You would be hard-pressed to find a vocation story more surprising than this: a married man who converted, became an active member of his church, then a deacon and, after his wife’s death, was ordained a priest at the tender age of 72.

From the San Antonio Express-News:

Father Philip Chung-jin Kim’s first encounter with Catholicism came during a near-death experience almost 60 years ago when he was a teenager in war-torn South Korea.

Kim was to be executed for refusing to join the People’s Volunteer Army of North Korea after being taken captive at gunpoint.

“He was facing the wall and closed his eyes, and at the last minute he hears another officer yell stop,” said his 41-year-old son, Louis. “One of the boys that was about to be executed with him apparently had a rosary and he had been praying.”

The encounter left a lasting impression on Kim, who became a Catholic priest late in life — at age 72. He was serving as parochial vicar at Selma’s Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church when he was killed in a traffic accident Sunday morning south of Pleasanton in Atascosa County. He was 76.

Visitation will be at 4 p.m. Thursday at the church, with a rosary recited at 7 p.m. A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Friday, also at the church, with burial at Sunset Memorial Park on Austin Highway.

Even before he entered the priesthood, Kim’s devotion to helping others was evident, and he made his impact felt in the local Korean community, his family and friends said.

“He was very kind,” said Won Pae Pak of the Korean-American Friendship Association.

Pak served with Kim on the board of the Korean American Association of San Antonio in the late 1970s. Kim was once president of the association.

He was a successful business owner then, operating two Asian markets in the city, as well as owning the Rio Vista Apartments in Schertz.

Pak said Kim was generous, helping many Koreans adjust to a new life in San Antonio and helping them find jobs, much the same way he was helped when he arrived in the United States in 1954.

“He was no deacon or priest then, just a Christian,” Pak said.

His daughter, Susan Y. Shaffer, said she remembers her father opening up the living room of their home to hold Mass for what was then a small Korean community in San Antonio.

“We started with Mass at the house and then later, as time went on, and it got a little bit bigger,” Shaffer said.

In 1982, Kim helped found the city’s only Korean Catholic Church — the Korean Martyrs Church in Leon Springs, where he later served as a deacon.

Kim was there until 2001, when his wife, Mary Agnes, died of breast cancer.

Louis Kim said his mother’s death was difficult for the entire family, especially his father.

“When you lose the love of your life, it’s like nothing else,” said Bill Meskill, whose late brother, Rick, helped bring Philip Kim to the United States.

Louis Kim said his parents had discussed his father joining the priesthood before his mother died and that she had given him her blessing.

He acknowledges he knew little about his father’s good deeds while growing up, saying he has different memories.

“Growing up, he was this sort of cranky, temperamental father,” Louis Kim said. “I saw all of his flaws. I never felt like a preacher’s son.”

But, he said, his father would be the first to admit that, too.

Louis Kim said it wasn’t until his high school years that one evening his father broke down and cried after saying grace at dinner.

“From then on, he was changed,” Louis Kim said. “We never had a conversation where he could articulate it, but it was like night and day. He went from being a very temperamental, judgmental, cranky father who was very, very hard on me to someone who was very compassionate and loving.”

There’s much more at the link.