UPDATE
September 15, 2014

Dear Friends,

We are grateful to you for continually and sincerely keeping abreast of our updates. 

As I already informed you, our Archbishop Alexander Sample sent us a positive and encouraging letter (dated July 3, 2014) regarding the photograph of Our Lady of Guadalupe taken at the National Shrine of Our Sorrowful Mother in Portland on August 15, 1991. We had tried to receive the Church approval in the first year (1991), but succeeded in receiving a positive letter now 23 years later. The current Archbishop is quite young (52 yrs.) (installed as the Archbishop of the West Oregon last year) and filled with confidence and energy and is strongly loyal to the authentic Church Doctrines and Traditions and devoted to Our Lady.  I think he probably also considered the long time taken since our first petition.  Of course, we are enormous encouraged and grateful for his letter.  With the positive letter from our Archbishop, we are now entering the second phase of spreading and explaining the photograph.  We are aware that this is a very difficult task, especially for the first several years, but we may not need to worry too much, as this is not our work but God’s.  If you feel like refreshing your detailed information about the photograph of Our Lady of Guadalupe, please visit our website: www.marys-touch.com.

The Holy Father’s visit to Korea in the mid-August ended leaving enormous influences to the Church and the people in Korea.  He did not visit Naju but gave a powerful advice to the Bishops of Korea:

“There is a danger, a temptation which arises in times of prosperity: it is the danger that the Christian community becomes just another ‘part of society’, losing its mystical dimension, losing its ability to celebrate the Mystery and instead becoming a spiritual organization, Christian and with Christian values, but lacking the leaven of prophecy. . . . . . As a brother, however, who has the duty to confirm his brethren in the faith, I am telling you: be careful, because yours is a Church which is prospering, a great missionary Church, a great Church. The devil must not be allowed to sow these weeds, this temptation to remove the poor from very prophetic structure of the Church and to make you become an affluent Church for the affluent, a Church of the well-to do – perhaps not to the point of developing a “theology of prosperity” – but a Church of mediocrity.”

We hope that this message of the Holy Father will not be forgotten by either the shepherds and the laity in Korea for a long time and significant changes may be implemented in coming years, even though there still is some concern that the process may not be easy considering the deep-rooted distorted interpretation of the teachings of Vatican II among many people there since the mid-1960s.

Thank you again for your encouragement and participation.

Sincerely yours,

Benedict Sang M. Lee
Mary’s Touch By Mail
P.O. Box 1668
Gresham, OR 97030