Music as Healer

One of the most often used words in church articles this past year was the word 'healing'. Best-selling books often had the word in their title. TV programs appeared with healing themes, healing foods; concerts and talk shows that healed seemed to be everywhere. Can we doubt that our society has a need for healing?

A member of the Spirituality Research Center at the Inchon Catholic University, writing in the Kyeongyang magazine on his experience as a professional using music to heal, states that the art of  music is ever-present in our lives, a sound form we are familiar with, from our time in the womb until the time we die.

Music enters through the ear, and from there to the  brain and then to our whole being, where it influences us in many ways, working on our emotions, knowingly and unknowingly. We know this, he says, from the background music we hear so often in restaurants and theaters. This being the case, what music should we be listening to? he asks. There is no correct answer, he says. What is right for one person or situation might not be right for another person or situation. Of course, a person knowledgeable in the field will be of help, but it is not necessary, he says. Choose the music you like, he advises, and learn to savor its message.

Another way of getting the benefits of music is to sing. The music will affect our emotions and even strengthen our immune system, he says. He gives an example of a  woman who was depressed for 15 years. By using singing as treatment for her depression, she was able to overcome the depression. She finally could make contact with her feelings, give them expression and control them. He would like to tell all mothers  when washing dishes, to sing out loud some of their favorite songs. It would be an opportunity for healing.
 
For  a Catholic, healing is the work of God. We try try to respond to his great love without condition and judgment, and to surrender to him for the great joy of being one with him. It is when we have given up all that we hold precious and have worked to achieve that we experience oneness with him and find self-healing. If we live this way, no other healing is necessary. 

One of the best ways of accomplishing this healing is to sing hymns. And at our next Mass, he says we should make this a priority, savoring the words of the hymn, letting each word fill our heart with its appropriate message.  And if we listen carefully, he believes we will hear God's voice in the singing.                                                                                                             

Searching for Meaning

Those addicted to 'fun'  would do well to uncover the meaning of this addiction, writes a  Salesian sister, with a background in media studies, in the Kyeongyang Magazine. Boredom, she says, may be causing the addiction. Though in the past boredom was a catalyst for change, today many find it difficult to accept, a thing to avoid at all costs.

We have heard the saying: "When you play you  play, when you work you work."  Today we often want our work to be pleasurable, and don't mind if our leisure time is taken up by intense study or stressful activities. When we are tired we flick on the TV or engage in conversation or do something, anything, as long as it keeps us from feeling bored. But all this does, she says, is add to our mental turmoil. There's no avoiding 'doing,' she admits, but we must also understand, she emphasizes, that 'not-doing' is something positive and creative.

She reflects on the times in the subway when just sitting becomes awkward and we take out our smart phones and begin toying with them. Conversation can start up with someone sitting beside us, but when a call comes during the conversation, we most likely will take the opportunity to go back to our smartphone.

She asks if we have ever for even an hour taken time to do nothing but be with ourselves in silence.  A time when we can give our thinking a rest, letting our thoughts ripen and the stress and frustrations of the day pass from mind--a time to get to know ourselves.

In the digital society we live in, the more dependent we become on the digital resources now available, and the more concerned with things outside of ourselves, the more impoverished  our internal life becomes. Reading becomes unbearable, and deep reflection nearly impossible; we forget the meaning of life and its values. We end up, sister says, thinking with our feelings and judging with our emotions.

We are living in a society where fun is often the goal of every pursuit. Our emotions are given priority, and the effort to delve deeply into our experiences is missing. In Korea we are all familiar with the Gangnam Style, a term describing both the phenomenally successful music video and the lifestyle "where everything is cool." Though many have been critical of this recent cultural craze that has spread throughout the world, there's no denying that many have embraced its lavish, carefree lifestyle, if only in spirit. 

The video is not the sole possession of those who made it, she reminds us, but now belongs to anyone who has seen it and is moved by what they see; they are the owners as well. The sister wants us to realize that besides those who found the text 'fun,' thrilled by what they saw and heard, many others had even more fun by examining the meaning of  this 'fun' event.
 
More than  being overcome with the 'fun' of the moment is to examine what is seen for meaning. It is this meaning that will  add a great deal to the 'fun' that we have in life.According to Ecclesiastes 2:10: "All that I undertook I enjoyed, and that was my reward for my work." Sister hopes that we will find the same joy in everything we do in life. It all starts, she says, not with those who are content to have fun without looking for its meaning, but with those who search for meaning, and see with the eyes of Christ.

