From Loser to Healer

Alcohol-related problems are many, and programs to solve the problems are constantly being established. One of the best-known and successful has been the '12-step program'. The Peace Weekly reports on how one man, using the 12-step program, could  free himself from his addiction to alcohol, and is now helping others to do the same.

Joseph was 36 years old when alcohol made him a dropout from society. He was a graduate of a prestigious university, a recognized expert in computer science, and taught at a technical college for about  ten years. Because of his drinking, he lost his job and his marriage fell apart. His family recounts the time he spent in a mental hospital, but the help he received there was not enough to overcome the habit. 
 

Alcohol dependence is part of his family history, Joseph said.  His father, the president of a college, had to leave because of drink.  Joseph was dependent on drink from his college days. Even when he was a professor at the technical school, he would, during a lecture, take time out to drink.  And there were many times during his ten years of teaching when he did not show up for his lectures, and often was in and out of hospitals seeking treatment. In one year, he was admitted to a hospital 23 times.
 

Pride he considers his biggest problem. He thought he could control his drinking, and for a year or two he was able to go without drinking but would eventually succumb to the habit. He even took courses in order to conquer the habit, acquiring in the process all the credentials necessary to be a therapist in pastoral counseling and drug abuse therapy. He did in fact, using these credentials, find work as a therapist in a counseling center and in hospitals. At the same time, at the end of the work day, he would go to a bar for a few drinks. 

After hitting bottom in 2002, the day did come, with God's help, when he finally stopped drinking, and he hasn't had a drink since. He realized that it was beyond his power to conquer the habit. And with trust in God all changed. He started the 12-step program here in Incheon, and for those who can read Korean his 12-step program  is now helping many to become sober:  www.12step.or.kr

Joesph runs the center with the money he receives from lectures and from writing. More than 70 families are being helped at the center, and others are getting the necessary help, so they can help others in overcoming their dependence on drink. Joseph says he finds the greatest satisfaction in his work by knowing that he has helped a person break free of the same shackles that imprisoned him for so many years, returning him back to his family and to society.
                                            

                                           
           

Catholic Marriages

Doing a good thing for the wrong reasons is very common. A Korean secular paper thought it newsworthy to discuss the reasons for the popularity of Catholic Church weddings. According to the article, the desire of many to have their marriage ceremony in a Catholic Church motivates them to be baptized, not the best of reasons for becoming a Catholic.

Old churches with a colorful history and beautiful exteriors are especially attractive to those planning marriage, and entice a few to join the Church before marriage. There are so many marriages planned that in some churches, on special days, there is a drawing of lots. This past November, 200 showed up to determine the order of marriages in the Cathedral parish in Seoul, and in some parishes dates are booked to the end of the year.

We are told that a reason for this is that many entertainers have added to this popularity by having their own marriages celebrated in these churches. When a famous movie star picks one of the churches, there are many fans of the star who will do the same. The popularity of church weddings has even prompted the business world to have 'chapel halls,' which try to imitate the atmosphere of the churches.

Problems connected with the recent financial depression have added to the popularity of church weddings. Churches are cheaper than the marriage halls, and the meals are cheaper compared to the meals at a hotel. However, the article goes on to give another important reason for their popularity.

Catholic marriages require that instructions be given to the couple, with an interview before the wedding. To have time to prepare for the marriage and be concerned not only with externals is another plus, giving the participants a feeling of being cared for. In many of the marriage halls, however, there is often a marriage every half hour, which gives the couple a feeling of being rushed and their welfare of not much importance.

Another strong point: in churches, the bride and groom are center stage and not the officiator; the congregation is there to pray for the couple and to congratulate them. There are, however, certain limitations when one has a church wedding: it is not as boisterous as the marriage hall, nor as free to do what the couple and their guests want, and photographers have certain rules to follow. But it is clear that these are minor considerations that are not preventing many to seek the more significant church wedding as the couple begins their life together. It is hoped that though the motivation for having a church wedding may not have been the best, the blessings received may be sufficient to inspire them in the days to come with a love for the Church.

Uderstanding Those Who Have Left the Community

How does a church community work to bring back to the fold those who, for one reason or another, have left?  A diocesan priest, a pastor who works in a spiritual counseling center, considers the possibilities in an article in Bible & Life. He begins by telling us that the word we use to describe those who have left the church is not helpful and prejudices us from the start: the word 'tepid' means cold and indifferent.

 

No one is free from problems in living the spiritual life. All have the possibility of becoming tepid in their faith life. He wonders whether this may be a natural phase in life, like the teenage years: a period of contrariness. Keeping this possibility in mind, the priest would like us to be more sympathetic toward those who have left the Church.

One of the reasons for leaving, he believes, is that the life of prayer was not helpful in getting what was wanted. They were seeking their own will, and in these cases it is better to allow them on their own to come to a realization that life is not always about getting what you want, and to be content to remember them in our prayers.

Another reason for leaving would include those who had problems with priests, sisters, or members of the community. This group can be divided into two types: those who are very sensitive and, without any deliberate offense intended, were hurt--they are likely to return. The return of those who have been hurt deliberately, however, will be difficult.

A third reason would include those who have lost hope in having a relationship with God, or were doubtful of having a meaningful relationship, and gradually distanced themselves from the community. Some consider themselves atheists, have an animosity towards the sacraments, or criticize the Church as hypocritical.  Some of these expressed reasons, despite what may be said, are probably best understood as stemming from the burdens of working to support a family and thus losing contact with the Church. He feels that with some outreach by the community they have a chance of returning. Some would  be looking for a deeper spiritual life and often on their return will become zealous workers in God's vineyard.
 

For some, a period of rest in their spiritual life may be of help to growth, instead of living with a  lack of enthusiasm and a routine life of the spirit; this group would be looking for a deeper way of living Christianity. This, he says, should not be difficult for a priest to understand, coming from many years in the seminary, and even after. Priests, he reminds us, are also faced with doubts, and at times even consider leaving, but by working through the difficulty they may come to another level in their faith life. He concludes with the thought that confronting our doubts honestly and working through them may be the way many of us will grow in the life of faith.
 

Maturity of the Korean Catholic Church

The Catholic Times recently interviewed the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference on the 50th  anniversary of the formal establishment of the  Korean hierarchy.

The bishop acknowledges the rapid growth of the Catholic Church, that it's been blessed with many vocations, but he stresses that more attention has to be paid to  the inner qualities of our faith life. The Korean Church needs now, he says, to go out to other countries to give them what Korea has received. We have moved from a receiving Church to a giving Church, a local church  ready to help others.

The Korean Church in the last 50 years, with North Korea included, has grown greatly. There are 18 dioceses, 32 bishops (9 retired), more than 5 million Catholics and 4,500 priests. This external growth has been great but humbling, the bishop says. We have to confess that internal maturity has not accompanied the external growth. Because of the rapid growth we have not had the time to ripen in certain areas.

The bishop mentions that unlike many other countries the period of the catechumenate in many of our parishes is six months. Not enough time, he says, to reflect on the gift of faith received. It is not only the head that must be involved but the whole person.

He brings to mind the words of Pope Paul VI, in his Apostolic Exhortation on Evangelization, where he states that we are to become a new people, to become different persons from what we were. It is to be born again, which we are far from achieving in  Korea,  the bishop laments. Although many have been baptized, we cannot say that many have undergone this type of change in their life: adopting new values and and a new way of living.

To the  question: What will the Church of Korea contribute to Asia and the rest of the world? "To help the poorer countries of the world," was his answer. He went on to say that what the foreign missionaries did for the Korean Church, the Korean Church should do for others. He concludes with a wish that Korean clergy will dream of going out to the world to make others disciples of Jesus.

Korean Catholiic Church

Fifty years ago the Church in Korea moved from being a Vicariate Apostolic to a church of  diocesan rank: setting up a formal hierarchy.  A professor examines the meaning of this for the Korean Church, a very young church compared to Europe.  The Korean Church has not had the time to come to a full understanding of how best to acculturate the teaching of the Church into the the cultural life of the country.
 

After the 17th century, becoming a Christian meant an acceptance of Western culture.  It was during this period of confrontation between the East and the West that foreign missioners, by not understanding  the diversity of cultures, failed to appreciate the difficulties these cultures presented in spreading the Gospel.

In the 20th century, we have a different approach to cultures. The Gospel is not a culture but something that transcends cultures, and efforts should be made to find a way to the Gospels regardless of the culture of the country. This approach makes for a different way of transmitting the Gospel message and opens up wider  horizons for mission work.

A sign of the success of the new approach was seen in China, where six bishops were installed in 1926, becoming heads of dioceses, and religious orders began to appear with their own leaders. This growth continued in the following years, and made for a  great advance in mission studies.

It took the Korean Church 131 years, from 1831 when it became a Vicariate Apostolic, before it became a diocese in 1962. The Japanese Church was elevated in 1891, and China in 1946. Korea, since it had a formal hierarchy in 1962, was able to attend the Second Vatican Council.

The professor feels that the Vatican did not realize how far the Church of Korea had come, which was the reason, he believes, for the recent date for the elevation of the Korean Church to diocesan rank in 1962.

