I am a parish priest in Korea, who is temporarily in Rome for study. I would like to express my personal opinion regarding the official position of the Church on Naju.

The messages reportedly received by Julia Youn in Naju are mystical experiences and, therefore, are difficult to understand by intellectual reasoning alone.

It seems that we must pay special attention to those messages, however, because of the emphasis in the messages on the Holy Eucharist. Nowadays many people experience difficulty in accepting the Church dogma that the Eucharist is truly the Body of Christ. The Eucharistic miracles in Naju must be God’s expression of His Love to help us accept the reality of the Eucharist.

It may be useful for us to find out if Eucharistic phenomena similar to those experienced by Julia, namely, changes of the Sacred Host into visible Flesh and Blood in her mouth, have occurred in Church history.

One such case was regarding St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church. She experienced changes in the Eucharist in her mouth in Salamanca on April 8, 1571. Enclosed are a few pages in Italian from the book: Relazione Spirituali. Another similar phenomenon can be found in the life of St. Catherine of Siena (S. Caterina du Siena, Le Lettere, a cum di U. Meattini, Milano 1987, n. 25, p. 827).

It is especially noteworthy that St. Teresa of Avila experienced a Eucharistic miracle which was the same as what Julia of Naju experienced.

As a student of theology, I aspire that all of God’s messages received in the Church be examined through appropriate procedures and by proper methods.

Rev. Pietro Kim
Roma, Italia
9 June 1999