“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.
This Chinese Character 靈
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.