Silence and the Spiritual Life

What is the prayer of silence? It can be as simple, says a Salesian priest, in a recent issue of Bible & Life, as what occurred to him while visiting the birthplace of St. Francis de Sales: being awe-struck by the beauty of the alps and the snow-capped mountains. Because of this experience he is not surprised at the Saint's dispositions for the spiritual life. We are very much affected, he says, by our environment.

We are often brought to silence, he says, when we find that no words can adequately give voice to the beauties of creation. One of highest manifestations of the beauty of creation is humanity, he goes on to say. The actions of people often surprise him by how well they express the love and beauty at the core of existence. This keeps him motivated, he says, and in the throes of hell-like problems helps him to respond with a hearty laugh. And when seeing the happiness of another human being, spontaneously joyful from life itself, he also feels energized by the same joyful presence. 

This experience is similar, he says, to our deepening relationship of love with God. When our love of God deepens and grows, the words we use in prayer decrease. Within silence, having put aside our worldly concerns, we are content to be in his presence, alone, just as our predecessors in the faith did before us, discovering that the best response to God's love is often a silent listening. Though praying fluently and freely is thought to be a sign of one who prays well, and that praying by using different prayers is a sign of a prayerful person, this is a misunderstanding of prayer. Without silence, he says, as the background for our prayer life, our words will be an obstacle to true prayer.

When we reflect on the love of God for us, the thoughts themselves are prayer. To reflect on this and the graces received, our whole being becomes a silent, prayerful response.

He recalls several New Testament accounts of this kind of silent prayer. Mary Magdalena, according to the Gospel writers, had seven devils which were driven out by Jesus.  She was not the kind of person that would have friends, and she must have suffered much with her condition. But meeting Jesus her whole life changed; she became a new person. In a moment, her pain and grief disappeared, replaced by joy. The only thing that interested her now was to be with Jesus, hear his words, and to live them.

Other examples were St. Joseph and Mary. And though Joseph obviously was a great influence, along with Mary, in the life of Jesus, a great deal of silence surrounds him in the Scriptures.  He was clearly a person whose whole life was a life of silence in obedience. Like Mary, there were many things he did not understand, but he obeyed: marrying Mary, seeking refuge in Egypt, and returning to Israel. Mary's silence is referred to as: "[she] treasured all these things and reflected on them in her heart."

When resting in silence, the foundation of all prayer, we are able to hear the sounds coming  to us from all sides: the sounds of nature, our brothers' pleas, the sounds from God, and the sounds coming from inside ourselves. From silence comes our spiritual life. Within this silence--as scripture counsels "Be still and know that I am God"--we come in contact with God. And in this silence, if sufficiently still, dying to all we believe ourselves to be, we are brought to a grateful appreciation of the life we have been given, and to an all-encompassing love for the source of that life.

Is the Church Obsolete?

Is the Church obsolete? A relic of the past that is no longer relevant in the modern world, especially for our young people? Looking over the statistics for 2010, a professor at Sogang University notes that although attendance of adults at Sunday Mass is low (30 percent), attendance of the young is even lower, much lower at less than 7 percent. The young people, he says, are leaving the Church quietly.

Expressing his opinion on the open forum page of the Catholic Times, he believes this situation could have been foreseen by the way the young students were not attending their Sunday school classes. They did attend while in grammar school, but on entering middle and high school the expectations to do well, along with the intense  preparations for the college entrance exams, was more important to them than attending Mass. More attention should be given, he says, to educating the parents on what is necessary for raising mature and responsible Christians.
 
The young are not only leaving the Church because of outside interests. Being Catholic, he says, no longer has the attraction it once did for many of them.  Compared to what it was like in the 70s, when large numbers of young people and the  well-educated  were coming into the Church, the numbers have steadily decreased. He reminds us of the saying that the Church in the West lost the workers in the 19th century, and the young in the 20th century. In Korea, we lost the workers in the 1990s, and can we now say we are losing the  youth in the 21st century?

When the young are no longer coming out to the Church and those who are in the Church are leaving, the future of the Church is not  bright. And the situation is no better with the religious orders, which have also experienced a decrease in numbers. Even among those who do show an interest, the quality of life and understanding of the commitment involved is not what it once was. This is not a good omen for the future of the Church. His recommendation is that the dioceses and religious orders need to work together, and fund the efforts to prepare for the future. We should not be content with one-time efforts or a display of energy, but draw up 10-year plans to do something about the situation.

