Archives, oh, archives! Archives, the repository for an organized body of records, are among my favorite places to visit. In every organization, there is space for the archives to keep and remember the organization's history.When I went to the General Headquarters (Casa Generale) of our congregation in Rome, I wanted to take a close look at the archives while taking part in the course on the Charisma of the Pauline Family founded by Fr. James Alberione.
Every participant in the course was charged with cleaning a section such as the dining room, kitchen, gardens, formation office, general service, car maintenance, archives, and others. I wanted to see each shelf of the archives while cleaning the office, but another sister from the Philippines was assigned to do that.
In the second half of the course, we could take turns, and I volunteered to clean the archives. So our roles have been changed, but unfortunately, the Italian sister in charge of the archives suffered a serious problem with her brain and had to be hospitalized. Naturally, the Office of Archives was closed at the time. We couldn't enter the room without permission.
Even though I was assigned to the archives, I was not allowed to enter personally. I entered the room only when all the participants in the course had an official visit to the general house.
In the end, I am sorry to say that she was not able to come back to the house, and another elder sister was entrusted to be in charge of the archives. It was almost by the end of the course; so I came back to Korea after finishing the course without taking a close look at the archives at all.
What a surprise! When I came back to Korea recently, the first communitarian visit together with the sisters of the congregation was to the 5.18 archives, the Historic Site No. 4 at Geumnamno in Gwangju. Entering this building near the street of the struggle for democracy in 1980 was a moment of facing the harsh and cruel reality that I didn't realize at that time in the 1980s.
The 5.18 archives contain about 4,200 books, 860,000 pages, and 3,700 photographic negatives or records comprising data on the outbreak and suppression of the May 18 Democratic Uprising that was listed on the UNESCO Memory of the World register in May 2011.
There are also numerous other documents, audio and voice recordings, academic materials, cultural representations, data of government agencies and military judicial authorities, records and testimonies of citizens, pictures and coverage records by journalists, and medical records of victims, among others.
The archives have five objectives of the liquidation of the past: investigation, the punishment of those involved in the repression of the uprising, recovery of honor, compensation for the victims, and efforts for commemoration.
Furthermore, the new place of apostolate that I am assigned to now is that of the archives secretariat, specifically to translate the various documents of the congregation.
When I was in Rome, I sincerely wanted to appreciate books and materials that have been issued since the very beginning of the congregation in the 1900s. Now only in Korea I can breathe and work in the midst of the archives of the congregation.
Our deep longing is not realized immediately, but God always remembers each of our sincere and passionate longings. We don't know when they will be realized, but God lets his dream come true at the moment we don't expect at all. In this way, we can say that every moment is a gift of God and a mysterious miracle.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2017/06/162_232026.html
The Korea Times/ Thoughts of the Times/ June 27 (online), 28 (offline), 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment