SEOUL (UCAN): The Archdiocese of Seoul, South Korea, is helping homeless people with its Myeongdong Babjib project, serving them packed lunches to homeless people every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at a soup kitchen in Myeongdong Cathedral.
The Energy and Chemicals Division of SK Group, the third-largest conglomerate in South Korea, is sponsoring the programme by supporting 1,400 packed lunches each week.
“When Pope Francis visited Myeongdong Cathedral in 2014, he blessed us to be the yeast of the gospel. I hope that the soup kitchen will be a small yeast that changes the Church and the world into a world of warm love beyond Myeongdong and the archdiocese,” Father Francis Kim Jeong-hwan, executive director of the archdiocese’s One Body One Spirit (OBOS) movement, said.
OBOS is a faith-based organisation that believes in hope, life and love. Inspired by the 44th International Eucharistic Congress in Seoul in 1989 and Catholic social teaching, it works to make a peaceful world according to the spirit of the Eucharistic sacrament.
Since the establishment of the organisation by the late Stephen Cardinal Kim Sou-hwan in 1988, OBOS, as part of Caritas Seoul, has been working in many fields such as international development cooperation, domestic social welfare and life-sharing movements.
Quoting Pope Francis’ fourth World Day of the Poor message last November, Andrew Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung urged all Korean faithful to “stretch forth your hand to the poor.”
He added: “It is a call for all of us to commit ourselves to the care of the poor as one human family. The soup kitchen is the right place to reach out to those who live in the lowest places in the world and share our food so that no one is left hungry. I hope that the house will become a place that offers real help and service to those in need.”
Father Matthias Hur Young-yup, spokesperson of the archdiocese, said Cardinal Yeom, the archbishop of Seoul, hopes that the soup kitchen will not only distribute meals to the homeless but also provide an opportunity for them to become active agents of their lives and members of society.
“It could give homeless people access to safe places to wash and do laundry while offering them employment opportunities with the aim of reintegrating them back into society,” he said.
“Cardinal Yeom has a particular pastoral interest in the Myeongdong Babjib project since he had first-hand experience of setting up a soup kitchen for the poor while he was a parish priest, and it has been successfully operated for over 30 years,” Father Hur said.
