Saturday, September 18, 2010

What to do with Korean Rice in Storage?

Nahnews,  in their article on the plight of North Korea, was very hard on the Catholic Church and Christianity as a whole. We  recite daily: "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,"  but how this is lived out in the daily lives of Christians is not readily seen. Is this a sign of our inertia? So begins the article on their website.

There are over 5 million Catholics in Korea, but the writer asks what have they done? If there were 500 sacks of salt  stored in warehouses, and the salt was not used for the purpose intended, those who pass the warehouse would wonder greatly. The government is now buying rice from the farmers and has so much that it has to store it in warehouses using the citizens' hard earned money. This is not something that can be seen with indifference.  Our brothers and sisters in the North are dying of hunger, and we have rice piled high in warehouses, a sign, according to Nahnews, of the meanness and pride of the South. How will heaven punish us. This  is a worry and a shame.

The article mentions a survey that determined that the number of  Christians in the National Assembly and those who are high ranking civil servants in the government make up two thirds of the assembly. The Protestants in the Natonal Assembly number 118, 40 percent of the total, and Catholics number 78, 26 percent of the total.

When the Christians in the National Assembly say," Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" are they seeing the conditions of the country correctly? Or are  Christian members Christian only when voting time comes around? The writer knows some assembly men who are daily Mass-goers and exemplary Catholics,  but they show themselves differently in the assembly. Why is this? How will God look upon this?

He concludes by focusing on Catholics, mentioning that if the many lay groups in the Church would take the words "God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven" seriously. even though the 5 million are not all participating Christians, it would make a big  difference in doing away with the discord and bias in society. However, if the Catholics are only outwardly Christian then having all that rice in our warehouses leaves us open to criticism.

Recent  reports say the   government is planning to ship rice to the North, news that will make many happy.