Catholics in North and South Korea pray together at "Mass for Reconciliation"

Vatican News

While world concerns have risen in recent days over the tensions between North and South Korea, on 9 January in Seoul and Pyongyang the Catholic faithful gathered in prayer to invoke peace and reconciliation. Fides news agency reported on the "Mass for Reconciliation" taking place in the Cathedral of Seoul, an initiative started by Cardinal Stephen Kim in 1995 and carried forward since then with celebrations of the Eucharist and moments of prayer involving the Catholic communities on both sides of the 38th parallel. The Mass celebrated on 9 January marked the 1,400th Eucharist for reconciliation, giving witness to the Church's prayerful attention to the Korean Peninsula's journey of peace.

The Prayer of Saint Francis

After the Mass for Reconciliation, a statement from the Archdiocese of Seoul noted that those present recited the prayer attributed to Saint Francis, "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon." Today that prayer echoes and rises to the Most High even across the border, said by the faithful of the "Association of North Korean Catholics," which is recognized by the government in Pyongyang. In fact, on 15 August 1995, Augustine C. Park, a Korean priest who served as a pastor in the United States for many years, visited Pyongyang's Catholics and the "prayer for reconciliation" was adopted. Since then, every Tuesday the faithful in Seoul Cathedral and the Association of North Korean Catholics in Changchung Church in Pyongyang have recited this prayer in spiritual communion and intention.

Hopes for reconciliation

At the Mass celebrated in Seoul on 9 January, Fides news agency reports that Job Yobi Koo, Auxiliary Bishop of Seoul, who presided over the celebration, recalled in his homily that "Cardinal Stephen Kim's motivation for beginning this Mass was not to 'pray for the change of the other' but to 'pray for the grace of reconciliation and unity from God.' Thereafter, the intention was to 'pray that we may become an instrument for forgiveness and reconciliation, so all people in this land may unite with love." 

Prophets of peace

The bishop also recalled that the South Korean Church celebrated a Mass for Peace on the 70th anniversary of the armistice of the Korean War on 27 July 2023. For that celebration Pope Francis sent a message and in blessing the Korean peninsula, "encouraged us to become prophets of peace," he said. Also in his Urbi et Orbi Christmas message of 2023, he recalled that "the Pope hoped that the day will come when fraternal ties will be strengthened on the Korean peninsula, opening paths of dialogue and reconciliation that can create the conditions for lasting peace." He concluded, "Let us pray together that we may become authentic apostles of peace."

A three decade tradition

The special Eucharistic celebration began on 7 March 1995 with the first Mass for Reconciliation celebrated by Cardinal Stephen Sou-hwan Kim, then Archbishop of Seoul and Apostolic Administrator of Pyongyang. In the beginning, bishops and priests in Seoul all celebrated the Mass. Beginning in 2000, newly ordained priests in the community presided at the Eucharist. The tradition has continued for 29 years, every Tuesday at 7 p.m., only with a brief interruption due to the pandemic. In May 2017 when celebrating the 100th anniversary of Our Lady's apparition in Fatima, Cardinal Andrea Soo-jung Yeom, then the Archbishop of Seoul, with an Extraordinary Pastoral Letter wished to add the devotion of praying the Rosary after Mass for reconciliation with the intention of entrusting the Virgin Mary with peace on the Korean Peninsula and peace throughout the world.