Pak Chwi-deuk was born in Korea around the year 1769. Missionaries came to his hometown and explained Catholicism, and he went to Seoul as a catechumen. He was baptized, took the name Lawrence, and returned home. He fervently lived his new faith and proclaimed the Gospel to his family and neighbors. In 1791 the government began a period of Catholic persecution; Lawrence visited the imprisoned and protested to the chief official. He was imprisoned for this, and after a month he was released. He escaped six years later when the persecutions were renewed, but when he heard his father was arrested in his place he turned himself in. For many months Lawrence was interrogated, brutally beaten, and starved, then eventually martyred. Through it all, he never stopped preaching the Gospel.
CHALLENGE
When the authorities questioned him, Blessed Lawrence Pak Chwi-deuk would simply explain points of Catholic doctrine no matter what they had asked him. Do you know your faith well enough to recite points of it easily? Pick up a copy of the Baltimore Catechism 2. Its short Q&A format is easy to memorize.
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