Drinking to Celebrate Christmas and New Year

New year is a time to rejoice and celebrate. Parties, both at work and at churches, take for granted the presence of liquor. It's no longer news that Catholics do more drinking than all the other religious groups. This was made known a few years ago in a survey of the religions in Korea. The Peace Weekly, in an article and editorial, discusses the issue and gives some guidelines for a healthy culture of drinking.

The article mentions a couple of parishes that do not allow any drinking on their property; even with events, parties, parish excursions, or bazaars to help the poor, no liquor is seen. The editorial reminds us that Korea is number two  in the consumption of liquor; loss to society from the consumption is astronomical.

It is not difficult to surmise what the men think of the parish ruling; the women are not generally adverse to it.  The reason for the ruling is obvious: there were serious abuses, and it was an effort to bring the idea of temperance to the attention of all.

Often, after a meeting, the men go off property to drink, which would usually be a period of time much longer than the meeting itself. Not only do the middle aged men drink but also the young. Drinking among the young is not less than that done by the older groups, and many of the high school graduates say they learned how to drink in these groups. But many would also say it helped bring the different age groups together, making for camaraderie. 

The Protestants have a reputation in Korea for not drinking or smoking, while the Catholics have a reputation for being very tolerant of drinking. The writer quotes a priest professor who mentioned a number of Scripture quotes that allow drinking, but there also are many that warn of the evil effects from liquor when over-indulged, drinking, he said, needs to be done in moderation.


There are parishes that, instead of drinking at meetings or other gatherings, provide either at the parish or in other areas cultural activities such as watching films, plays, and drinking tea or coffee. There are many who have difficulties in joining some of the parish groups because they don't drink, which is another issue. If the drinking could be limited to one glass, quoting one of the Christians, there would not be a problem.
 
He leaves us with the well-known phrase, "Too much of a good thing is bad." This applies especially, he feels, to the use of liquor, and adds, quoting from Sirach 31:28, "Joy of heart, good cheer and merriment are wine drunk freely at the proper time." When they are drunk to excess these good things become poison.                                                     
 
                                                 

Merry Christmas!

Blessed Christmas! Today we reflect on the meaning of the day. In all the Christian churches throughout the world, we will hear explanations in different words of what Jesus means to us. One of the blogs on Christmas quoted St. Augustine: "Let us rejoice and give thanks that we have become not only Christians but Christ himself. Do you understand and grasp, brethren, God's grace toward us? Marvel and rejoice: we have become Christ."
 
We talk much of what Christ means in our life, but if we ask Catholics what model would they take in life to follow, rarely would you hear the name of Jesus. We have made him an object of our adoration, of our praise and piety--all right and good, but we have forgotten that we are born in baptism to become other Christs.
 
The words we know well, but it's a big leap for us to use them to motivate what we do in our lives. The emphasis is on God's graces, which may make us passive, just waiting for something to happen. Grace is also always moving us to act: study, listen, relate, love, serve---these things we often forget.
 
God came to earth so that we can partake of his divinity. And when we attend Mass we are reminded of the symbolism inherent in the celebration of the Mass. During the offertory, for example, when the water is mixed with the wine, we read: "By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity" (2 Peter 1-4). Similar symbolic language is present throughout the liturgy.  

Today is our special feast day. We have been born to be other Christs and to follow his way of life. We all know this intellectually but, sadly, it is not part of our affective life.
 
Understanding the symbolism used by the Church, especially in the liturgy, brings greater depth to our Christian life but at times symbolism can be a stumbling block for the literal-minded person and an idol for the overly pious. However, symbolic language has a great deal to teach us; without it life would be very insipid. Can we image life without the handshake, bow, kiss, eating together, and without language itself, which of course is also symbolic.  Catholics have also the Sacraments, which make us more aware that all of life is a symbol of God's love for us. Without the understanding of symbolism, some have maintained, the deeper dimensions of life cannot be understood and appreciated.
  

When we look at the crib(the trough) this year, let us direct our minds to look more deeply into its symbolism to appreciate fully what St. Luke wanted us to understand. Merry Christmas!

Magnanimity to Accept all that is True

Christmas means a great deal to many of us; to others it is foolishness and a lie. Even the word Christmas for some Christians is an embarrassment, thus the now popular 'Season's Greetings.'
 
Some do not find 'Christmas' in the Scriptures and therefore reason enough to dispense with the word. The origin of the word, 'Mass of Christ,' also does not help matters. Others go back into history and are scandalized that the Catholic Church used the pagan feast of the Winter Solstice as the birthday of Jesus. The Church has no difficulty seeing this as a deliberate and legitimate 'baptism' of a pagan celebration.
 
Acculturating to a reality when it is teaching or enabling us to accept some truth is welcomed; truth is to be accepted wherever found.  The Winter Solstice, when the days begin getting longer, had great meaning for the early Christians; for them, as for us, it was Jesus who was the light of the world.
 
