In the Catholic Times, a novelist writing in the Sunday Chat column gives the readers meditation on the growth of Caterpillars.
She is sometimes asked what she regrets the most in her life. She used to answer: that she wished she had put more pressure on her children in their religious education.
When the children were young, she said: "Wouldn't it be better to let them make their own choices when they grow up?" Did she think faith was similar to a hobby? At the same time, she forced them to learn Korean, memorize multiplication tables, and get vaccinated, saying it was no use crying. If she had to go back and choose again now, her priorities would have changed. If only she had known then what she knows now.
Although it has already been more than a decade, she managed to persuade adolescent children to go to church. It was an achievement obtained with all kinds of conditions and nagging. But they didn't go very often. The classes at the academies are a problem she was told by the assistant priest of the parish.
She doesn't completely agree with him but it wasn't that she didn't have the same pressure of studying for the college entrance. As the priest said, she does have the bitter memory of not encouraging her children more.
Sometimes, when young priests tell her: "Even if I allow girl group songs, the kids don't come" She doesn't like to hear that and gets angry and laughs because she feels she is getting old.
Even in her childhood, she had tutoring and various studies at the academy [after school study]. What kept her going to church during those years were different impressions she received and was affected in ways this world was not able to do.
They packed their bags and went out to the parish church early Sunday mornings. She left for the slum by bus with packages of clothes, rice, ramen, soap, etc. that she collected for a week. In the afternoon, she visited orphanages, nursing homes, and hospitals, and sang songs, and it was night when she attended the Sunday evening Mass. She continued this activity until she was a high school senior. It was not because she had good physical strength, nor was it the wish of her parents. What she did was followed by feelings and impressions never experienced outside of what she was doing within the church.
The fundamental questions and answers were not present in the songs of this world but were present in the songs she sang at the Focolare Meeting.
She loved it and was fascinated by it all. At that time, were there any other possibilities that would have had the same results? She doesn't think there was.
Mitterrand of France, the left-wing president who abolished the death penalty in Europe was an atheist. He asked his friend Father Pierre in a hospital bed before he died: "Hey, is there really a God?"
Father Pierre replied: "Of course, do you remember when we were young? There was a beggar on the way, so we gave him all the money we had. And yet we were happy. Even after doing that stupid thing. That's the proof that God exists."
She is not interested in going to a church where they have more girl groups singing. That's what the world is much better at. If you compete with the world, the world wins. The church will always be second-rate.
Someone said. The growth of a caterpillar is a butterfly. Not being a bigger caterpillar.
