Friday, May 29, 2015

You Can Be A Saint

“I tell you the truth, I am convinced that if each one of us would purposely avoid gossip, at the end, we would become a saint! It’s a beautiful path!” These words and similar ones on gossip  are heard often from Pope Francis. An article in a secular newspaper mentions the direction the Church is making with 'poverty'-- the words of a columnist who mentions Fr, Jin Seul-ki, who wrote a book titled: You Can be a Saint By Not Backbiting.  A collection of the  sayings of the  pope. 

Fr. Jin Seul-ki  a Korean priest who is in Rome studying philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University translated a collection of the pope's saying under the title You Can Be A Saint.... He has also uploaded the pope's sermons to YouTube with Korean subtitles, and in the book he has the  video clips with QR code, for those who want to access the sermons. 

Pope Francis has continued to express the  need for the Church to identify with the poor of society. The article  mentions the talk he gave to the  priests and religious in Naples. He said diocesan priests do not take the vow of poverty but they should live the spirit of poverty. When profit comes into the parish life we dirty the message.

He also spoke of the danger of attachment to worldly goods. He said when priests or religious  are attached to money, they will  prefer people with money. In a humorous aside, the Pope told of a woman who was so attached to money that when she fainted someone suggested putting 100 pesos under her nose to awake her.

He also was very pointed about poverty when he talked to the bishops and priests in Korea.  When he was asked how  he viewed the Korean Church  he answered: "Your Church is a growing Church, a wonderful  evangelizing Church, a big Church. With the prophetic mission of the Church you don't want to exclude the poor. A Church rich and for the rich, a Church of well-being is not the Church you want to be." These words were sharp and bitter to hear.

In one of the talks the columnist mentions the pope said:  when we are too interested in money and its  benefits we lose our freedom to speak the truth.

He concludes his column by stating that the religious groups  are busy determining how they are to become transparent in the use of monies. People want to see clergy live a poorer life style, and reminds us that here we have the original thinking of all religions.

Spirituality Is Not All the Same

This Chinese Character  is the one we use in Korea for the Holy Spirit and spirituality in general. This doesn't fit our Christian understanding of the spiritual. Korea's shamanistic history shows itself in the way the icon expresses the spiritual. The top part of the character is the  icon for rain, the three mouths  are said to express the rain falling and the bottom character is the icon for sorceress who  dancing, asks for rain.

A seminary professor who teaches spirituality begins a series of articles in the Peace Weekly on the subject. He has the need to speak about spirituality with the modifier Catholic, because of the possibility of misunderstanding, due to the shamanistic understanding of spirituality in Korean history.

After the second Vatican council we use the word spirituality often in our teaching. Not only within Christianity but even outside of religion altogether. But the professor makes it clear that in Korea the word does have a context that is different from what we would understand by the word. In Korea the word would  mean marvelous, magical, and strange. The context in which the West understands the word is missing. He admits this is also changing in the West. The Church in Korea started using the  word regularly about 20 years ago. He says it is not an exaggeration to say that  Christians are forcing a Christian meaning on to their past understanding of the word. In Korean society all feel no restraint in using the word spirituality, which he says requires we be attentive to this reality.

The shamanistic history of Korea will continue to influence the native religions and those  from the outside and society. This common denominator  probably is the reason that Koreans have a good feeling towards the practices of other religions.   

Spirituality as used in Korean society does not have the Christian meaning of the word. If we do not understand the Christian meaning we will easily, without any discernment, have an eclectic acceptance of other religious beliefs, and the possibility of losing our faith. 

We have in recent years accepted a great deal from what we have learned from anthropology and psychology in our spirituality which is a good but we have to discern otherwise spirituality can be just the results of what we have learned from psychology.  Our spirituality becomes  a hodgepodge of the teachings of many other religions and ceases to be Christian, consequently, he concludes the need to use the  modifier Catholic when he speaks about spirituality.