VIDEO MESSAGE OF POPE FRANCIS
TO THE PEOPLE OF KOREA ON THE OCCASION OF THE UPCOMING
APOSTOLIC JOURNEY TO THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Within a few days, with God’s help, I will be among you in Korea. I thank you in advance for welcoming me and I invite you to pray together with me, that this Apostolic Journey may bear good fruit for the Church and for Korean society.

“Arise, shine!” (Is 60:1): with these words, which the prophet addressed to Jerusalem, I turn to you. It is the Lord who invites you to receive his light, to receive it in the heart so as to reflect it in a life full of faith, of hope and of love, full of the joy of the Gospel.

As you know, I come on the occasion of the Sixth Asian Youth Day. To young people in particular I shall bring the call of the Lord: “Asian Youth! Wake up! The glory of the martyrs shines upon you”. The light of the Risen Christ shines as in a mirror in the witnesses of Paul Yun Ji-chung and of his 123 companions, all martyrs for the faith, who will be proclaimed blessed on 16 August in Seoul. Young people bear hope and energy for the future; but they are also victims of the moral and spiritual crisis of our time. For this I would like to announce to them and to all the only name in which we can be saved: Jesus the Lord.

Dear brothers and sisters of Korea, faith in Christ has implanted deep roots in your land and has borne abundant fruit. The elderly are custodians of this heritage: without them the young would have no memory. The encounter between young and old is the guarantee of the people’s journey. And the Church is the great family in which we are all brothers in Christ. I come to you in his name, in the joy of sharing with you the Gospel of love and hope.

May the Lord bless you and may the Virgin Mother protect you.