea in 1984.
