Facing North Korea: «We are surrounded by bases, you can hear the rehearsals from the cell»The missiles are aimed at them; They put the Tabernacle as a shield: nuns on the hardest border in the world
North Korea
The history of this convent has as its protagonist Saint John Paul II, it was he who had asked to bring God where there was no love and faith. In 2005, the year he died, five nuns arrived in the Asian country.
If there is one place in the world that is especially difficult to believe in—except for a blind faith in the State—it is North Korea. Very close there, on the same border, on the mythical 38th parallel, in front of the missiles of the communist regime, a group of defenseless women place the Blessed Sacrament every day facing the neighboring territory, with which they dream of being able to reunify in the future.
Misión Magazine, the free subscription magazine most read by Catholic families in Spain, in its latest issue, interviews one of these religious Sisters of the Visitation, who live on what is the most dangerous border in the world, the one that separates North Korea South Korea. A place still at war, since peace was never signed.
Between military bases
“Families were broken, father in the north and mother in the south, brothers separated by a wall and a strict military line. Some died without being able to see each other again,” laments Ángela Mercedes, a sister of the Visitación who lives very close to the dividing line at Panmunjeom.
“We are in South Korean territory, but just a few minutes from North Korea. Our monastery is surrounded by military bases and the Army telephone cables pass over our house. We listen to the military rehearsals from our rooms, it is calm tense, but we have gotten used to it. We live at the top of a mountain and it is a privileged place,” says the Colombian nun.
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The history of this convent has as its protagonist Saint John Paul II, the Pope who marked the youth of these sisters, it was he who had asked to bring God where there was no love and faith. In 2005, precisely the year in which the beloved Pope died, five nuns arrived in the Asian country.
Since they landed in the country divided in two, they had a big problem: the language. “It’s very complicated. We went to university to train. When they talk to you everything in Korean, which is so different from Spanish, it breaks your mind. I started writing with unintelligible scribbles and I had a very strong internal crisis,” explains the sister. Angela.
The encouragement of a Franciscan priest encouraged him to remain: “There is no missionary who does not shed tears at some point.” They learned the language, but could not pay for heating or air conditioning in their convent in Busan, in the south of the country.
In the extreme heat of the border
“On one occasion, a Korean father vcame to visit us and asked us what we were eating. When I didn’t respond, he went to our refrigerator, he opened it and saw that there was nothing. He was scared and started to help us. He sent us fruit, vegetables and meat. “We were very poor,” he says.
When they were already settled, they were told that they had to leave the diocese, and that is when the option of going north arose. They went from the extreme heat of Busan to the cold of the border. “They told us that there was a Jesuit bishop who could take us in, but that it was a very poor diocese and we would have nothing. To which I responded: ‘If the diocese is poor and we are poor, we are going to understand each other very well.’ And that’s when we left,” says Ángela.
KOREAS”Families were broken, father in the north and mother in the south, separated by a wall.”
And so the miracle of building a monastery located on top of a mountain, in Jeongo PUE, begins to take place. A house that they themselves began to build in 2014 and that is still under construction. “No one knows what happens inside that country, that’s why we pray every day for them. The stories that come when someone manages to leave are atrocious. We have decided to place the tabernacle facing North Korea. We pray looking directly at Pyongyang. We pray I say to the Lord: ‘My God, behind you you have your North Korean children, do not leave them alone, may your light invade the hearts of those leaders,'” says the sister.
The monastery is made up of ten sisters – seven Colombian and three Korean – all of them with a special devotion to seven Spanish martyrs, the blessed sisters of the Visitation, shot in 1936 for hatred of the faith: “They gave their lives literally and we “We are very close to them. We brought their relics to Korea and we extend their veneration here. We have already seen many miracles.”
“A man arrived with terminal cancer for which there was no longer a cure. The doctors told him that there was no solution. We were praying for him and we even gave him a relic of the martyrs to take home. We saw that As the months passed, the man continued to hold on, so the prayer also became more and more intense. 18 years have passed and the man is still alive,” says Angela.
Despite the privileged location of the convent, there are difficult moments, especially for the youngest sisters. “Next door we have brothers going through great difficulties. If we think about that, our little difficulties are nothing,” she says.
You can see here a video of the situation of Christians inside North Korea.
“To set foot in the North before I die is a dream I have. They say that total unity is almost impossible, but for God there is nothing impossible. There are many martyrs on both sides, and sooner or later the light will enter hearts. Because these People are convinced that their lie is the truth. I hope they discover that the truth is Jesus,” says the sister.
“We spend the day praying for them. It’s exciting to know that you are giving your life for something like this,” she concludes. You can read the original report in Mission.
Source and photos: Los misiles les apuntan; ellas ponen el Sagrario de escudo: monjas en la frontera más dura del mundo – ReL (religionenlibertad.com)