Memorial Prayer Service for Fr. Jack Trisolini

 Memorial Prayer Service 

for Fr. Jack Trisolini (1937-2010)

(ANS – Seoul – November 26, 2020) – Ten years have passed since Fr. John Trisolini (1937-2010) went to heaven on November 22, 2010. So the Salesian Cooperators Center in Seoul held a memorial prayer moment and Mass for him in SDB provincial house at Seoul with some Salesians and 20 Salesian Cooperators, amid the precautions of the 2nd COVID19 wave.

Fr. Trisolini (Korean name: Do-Yohan) is considered one of the godfathers of the second generation of Korean Salesian Cooperators, formed since 1976. He used to invite the Catholic faithful to meet on Thursdays in Seoul’s Catholic Cathedral of Myongdong, although he had never known them before.

Some of them accepted his invitation for the Salesian Cooperator aspirants meeting. In this way many from the Seoul City Center started their own vocation journey.

Many of the members give a similar testimony: “At first, we didn’t know what Salesian Cooperators were all about, and also our Catholic faith was too weak. But Fr. John awakened us, opened our eyes to the Salesian spirit and Cooperator identity. He made us strong to live in the world with the heart of Jesus’ disciples like Don Bosco. As our center delegate, Fr. Trisolini was always with us when we were exhausted in our daily life and had some family or faith problems.”

He worked in the Labor Ministry Committee of the Seoul Archdiocese. Many of the poor and suffering workers were his good friends. He worked for their rights and interests and was a spiritual leader for them. From 1990 Fr. John held the regular lectures about the social teaching of the Catholic Church.

Fr. John Fitzgerald Trisolini (1937-2010), an American Salesian from Jersey City, spent most of his life as a missionary in Korea, where he arrived in 1959, a few years after the end of the Korean war and straight out of college. He is most remembered for this preferential love for the working youth (especially the Young Christian Workers), contribution to the formation of the first generation of Korean Salesians, and long-term ministry within the Seoul Archdiocese – first for the Korean working class, later for the numerous foreign migrant workers, with other Salesian Family members, and with diocesan clergy.