However, this situation had changed when I became a Catholic, following my older brother. In RCIA, I heard the story of Jacob who was born second and yet became greater than his brother. What about Joseph who saved all his brothers who tried to kill him? And I read how God chose the youngest David and made him the king. I probably glimpsed that life seems fair in the end and yet it has its twist.
When the Lord took Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.” Abram didn’t try to do what the Lord asked. Rather, he felt intimacy, realizing the Lord’s arms around his shoulder. He didn’t need to count the stars to find the meaning of his life; what he did was to accept the Lord’s guidance for his life and put his faith in the Lord which he did and I did as well.
God has given Abram a new name—Abraham. He was not the same after he put his faith in the Lord. Likewise, my new name was Hasang Paul Kim after the baptism. Now I can admit I probably put more emphasis on Hasang Paul than my family name Kim for a while because I wanted to become different—something new, bigger and greater. It took a long time, however, to understand I am always in the family—first biological and then spiritual. Without family, I am rootless and powerless.
It was God who taught me to understand becoming a Catholic means to be a member of the family, the universal family. I have been called to be more aware of plights of my brothers and sisters all over the world who are in danger and most need. As I am asked to put some money for the poor, I am also asked to remember their faces and names and to pray for them. As I thought I would be different from becoming a Catholic, I certainly became different in more duties and responsibilities for the Catholic family. And this understanding has also led me to understand my biological family more and finally love them because God’s love is very close to the parents’ love that I had not seen.
We are not individuals or parts of a nuclear family. We maybe not a part of a devout or practicing family in faith. We are holy family—the extended faith community. As soon as we became Catholics, we accepted to be God’s family that leads us to understand all family is a holy family, at least a holy family to be! It is not about you who form a holy family but God who shares His communal family love in the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit with his children. And this communal love reveals in the faith community where we are nurtured in the Eucharistic table Sunday after Sunday.
Now I can smile at my childhood because it might be pains of growth, and I sometimes felt I was alone. But it was not true anymore. My family was with me all the times and the whole village watched over me and the whole world raised me, witnessing to becoming a child of God and a brother to all. This is a holy family we all belong and celebrate today.