By Sister Ignatius Aquino OSB

Sister Ignatius wrote in May-June about her experiences in Africa and South America. She’s now back in her native Asia, but in a country very different from the Philippines, Korea. You can learn more about the Church in Korea and the persecutions there on www.cbck.or.kr, the website of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea. Click on ‘English’ at the top of the page and ignore anything about a ‘Language Pack Installation’.

My first twenty days at Daegu Priory, Korea, were wonderfully blessed with special events and celebrations: a Silver Jubilee, final and temporary professions, initiation into the novitiate and reception of candidates into postulancy. These monastic festivities gave me a glimpse of the quality of Benedictine life our sisters have over here. I am deeply impressed by the solemnity of their Divine Office, the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, all in Korean, and their fidelity to Lectio Divina. (Editor’s note: Richard McCambly OCSO, a Cistercian monk, describes Lectio Divinaas ‘ordinarily confined to the slow perusal of Sacred Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments; it is undertaken not with the intention of gaining information but of using the texts as an aide to contact the living God’ <www.lectio-divina.org/>).