From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The man without a wedding garment   
      
      Then the king said to the waiters: Bind his hands and feet, and   
   cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and   
   gnashing of teeth.   
      The man without a wedding garment is a figure of the unrepentent   
   sinner in mortal sin who stands before God without the wedding garment   
   of sanctifying grace. The binding of his hands and feet and casting   
   into the exterior darkness represents God punishing the sinner and   
   condemning him to hell.  [Matt 22: 13]   
      
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   September 21st - Saint Lawrence Mary Joseph Imbert   
   Also known as Laurent Marie Joseph Imbert, Laurent-Joseph-Marius Imbert   
      
   Memorial 21 September   
   20 September on some calendar   
   formerly 10 June   
   † 1839   
      
   KOREA is one of the few countries in the world to which Christianity   
   was first introduced otherwise than by Christian missionaries. During   
   the 18th century some Chinese Christian books were brought into the   
   country, and a man who had read them joined the embassy from Seoul to   
   Peking in 1784, sought out Mgr. de Gouvea there, and from him received   
   baptism. He returned to his own country and when, ten years later, a   
   Chinese priest came to Korea he found 4000 Christians awaiting him. He   
   was their only pastor for 7 years, and after he was killed in 1801   
   they were without a priest for 30 years. A letter is extant written by   
   the Koreans to Pope Pius VII, imploring him to send them priests at   
   once; their little flock had already given martyrs to the Church. In   
   1831 the vicariate apostolic of Korea was created, but the first vicar   
   never reached there. His successor, Mgr. Laurence Joseph Mary Imbert,   
   Titular Bishop of Capsa and a member of the Paris Foreign Missions,   
   who had been in China for 12 years, entered the country in disguise at   
   the end of 1837, having been preceded by BL. PETER PHILIBERT MAUBANT   
   and BL. JAMES HONORÉ CHASTAN, priests of the same missionary society.   
      
   Christianity was now definitely proscribed in Korea, and for two years   
   the missionaries went about their work with complete secrecy.   
      
   Of its circumstances and difficulties Mgr. Imbert wrote: “I am   
   overwhelmed with fatigue and in great danger. I get up at half-past   
   two every morning. At three I call the people of the house to prayers,   
   and at half-past I begin the duties of my ministry by baptizing, if   
   there are any converts, or by giving confirmation. Then come Mass,   
   communion, and thanksgiving. The 15 to 20 people who have received the   
   sacraments can thus get away before daybreak. During the day about as   
   many come in, one by one, for confession, and do not go until the next   
   morning after communion. I stay two days in each house, where I get   
   the Christians together, and before it is light I go on to another. I   
   suffer a great deal from hunger: for it is no easy matter in this cold   
   and wet climate to get up at half-past two and then wait until noon   
   for a meal which is poor, insufficient, and lacking in nourishment.   
   After dinner I rest a little until I have to take my senior scholars   
   in theology, and finally I hear confessions again until nightfall. At   
   9 o’clock I go to bed--on a mat on the floor with a Tartary-wool   
   blanket; there are no bedsteads or mattresses in Korea. In spite of my   
   weak body and poor health I have always led a hard and very busy life:   
   but here I think I have reached the positive limit of work. You will   
   well understand that, leading a life like this, we scarcely fear the   
   sword-stroke that may at any time end it.”   
      
   By these heroic means the Christians in Korea were increased by a   
   half, roughly from 6000 to 9000, in less than two years. What was   
   going on soon became known, and a decree for their extermination was   
   published. An example of the horrors that took place is provided by   
   BL. AGATHA KIM, one of the 76 Koreans beatified with the 3 priests.   
   She was asked if it were true that she practised the Christian   
   religion. “I know Jesus and Mary”, she replied, “but I know nothing   
   else.”--“If you are tortured you will give up this Jesus and Mary.”--   
   “If I have to die I will not.” She was long and cruelly tormented and   
   at last sentenced to death. A tall cross of wood was fixed to a cart   
   and to this cross Agatha was hung by her arms and hair. The cart was   
   driven off and at the top of a steep and very rough slope the oxen   
   were pricked up and the cart sent lurching and jolting down, the woman   
   swinging at every movement with all her weight on her hair and wrists.   
   At the place of execution she was stripped naked, her head forced down   
   on to a block, and there cut off.   
      
   BL. JOHN RI wrote from prison “Two or three months passed before the   
   judge sent for me, and I became sad and anxious. The sins of my whole   
   life, when I had so often offended God from sheer wickedness, seemed   
   to weigh me down like a mountain, and I wondered to myself, ‘What will   
   be the end of all this?’ But I never lost hope. On the 10th day of the   
   12th moon I was brought before the judge and he ordered me to be   
   bastinadoed. How could I have borne it by my own strength alone? But   
   the strength of God and the prayers of Mary and the saints and all our   
   martyrs upheld me, so that I believe I scarcely suffered at all. I   
   cannot repay such a mercy, and to offer my life is only just.”   
      
   To avert a general massacre and its attendant danger of apostasy, Mgr.   
   Imbert allowed himself to be taken and recommended M. Maubant and M.   
   Chastan to do the same. This they did, after writing letters to Rome   
   explaining their action and giving an account of their charge. They   
   were all 3 bastinadoed, then carried on chairs to the banks of the   
   river which flows around Seoul, tied back to back to a post, and there   
   beheaded. This was on September 21, 1839, but their feast is kept by   
   the Paris Foreign Missions on the 26th. In the year 1904 the relics of   
   eighty-one martyrs of Korea were translated to the episcopal church of   
   the vicar apostolic at Seoul, and in 1925 Bl. Laurence and his   
   companions were beatified. The first Korean priest martyr was BL.   
   ANDREW KIM in 1846.They were canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1984.   
      
   In C. Dallet, L’histoire de l’Eglise de Corée (1874), especially vol.   
   ii, pp. 118-185, the life and sufferings of these martyrs are   
   recounted in detail. See also A. Launay, Les Missionnaires français en   
   Corée (1895), and Martyrs français et coréens (1925); and E. Baumann   
   in The Golden Legend Overseas (1931).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   On behalf of Christ crucified I tell you: refuse to believe the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)