“Then the saint would surreptitiously ask the question, but all quietly: ‘Are you a disciple of Jesus?’” Francis explained. “Since other people were watching the conversation, the saint had to speak in a low voice, saying only a few words, the most essential ones. So, for Andrew Kim, the expression that summed up the whole identity of the Christian was ‘disciple of Christ.’”
As the example of St. Andrew Kim Taegon shows, the pope said, being a disciple of the Lord “means to follow him, to follow his way, and this involves giving one’s life for the Gospel.”
“The Christian is by nature a missionary and a witness, just as Jesus was a missionary and witness to the Father. Every Christian community receives this identity from the Holy Spirit, and so does the whole Church, since the day of Pentecost,” he said.
Pope Francis said seeing the example of these great saints, we might wonder to ourselves how we can evangelize in our own lives.
We can do this in our own, small way, he said, “evangelizing family, evangelizing friends, talking about Jesus, but talking about Jesus and evangelizing with a heart full of joy, full of strength.”
“Let us prepare ourselves,” he added, “to receive the Holy Spirit in the coming Pentecost and ask him for that grace, the grace of apostolic courage, the grace to evangelize, to always carry on the message of Jesus.”
The pope’s catechesis on St. Andrew Kim Taegon was part of a series on apostolic zeal.
The week prior, he highlighted the example of the Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier.
Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency's senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.
