Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

Korea grows hand in hand with Maria

South Korea

From being a minority and persecuted Church, Catholicism in South Korea has moved on to overcome the five and a half million faithful throughout the 20th century. It is a documented data, and even more striking is another: each year More than 100,000 adults They ask for baptism, many after a long journey of spiritual search and catechamenate. Few places in the world today know a spring of such conversions.

La Head of Korea es la Immaculate Conception, an advocation deeply linked to the Catholic identity of the country. Next to it, Korean Christian life has a markedly Marian tone: frequent prayer of Rosary in family and parish, pilgrimages to Marian shrines and a strong lay apostolate. The Legion of Mary, according to missionary testimonies, it brings together in the country around Two hundred and fifty thousand members, sign of an extended and well organized Marian piety.

Honesty is right here. Demographic studies attribute growth mainly to sociocultural factors - the moral credibility of the Church, education, the search for meaning - and cannot be demonstrated statistically that the conversions are due to the intercession of Mary. What is documented is that daily Catholic life almost always includes the Rosary and Marian devotions, and that many catechumes come to faith through Catholic schools and hospitals where they know the Virgin, or guests to Rosario groups and pilgrimages that impact them for their climate of prayer and family. On the Miraculous Medal, is known and venerated, but no consta a national emblematic case documented with name and date; the accounts of Marian conversions live mainly in oral testimonies.

There is also a very Korean accent: before the division of the peninsula, the bishops - and especially the Archbishop of Seoul - present Mary as Mother of reconciliation between the two Koreas, and the Rosary is prayed for the peace and unity of the people. It is a reading of faith, not a quantifiable fact, but it truly expresses how this people trust their wounded history to the Mother. Thus, without stridences and miracles to prove, Korea continues to grow from the hand of Mary: in every family that prays the Rosary and in every adult that asks for baptism, the Mother accompanies in silence.