The old saying, “the family that prays together, stays together,” could be expanded in the case of St. Andrew Kim Parish in Olney, Maryland, to also include “the family that eats together,” because the parish for Korean Catholics is known for gathering as a community for Mass and then enjoying a lunch of Korean cuisine together every Sunday.
And that’s just how the 50th anniversary celebration of St. Andrew Kim Parish unfolded on Sept. 29, with a Mass celebrated by Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory with prayers, songs and readings in Korean and English, followed by a Korean lunch in the parish hall.
As he concluded his homily at the anniversary Mass, Cardinal Gregory said, “I proudly and joyfully applaud our Korean Catholic community for your faith, your joy and your love for Christ, and this is only the beginning, the first 50 years.”
In 1974, the Archdiocese of Washington approved the establishment of the Roman Catholic Korean Church. In 1980, it was elevated to the Blessed Andrew Kim Korean Pastoral Mission, and in 1984 it was elevated to become St. Andrew Kim Parish. The parish moved from College Park to Olney, where its new church was built in 2002. St. Andrew Kim Parish now includes about 1,250 households.
Cardinal Gregory noted that Korean Catholics in Washington began gathering together for Mass in 1965, and when St. Andrew Kim’s Catholic community was officially established 50 years ago, “it became a living reality, and it is for the grace of those 50 years that we give thanks this morning.”
Washington’s archbishop complimented their “beautiful church,” and said it is a “symbol of the strength of and pride in” Korean Catholics’ faith. He noted, “There are always living stones before there are brick and mortar edifices. And the cornerstone of the church is always Christ Jesus Himself.”
In an interview before the Mass, Father Matthew Moonseoung Park, St. Andrew Kim’s pastor since 2022, said parishioners there are inspired by the examples and the spirituality of St. Andrew Kim and the Korean martyrs, who lived their lives for Christ.
“They keep the faith alive,” he said of the families and individual members of St. Andrew Kim Parish.
A gleaming statue of St. Andrew Kim was unveiled in a 2021 ceremony as part of a new exhibition hall by the entranceway to the church that honors the life and legacy of Korea’s first priest and martyr. The statue was placed there as part of the bicentennial commemoration of his 1821 birth. The statue depicts St. Andrew Kim bowing slightly, and holding a small façade of the Catholic church in Shanghai, China, where he was ordained to the priesthood in 1845, days before his 24th birthday. He was martyred the next year at the age of 25.
St. Andrew Kim Tae-gon was among 103 Korean martyrs canonized by Pope St. John Paul II when he visited South Korea in 1984. St. Andrew Kim Church has a large painting depicting the martyrs, and another statue of their patron saint outside the church.
Father Adam Park, a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington who was baptized at St. Andrew Kim Parish, grew up in the parish and celebrated his first Mass as a priest there in 2005, said his vocation was inspired by the “vibrancy of the faith within the Korean culture” at his home parish.
In an interview before the anniversary Mass, the priest – who now serves as a chaplain at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland – noted how the Catholic faith in Korea originated with the laity there, who had gotten ahold of Bibles and catechisms and spread the faith to others. The Catholic Almanac notes that when a missionary priest arrived in Korea in 1794, he “found 4,000 Catholics there who had never seen a priest.”
The laity of St. Andrew Kim Parish played a key role in fostering its growth and in the building of its current church.
Luke Park, a pharmacist who has been a member of St. Andrew Kim Parish for 40 years since he was a teen-ager, now lives in Virginia, but he keeps coming to Mass at St. Andrew Kim Church. “This is my house,” he said in an interview.
Noting that the parish has many active prayer groups, Luke Park said, “We are carrying our culture and our faith from Korea to here.”
Also interviewed before the Mass, Kevin Yi – an auto dealership manager who has been a part of the St. Andrew Kim community for 44 years and serves on its pastoral council – said the parish has offered “a place of worship for Korean Americans for the past 50 years.”
He noted how the small community grew to a large congregation over the years. “It was God’s will. Everything fell into place. What made us survive was the first-generation parents and grandparents who literally gave up their time” and did a lot of fundraising, including with what was known as the Kimchi Task Force, Yi said.
Volunteers in the St. Andrew Kim took turns every week making and selling Korean food after Mass – including kimchi, salted and fermented cabbage and other vegetables – to raise money for the community. Eventually, through their donations and steadfast fundraising efforts, parishioners raised enough money to build the church.