Last week, Legion of Mary members were on retreat for three days, and heard talks on the Buddhist 'search for the ox'. These ten pictures are seen often on the walls of Buddhist main sermon halls. The members returned with leaflets with the ten colored pictures, which most Koreans would be familiar with. They do help a great deal in showing us the steps to moral growth.
 
The ten steps: 1)Searching for the bull, 2)Discovering footprints, 3)Seeing the bull, 4)Catching the bull, 5)Taming the bull, 6) Riding the bull home, 7)The bull is forgotten, the individual remains, 8)Both the bull and self transcended. 9) Reaching the source, 10)Going back to the market place, enlightened.
 
The Buddhists gave a Buddhist interpretation to the Taoist pictures;  we Christians can give a Christian interpretation to the pictures. The retreat master using the same 10 pictures did just that. Each one of us can use them in anyway he wishes for his own spiritual growth.

Since true Buddhism is a natural religion without revelation the Catholic Encyclopedia reminds us: "In general, revealed religion does not reject natural religion and ethics, but rather adopts them in a higher form."
 
A common interpretation for the pictures would be the search for one's true self, the bull, the true self, is captured with difficulty, tamed, returning home on the bull, but the self and inner nature are still divided. You have the uniting of the two; the circle is arriving at pure light, total emptiness, which is fullness. Oneness with all nature and a return to daily life, enlightened.
 
Catholics should be small letter c-catholic in accepting truth wherever found that enables us to love God and our brothers and sisters. We have not always lived up to the saying attributed to St. Augustine: "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity." It's a sure way of being magnanimous in the way we look at the here and now.

All Depends on our Attitiude.

Writing in his weekly column in the Catholic Times, the poet lets his thoughts play with the way God deals with his beloved creation. He sees the beauty and harmony in nature, the mountains, lakes, trees, flowers, the rice plants moving in the gentle breezes, and then he looks on the fishing village and sees the tsunami sweep away thousands into the sea.

Nature seems mysterious and unrevealing. Some are ready to stress the favorable, and others the unfavorable relationship between God and creation; sometimes it's benevolence and other times non-benevolence.  Which one is the correct view? The relationship of heaven and earth is sometimes this and sometimes that. Can we call it fickle? A great abyss of separation?

Inanimate objects don't speak so we interpret. To interpret, according to the dictionary, means to explain and make objects known. Seemingly very easy to do, but when philosophers get involved it becomes complicated. It also has to do with our attitude towards the object. Whatever is received is received in the manner of the one receiving.

In prayer, God sometime gives what we want and other times not. How should we interpret this situation? The columnist gives us St. Paul's answer (1Thessalonians 5:16-18): "Be happy at all times; pray constantly; and for all things give thanks to God because this is what God expects you to do in Christ Jesus."
 
How many of us have this as a guide, a teaching or a goal in our lives? If we took this to heart, Paul reminds us, we would be persons of virtue, extraordinary human beings.  Many times we pray and get the opposite of what we prayed for, which breeds resentment. But the answer, though not what we wanted, did come. Here, our attitude and free will come into play; we can accept the answer as being at this time the correct answer. 

We learn early on that God's standards are not the same as ours. When we give thanks and have joy in all things, then we consider God's mercy and interpret all with thanks in our hearts. It all depends on our free will; that is why it is such a precious gift.

How Advent was Spent in Past Years

Recently reported in the news was the generosity of an elderly man who put the equivalent of a hundred thousand dollars in the Salvation Army Red Kettle. The anonymous donor hoped the money would be used for underprivileged senior citizens. It was the single largest gift the Salvation Army has ever received in their Christmas campaigns in Korea since the campaigns began 83 years ago. There are warm lights aglow, a Catholic Times' writer tells us, in our sometimes cold world.

But he reminds us that in the Catholic world the warmth that came with the preparations for the big feasts in Korea has disappeared as older cultural ways have been replaced by newer ways. He goes on to explain that for a time in our Korean Catholic history, there were private meetings with all the Christians of the parish before the big feasts of Easter and Christmas. Priests would interview individual Catholics or entire families during the Advent preparation period to determine how well they knew the catechism; being able to answer correctly was a requirement in order to receive the sacraments on Christmas.
 
This custom began during the persecution of the Catholics. Fearful of living in large villages with non-Catholics, they gathered together in small hamlets, which in time became mission stations. Because there were few parishes and many mission stations, the priest would make the rounds of these stations to celebrate Mass and administer the sacraments for the two big feasts. He would also check to see if they had been faithful in their prayer life, spiritual reading, and in the study of the catechism. 

The visit of the priest at these mission stations would be reason enough for a holiday celebration. All would put on their best clothes and prepare holiday meals, and those who had left the village for work would return to celebrate the visit of the priest and to go to Mass. It was a joyous time even though the catechism exams did create some stress. 