The inculturation of clergy was soon achieved and inculturation in other areas is continuing. This will enable the work of reform. However, the professor feels that the Church in Korea is still looked upon as immature, for it remains under the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and not under the Congregation for Bishops.  The professor would like to know what are considered the signs of a mature Church. It seems to him an unmistakable fact that the Korean Church qualifies as a mature Church and should be under the Congregation for Bishops. He would like the matter reexamined by the specialists at the Vatican.

Continuity and Discontinuity

The desk columnist, in the Catholic Times, after returning from the U.S., comments on the frequent interruptions of that countries' TV dramas by advertising. This interruption repeats every 15 or 20 minutes, and  he found the discontinuity annoying in trying to keep the emotional content of the story intact.

Continuity and discontinuity is the theme the columnist wants to explore in his column. In life, there is an interchange of continuity and discontinuity in many places, especially, in the workplace and in marriage, which starts off with a desire of the partners to live in heavenly bliss, and very shortly the promise gradually loses its flavor: there is fighting,  misunderstandings, and the discontinuity from the day of the  promise. This is also true in our faith life.

Baptized as an adult, the columnist remembers the great happiness of being on fire with a sense of the holy but shortly all became habit, and even the Mass became an onerous burden. And this is also experienced by priests: fervor at ordination, but slowly disappearing as living one's life becomes more like a job than a special vocation. Again, we have discontinuity from what it was meant to be.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, which sought to move the Church closer to the modern world and to revitalize itself for the new times. Using the words of theologian Ormond Rush, the columnist says the Church was seeking more continuity by discontinuity, by continuing some practices of the early years of the Church and by discontinuing some of the stiffness, the authoritarianism toward the world and the laity that  we became accustomed to. The Council wanted more continuity with the ways of Jesus, and to discontinue some of the ways we accepted and practiced before the Council in order to return to the ways of the early Church.

This does not mean that all that was done in the past has no value or was unreasonable.  In  retrospect, they helped to build the Church; all of it was a part of the continuity.

However, if what was done was excessively limited by the times in which they developed and became too rigid, isn't a change or revamping required? he asks.  Wasn't this the reason for the Council? Wasn't this the inspiration that was given to the Church Fathers of the Council?

The columnist wonders if there are serious problems with discontinuing the habits that make us less Christian, preferring the peace of continuity that we have been accustomed to.

This talk of continuance and rupture that we hear so often in the West is not part of the dialogue heard in Korea. The Koreans seem to have an easier way of understanding growth and do not see continuance and discontinuance in the black-and-white way some  Americans tend to see it. Using the word 'rupture' does not, fortunately, come easy to a Korean.

Labor: Renewing the Body and Soul

Labor, as physical or mental work, is a means of disciplining ourselves, a necessary part of life, a way of sustaining ourselves. The Church has always seen labor as an important value: a way of participating in God's work of creation.

A priest-columnist in the Peace Weekly who works in the labor apostolate reflects on present day views of manual labor. It is seen by many as lowly, something to avoid. Our laborers, for the most part, do not see the results of their labor nor do they receive fair recompense for their efforts.

He goes back to his seminary days where he experienced working in volunteer service as a member of a club. However, perhaps because of his training as a priest, he found the work was more of the head and the lips than of the whole being. While in the seminary, he decided he wanted to continue being involved with manual labor after becoming a priest, but it always remained a dream.

Last year the opportunity to do manual labor came to him when the person working with him returned to the  farm. Because of this he went to the country to help in the farm work once a month, spending many hours in the field doing back-wrenching work. He didn't realize how difficult farming was. When he hears people say that those who are unemployed should work on the farms he wants to lash out at them. 

One day while working in the field, he wanted to show what he used to do, years before, when cutting sesame plants. However, his efforts was allowing the seeds to fall to the ground. He was criticized for doing so by an older farmer; the plants, he was told, are very sensitive to any shaking and seeds are easily scattered. After the reprimand, he wondered if he wasn't more of a hindrance than a help and expressed his concern to the owner of the farm. The owner told him: "Father, don't be concerned about being a help to us; if you want to do it for yourself, you're welcome to do so. "

He realized he was not suited to manual labor even though working in the labor apostolate. He remembers many of the older priests who wanted not to forget, after becoming priests, the value of labor, disciplining themselves by cleaning their rooms and washing their clothes. When he heard this for the first time he wasn't too impressed but with time his thinking has changed; he is beginning to live a simpler lifestyle, cleaning his own room, riding public transportation, and becoming more conscious of those who do manual  labor for a living.

This spring he hopes to spend more time on farms experiencing the farmer's life. He wants to feel that he is a part of nature and believes this to be a wonderful form of prayer.  Whether it is the farm or some other workplace, he expects that manual labor will be part of his life, taking advantage of its special gift of renewing both body and soul.