By Kim Ae-ran
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Until recently, he did not miss community prayers and liturgies at all, but a month ago because of his old age, he had to be hospitalized at Daegu Fatima Hospital.
He was born in 1931 in Karlstadt in the Diocese of Wurzburg, Germany. He entered the Abbey of Munsterschwarzach, made the perpetual profession in 1957 and was ordained a priest on July 6, 1958. He was sent as a missionary to Korea in 1960 and served as an assistant parish priest at Sangju parish.
He became the first abbot in Korea at the Waegwan Abbey of St. Benedict in Chilgok, North Gyeongsang Province, at the early age of 33 in 1964 but willingly resigned this position as abbot in 1971, thinking that Koreans should run the Korean abbey.
During his terms as abbot, he placed the foundation to reconnect the Benedictine Abbey of Deogwon in North Korea and Yeongil Abbey in China. He also helped many civilians who were devoted for the democratic movement in Korea. Then, he lived in Japan from 1972 to 1982, and in the Philippines from 1982 to 2004.
In 2002, he applied to go to India and China, but he had to come back to Korea in 2004 and then went to Rome to serve as a confessional priest for three years at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls where the tomb of St. Paul is placed. He gave confessions in German, English, Korean, Japanese and Cebuano.
After receiving knee joint surgery in Germany, he went to Taiwan in 2008, the Golden Jubilee year of his priestly call and service, and came back to Korea again in August in 2009. He helped Filipino migrant workers in Gumi Catholic Workers' Cultural Center, and later visited India and Taiwan.
Thus, resembling the missionary itinerary of St. Paul the apostle for gentiles, Fr. Odo always had a clear and innocent smile. He dedicated himself to live as a missionary who helped the mission place to grow and then left the place for another mission place.
When Waegwan Abbey celebrated the 100th anniversary of its foundation in Korea in 2009, he came back to Waegwan. He used to pray the rosary for an hour-and-a-half every day. He offered each mystery of the rosaries for his country Germany, the Pope, Korea, Japan and Taiwan. He also never forgot about North Korea.
His whole life was truly a mission. When he read missionary magazines during his youth, he felt the calling to live for many people on a mission. Accordingly, he always replied to that calling and was eager to be sent to other places.
As a German proverb says "A drop of honey catches more flies," he always wished the religious community to be such a honey. Regarding the community as a living building where faith is alive, breathing in and out, he emphasized that "what we need is not the building but the community."
In the heavens above, he will still pray that all the religious communities live lives that have the taste of the sweet honey of faith and witness such lovely taste through the living community. Here and now, I can feel that he sincerely hopes each of us will live and experience the Good News not with the head but with the body.
The author is a member of the Daughters of St. Paul (Figlie di San Paolo) living and giving the Good News to the world by means of social communication. Learn more about the congregation at fsp.pauline.or.kr.