Usually, the family would appear before the priest, knowing before the visit what questions would be asked. If the children did not answer to the priest's satisfaction, their grandfathers and parents would be reprimanded. It would be hard to imagine this happening today, the writer said. The custom no longer exists and he laments the change. He believes that the difference it has made in the life of our Catholics has not been all for the good. 

Taking the place of the oral exams in many parishes are written questions distributed to parishioners who are interested, and prizes are given to those who have the highest marks. All the burdens have been taken away. The parishes are much larger and the priests are busier, which is part of the reason for the change. And yet, there is something lost, he feels, in the disappearance of this tradition: perhaps less community involvement and less serious preparation for the big feasts of the Church.

Mission Stations In Korea

Mission stations--areas of a parish without a priest living with the Christians-- are an important part of Korean Catholic history, with more than 800 mission stations currently established in the country. In the early days of Korean Catholicism most of the country would have been  mission station territory, and the priest would come to visit once or twice a year.Today with good transportation the mission stations would have frequent visits, and many would be weekly visits. In some mission stations they would even have the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the chapels. The catechist in charge of  the mission station would be responsible for the liturgy on Sundays and Holy Day's of Obligation, and if the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, also distribute communion.

A woman missioner, writing in the Incheon Diocesan Bulletin, gives her impressions of life in one of these mission stations when she served as the person responsible to the parish for the running of the station. A priest visiting the station asked her, "How long have you been here?" She answered, surprising herself with her answer, "20 years." 

She was originally a Seoulite and lived the ordinary parish life when she met a young man who had graduated from the school of theology. After romance and marriage, they became a missionary team, living in a mission station far from any city, in the backwoods of Korea. And were soon to wake up from the dreams they had of the romantic rural life.

The first night they arrived at a place without a house. The Christians hastily found an empty room in the village to put their luggage. She was so upset by the situation, flustered and fearful, she wanted to return to Seoul. The room, having been empty for so long, had the smell of mold, dampness and tobacco; liquor bottles were strewn all over the floor. How was she to live in such a place? was the only thing she could think of. That night she cried, feeling resentment toward her husband, who expressed his sorrow for bringing her to such a place. That night she began to see what the life a missioner would be.

Missioner is still understood by most Koreans as  foreigners working in the country. Lay persons doing missionary work are few; because they are so few, knowledge of them would be rare. She mentions a group of over 30 who have graduated from the Seoul Catholic School of Theology; they come together to encourage and to help each other.
   
Lay missioners do not have any security, official recognition, or status like the clergy or religious, for they  take the work upon themselves.  Wouldn't  they be fools for Christ? she asks.
 
Most of these missioners worked in the remote areas of the country and in difficult surroundings. Today they are found in the cities, working among the poor in resettlement areas and welfare facilities. 

An epilogue would not be out of place here explaining the difficulties that lay missioners, like our husband and wife team, have had in Korea because of the status of clergy and religious sisters in the country. Our lay missioner was too kind to mention that the lack of preparation at the mission station was possibly due to the unwelcoming  mindset of the Christians there. Often, after the mission station has been run for many years internally, there will be resistance to the arrival of an outsider taking charge.  Change from the benign control of the pastor to the daily hands-on control of  lay missioners is no easy transition for many to accept.

Family Culture

Writing in the Diocesan Bulletin, the director of the Family Cultural Center in the city of Incheon says that the name of the Center does not make clear what she is doing. Consequently she is always ready to answer the question, what do you do? by replying that family culture is a way of keeping some of the values of the extended family alive in the nuclear family.

Now that Korea has settled into a 5-day work week, the word 'leisure' has entered the daily vocabulary, and an attempt is being made to have harmonious relationships between work, leisure, and family.

She asks, what do families spend most of their  time doing? In one survey, watching TV was first, and for the last ten years nothing has changed.  When she asks for the reasons, she is told that it's because of work and fatigue, and because most families are not familiar with anything else. The dictionary meaning for 'family leisure' would be that the family as a unit uses leisure time to communicate with one another: father, mother and children reacting to the needs and wants of each other. Communicating with the TV would not be an acceptable option.

She gives the example of a family getting together on a spring day. They prepare together the rice balls for the picnic, bake the cake together, but just not any cake; it is a cake with the face of a bear, and all participate in trying to make it a masterpiece. Another good way of bringing families together: Camping together and volunteering as a family for some Church or community function.

The more we relate with one another, she says, the more opportunities we will have to bring about intimacy, communication and bonding at a different level. Parents are always trying to find something that will fit the level of where the children are, and this interrelating will help them to grow in virtue and emotional maturity, especially today when studies play too prominent a role in the lives of Korean children.

To strengthen family ties that are getting weaker, she recommends that families have a weekly family day in order to spend more time together. It could be anything; going to a movie or museum would be enough. We have children addicted to video games, staying by themselves as latchkey children, being bullied,  and many other ways that society is playing havoc on children's emotional maturity. She recommends that parents take a cue from the Christmas scene, and use a blanket to keep the family members warm, together.