Yi emphasized that St. Andrew Kim Parish has been built and sustained by its volunteers, serving at Masses and in parish ministries, and on rotating teams that prepare and serve the Korean cuisine for lunch every week after the main Mass in Korean at 11 a.m. Sunday.
He noted that in the Korean language, a key meaning of the word family is “people who eat together. As long as we’ve been together, we have served between 300 and 500 people every Sunday,” he said, noting that the food also includes bibimbap, a Korean rice dish, and janchi guksu, a Korean noodle soup.
After St. Andrew Kim parishioners share their faith together at Mass, Yi said those lunches give them a chance to share their Korean culture, language and history. “They don’t have a chance to do that in their daily lives until Sunday,” he said.
About 600 St. Andrew Kim parishioners gathered in the church for the anniversary Mass, and beforehand they watched a video featuring photos from their Catholic community’s 50-year history.
“We give thanks and praise to God for always being with us these past 50 years,” said Kevin Yi, who introduced the video. The narration noted that St. Andrew Kim Parish has become “a refuge for Korean Catholics in this area… Our church is a community built on prayer, sacrifice and love for each other.”
The video’s narrator noted how St. Andrew Kim Parish links its past and future, ranging from programs for its youth to outreach for its senior citizens, and each brick in the church represents the faith and sacrifice of the parishioners who built it.
Before the Mass started, the choir sang a special song and people in the congregation recited a prayer for the 50th anniversary of St. Andrew Kim Parish, and a little boy and girl walked to the front of the church to present Cardinal Gregory with flowers.
Some women and girls at the Mass wore brightly colored traditional silk dresses.
The offertory gifts at the Mass included a statue of St. Andrew Kim, and a puzzle portrait of the parish’s patron saint, with each completed puzzle piece represented 1,000 decades of the rosary prayed by parishioners to mark the anniversary.
After the Mass, Cardinal Gregory cut a large 50th anniversary cake for St. Andrew Kim Parish that was served to the guests dining on Korean cuisine in the parish hall.
In an interview after he assisted at the anniversary Mass, Deacon Chang Choi – who is from St. Andrew Kim Parish and now serves at nearby St. Peter Parish in Olney – said a key priority for his home parish is passing on the faith to the next generation.
Among the parish elders attending the Mass was Sanghoon Song, a retired accountant who is now 103. He was joined by his son, Eugene Song, a retired chemical engineer who is 72. Both had attended the first Mass for the newly established Roman Catholic Korean Church in the Archdiocese of Washington in 1974.
“The first Mass was very touching,” Eugene Song said. He emphasized how special it has been for the Korean Catholic community at St. Andrew Kim to attend Mass and then share meals together on Sundays over the years, and to work together to fundraise, plan and eventually build a church of their own.
After the anniversary Mass, hundreds of people gathered in the hall and outside to enjoy Korean food including bulgogi (marinated beef), and jeyuk (spicy pork). In addition to kimchi, people also ate grilled mackerel, rice, pork belly, mung bean noodles with vegetables, and japchae (sweet potato noodles).
The entertainment included a rock band with members from St. Andrew Kim Parish and from Korean Catholic parishes in northern Virginia and Baltimore. Youth wearing traditional dress played Korean drums and performed dances.
Sophia Kim, a 16-year-old St. Andrew Kim parishioner who attends Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Maryland, said she appreciated the lunches following Sunday Mass at her church.
“We can bond with the community and get to know everyone,” said Kim, a member of the youth group there. She added, “The faith here is really strong. Everybody is dedicated.”
Longtime parishioners at the lunch spoke about the friendships they have formed there.
Susan Lee, a member of the St. Andrew Kim community since 1983 who owns a coffee shop, noted, “A lot of us grew up together. It’s a sense of belonging. We saw each other from youth, to young adults, to having families, to having our children grow up together.”
And referring to her husband of 27 years, Julian Lee, she added, “Quite a few met spouses at church, like me!”
Her friend and fellow parishioner, Jee Choi, is an information technology manager who has attended St. Andrew Kim for about 25 years. She said she appreciates how “generation after generation can come to the same community to learn the culture.”
Another longtime friend at their table, Christina Kwun, has been a St. Andrew Kim parishioner since 1992 and works as a pharmacist. She began attending the parish when she was a college student. Kwun said it is inspiring to see different generations of Korean Catholics praying together. She noted that after she had her first child and was really sick, “Everybody in the parish prayed for me.”
As she sat with her friends, enjoying the Korean food with them, Kwun said, “This is my parish, I’m proud to say.”
Link to Catholic Standard article in Korean, translated by Eugene Song:
