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Br.
Simon Andrew Kim, OP
As I look back on my life, I am able to see
God’s hand guiding my family through the difficult times. I was
baptized as a baby, and was raised with a strong Catholic identity.
Although my mother was a devout Catholic, my father cared little for
religion. Due to diverging opinions on religion and serious
financial difficulties, my parents divorced when I was in 6th grade.
My father left, and we rarely saw him again. This was a
difficult time for our family, but it pushed my mother, younger
brother and I closer together. My mother constantly stressed the
need to turn to God during these times, and I am grateful that her
faith never wavered.
I worked hard at school, and
was accepted to UC Berkeley to study biology. I entered Berkeley
with the intention of applying to dental school after graduation. My
desire was to raise a family and have a high income. During my
second year in college, I met a recent convert to the Catholic
faith. Before he entered the Church, he was an Evangelical
Protestant. My new friend always challenged his fellow Catholics to
learn more about their faith. Although I loved my faith and loved
being Catholic, I knew very little about it. I’m sure all of you
have experienced this at one point.
Why do you worship Mary? Why
do you try to earn your salvation? Why do you re-sacrifice Jesus
over and over again in the Mass? My response was usually a blank
stare. So I took up my friend’s challenge and read one of the books
on Catholic apologetics he offered me. After reading that book, I
read another, and another, and another. I devoured book after book,
but it would be a few years before I realized the deeper importance
behind my study of the faith.
During my last year of
college, I joined a bible study on the book of Genesis. We ended our
study with a retreat organized by a group of Korean-Catholic
sisters. It was at this retreat that I first heard God’s call. One
of the sisters, Sr. Cho, gave a beautiful talk on the twelfth
chapter of Genesis. It was here that God called Abram and commanded
him, saying to “Go from your country, your kinsmen, and your
father’s house to the land that I will show you.” When I heard
Sr. Cho read these words, I felt as if she were speaking directly to
my heart. As I contemplated the meaning of this passage over the
next few months, I slowly began to fall in love with the idea of
leaving everything behind to follow God.
It was because of this
retreat that I began a serious re-evaluation of my life. During this
time of discernment, another bible passage leapt out at me. In the
Gospels, Jesus tells his disciples, “If any man would come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For
whoever saves his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for
my sake will find it.” When I read this passage, I felt deep within
my soul the saving message of our Lord. But that wasn’t all I
felt. I knew God was drawing me into something deeper. I heard two
messages from God: to go to a place I didn’t know, and to give
myself over completely to him. Then it dawned on me that perhaps
this was a call to the priesthood. But, I couldn’t follow
through. I was afraid. For one thing, I was in a serious
relationship that seemed to be heading towards marriage. I also
considered the life of a priest to be too difficult. I wasn’t smart
enough, strong enough, or holy enough. And I already had my life
planned out: become a dentist, make lots of money, and retire early.
So, I did what I thought was a pretty good compromise with God: I
joined a volunteer program. Instead of giving my entire life over to
Him, I decided to start small and give Him one year.
I joined the Jesuit
Volunteers after graduating college and was placed in a small
Catholic school in St. Louis, Missouri. I thought that maybe if I
did this, God would stop hassling me and let me run my own life. It
was here though, that I got a taste of community life. I lived in a
small community with 4 other Jesuit volunteers. Even though my
community at times really tested my patience, I felt a deep bond
with them. One of my housemates put it very eloquently. When I said
that there really was something special about living with community,
she said “That’s because God invented it. Even God is a community, a
community of persons: Father, Son and Spirit.”
After my year with the Jesuit
Volunteers, I went back home and got a job. And although I had a
quiet nagging voice in my heart reminding me of those messages from
God, I ignored it. In January, I was invited to a retreat led by a
lay movement called Cursillo. And it was during a moment of
Eucharistic Adoration that God convicted me.
The small chapel was
completely dark with one small light focused on the Blessed
Sacrament. The only thing visible in that room was our Lord.
Although I was in the room with a group of other men, I felt I was
alone with my God. In a short moment, God flooded my mind with
memories and emotions that I had buried away. The Lord reminded me
of all the blessings he had granted, yet how I turned away from the
cross that he wanted to share. I was too selfish, only wanting to
lead my life on my own terms, and not his. I felt like Simon Peter
when he realized he had betrayed the Lord, and just like Peter, I
wept bitterly. Yet, besides being a moment of repentance and a
realization of my own sinfulness, at the same time this was a truly
liberating moment. Jesus melted away my selfish desires, and put
within me, not my own strength, but his.
It was only after this moment
of dying to self that I was able to freely accept the cross that
Jesus made for me. With my love of studying and preaching the
gospel, and also a desire for community life, choosing the Order of
Preachers was a simple decision. It was with the Dominicans that I
found a community of men who courageously bore the crosses the Lord
made for them.
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