Her friends’ jibes helped Sunny Hung’s conversion to Catholicism.
My ethnic background is Korean. I was born in the US and grew up in the Middle East, living amongst Muslims until I was nine years of age. I then migrated to Australia with my parents.
I witnessed the hardship associated with being in a migrant family, both in the Middle East and in Australia.
My mother was a Buddhist and my father a non-believer with no particular faith. Both my parents did not practise faith until they converted to Catholicism much later in life.
I was baptised and received my first Holy Communion in 1994 when I was 15.
At the time I had no formal education on the Catholic faith and hence had no real understanding of it.
Becoming Catholic is something that has happened gradually to me over the years.
I now live with my husband in Canberra where I am a dental specialist running my own specialist practice and a visiting lecturer at conferences/dental schools.
As a member of the Legion of Mary, I pray in a community weekly as well as in silence daily. Legion members pray the Legion prayers (called the Catena) every night individually.
I also try and pray as I walk to work every day (the Our Father, Morning Prayer or the Hail Mary).
I pray during Mass for my family as well as the Church, for non-Catholic friends, for priests and religious.
I previously struggled to pray but after joining the Legion of Mary in 2010, my prayer life has matured and become more enriched.
Currently, I am doing a correspondence course through the Catholic Adult Education Centre in Sydney on catechesis. I want to be a catechist and to some extent I am already doing this through the Legion of Mary.
At this stage in my faith journey I am considering Confirmation. I have attended retreats and spoken to other Catholics and this seems like the next step.
Before converting I was a Protestant. Then I accidentally came across the Prayer of St Francis. It had a huge impact on me at the time and gave me much comfort. I didn’t know that he was a Catholic saint. His words of prayer, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace”, resonated with me.
Then a few years later I came across a moving image of Padre Pio. It literally somehow appeared on the internet when I was doing a literature search on teeth! I read about him and that made an impression too.
Now through the Legion I am learning about Mother Mary and have recently read about Medugorje and Naju (these have not been approved by the Holy See). I believe Mother Mary, St Francis and St Pio have influenced my faith.
Friends and family have been a part of my faith journey. My mother had just converted to Catholicism and the anti-Catholic sentiments of my Protestant friends drove me to read and study other faiths.
This eventually led to me reading about the Catholic faith. During my readings I came across a book called Crossing the Tiber by Stephen Ray. Wow!
I learnt so much about the Catholic faith and the profound history behind it (the author was a Protestant who had also read his way into the Catholic faith).
He and author Scott Hahn (a Protestant convert with a deep insight into Catholicism) have the spirit, courage and intellect to convert others and strengthen the faith of those already Catholic. I aspire to do what they do.
My parents have been with the Legion for a long time and are willing to give of their spirit. Their example (as well as Mother Mary’s intentions) led me to becoming Catholic and directly/indirectly led me to joining the Legion.
Without my faith I would be the living the “Niagara Syndrome”: going with the flow and seeing what happens.
Faith is my moral compass and gives me direction in life.It is the certainty that gives me inner confidence. It gives me comfort and reassurance but it is also an amazing taste of the infinite.
Everything on Earth, and life as an earthly being, has always been finite. Nothing on Earth is infinite as everything is prone to end or to face its limitations.Faith is the source of happiness coming from my relationship with a large infinite being – God.