The Columban group assembles for the Way of the Cross through the city streets. Photo: Fr Donal O'Keeffe SSC
On Good Friday 2021, the Columban Formation community in Seoul participated in the Good Friday Liturgy organised by the Korean Branch of the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM). Formally inaugurated in January 2020, GCCM Korea is now a national movement coordinated by a team of laypeople, religious and priests. The liturgy was organised by the Coordinating Team of GCCM, a key member of which is Columban lay missionary, Anna Noh Hyein. It was in fact an invitation from Anna that spurred our community to participate.
On Good Friday forenoon, about 70 people gathered in the Seoul city centre and divided into teams of seven (the maximum allowed to move as a group according to COVID-19 regulations). Fourteen Stations had been set up ahead of time at various places in the business district of the city with the final one at the steps of Myeongdong Cathedral. The Way of the Cross highlighted the passion, suffering and death of God’s creatures in our world today.
The participants, a mixed group of young and old, laypeople, religious sisters, brothers and priests, came prepared with placards and posters highlighting the suffering earth. These were displayed by those walking the Way of the Cross.
For example, at Station 9 - Jesus falls the second time - we reflected on the plight of organic farmers driven to their knees by competition from the industrial-sized genetic farming. Station 6 - Veronica wipes the face of Jesus - focused on Korean solidarity with the present suffering of Myanmar, the nation and its natural resources sacrificed to the greed of the military. At Station 12 - Jesus dies on the Cross - we mourned the loss of bio-diversity due to our own greedy culture.
The Columban group marks one of the stations in its Way of the Cross. Photo: Fr Donal O'Keeffe SSC
We started at 11.30am and finished at about 1.30pm. Walking through the business centre of the city at this time we were constantly meeting with office workers coming and going to their lunchtime venues. Our placards and posters caught their eyes and although engrossed in their own conversations, it was clear that they were glancing at the content and reading the messages. One or two of them joined with us for a short prayer at each station.
Back at home in the Formation House, we shared experiences of the event. It certainly was a Way of the Cross with a difference! Some of us felt that the traffic noise and the preoccupation of the people as they went past prevented them from doing any deep reflection on what we were expressing. Others thought this noisy, chaotic city atmosphere might have been closer to the reality of the original way of the cross than any silent and reflective liturgy in the prayerful atmosphere of a church.
Walking in a public place carrying a placard was a new experience for most of our participants and was a challenge in itself. The action of carrying a poster highlighting the suffering of the earth caused us to question more deeply our own consumer lifestyle, our unconscious acceptance of the modern, convenient way of living that keeps the exploitative system in place.
This was and is a very uncomfortable thought and a serious challenge and invitation to us as disciples today. It was certainly a deeply meaningful part of Holy Week for us in Seoul in 2021.
Columban Fr Donal O’Keeffe lives and works in South Korea.
Listen to "Way of the Cross in Seoul"
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - March/April 2022