The professor mentions two examples of young people who have joined together to affect change in the Church. In Korea, it's the Movement of Scripture and Faith Sharing, which has been going strong for over 30 years. Outside Korea, he mentions the Taizè Community meeting in Rome at the end of last year. 45,000 young adults  came together to pray with Pope Benedict XVI.

The common element in these meetings that he believes is responsible  for their success is having the youth in control of the meetings. Their input is encouraged and appreciated; they are not  there as guests but as the hosts--they are running the show.  A second element that makes these meetings a success is having God at the center. In the Taizè meeting they get together 3 times during the day to pray. They want something that the world cannot give, which prompted the professor to recall the words of St. Peter to describe the nature of their commitment: "Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:69).

He mentions that when Pope John Paul II brought up the idea of having a Youth World Day, those around him tried to dissuade him. The young would not be interested, they told him. He went ahead with the idea, as we know, and with great success.

The professor ends his remarks by repeating that if the Church is not to lose the young people, they have to be the pastoral agents; they must be encouraged to come together to experience the power of the Scriptures. The only remaining question that needs to be answered is, Who will be the leaders of this movement in the future Church? 


 

Is Knowledge Power?

"Knowledge is power" said the 16th century philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon. And a fellow Englishman disagreed, saying "Knowledge is only possibility, action is power." The words of Francis Bacon are heard often, the other clarifying words are never or seldom heard. A writer in the open forum page of the Catholic Times agrees with Bacon's contemporary: Knowledge by itself is not enough. Personal experience of what is known is required.

Knowledge that is not put into practice is not full knowledge, says the writer. Putting into practice what we know is what is important. No matter the plans we may make or how intense our desires may be, if not carried out, the plans and the desires are worthless. It's an important consideration to keep in mind, he points out, now that we are again approaching the lunar New Year, a time for resolutions; such as how do we make more money, how do we achieve better health?

We may retort that it's better than having no plans. But is it? When the results are the same. Knowledge, with or without a plan, is power when we act from the knowledge we have.

Being fortunate to be living in the information age, we have access to the possibility of all kinds of knowledge.  All we have to do is go to our smart phones, find the relevant information we're looking for, and put it into practice. He quotes a Japanese writer who says that many have the knowledge at their finger tips, but only one percent put it into practice. How much of what we know do we actually put into practice?  he asks. Of course we explain our lack of action by saying we store it away to be used some day when necessary. Our writer calls the ones who do put into practice what they know the wise of the world.

The same can be said for our faith life. We are often told that what we believe, if not put into practice, is dead. We as Christians have to discern what is from God before we put it into practice. Knowing what God wants is important, and this knowledge comes to us in the words of revelation. Our prayers, we must never forget, should be listening prayer, if we are to find out what God wants from us now.

Putting into practice our knowledge will provide us with the strength to persevere through the inevitable hardships of life. Knowledge that is not put into practice is only self-satisfaction. Those who push on into action are those with courage and conviction, moving them in the direction of success. If we hope to catch fish by looking at the water and imagining the fish we are going to catch, we're  going to be disappointed unless  we spring into action and drop a  fish line into the water. And our faith life, without a similar action on our part, will  also be fruitless, without meaningful change, stuck in the old ways. With the beginning of the lunar New Year let us resolve to be not a person of knowledge only but a person of action.

Living the Spiritual Life

What does it mean to live spiritually? What change, if any, does it bring to our life? A columnist of the Catholic Times answers by saying that to live spiritually is to align oneself with the will of God. And he uses the marriage union to show how the divine gift of love that animates everything that exists transforms all our activities, and most intimately in the marital union. But when this love is seen, mistakenly, as arising from merely physical and mental causes, we are likely to have a marriage whose joy is limited to the bodily and mental dimensions. 

The mystery of marriage is best seen, he says, when the partners are aware of its spiritual basis, and gives thanks for the union. Without the spiritual, God is not at the center but only the two partners of the marriage, and the body and mental faculties tend to be over emphasized. To place the body and the mental faculties in the proper perspective, they need to be seen as a manifestation of the divine love being shared in the marital union. 

A large segment of our society seems to think that only the body and mental faculties are important. It's a problem not only in Korea but in all societies. From the beginning it was God's plan to have us grow in the spiritual, mental and bodily dimensions of life, but humanity has always been more interested in what was easily perceived, believing it to be all that exists.

To live spiritually, says the columnist, is like having all three wheels of a tricycle functioning perfectly. One wheel aligns all our activities, including our personal  problems, with the will of God. The second wheel opens our heart in loving response to our brothers and sisters. And the third wheel energizes us to work for the reconciliation of society and solving its problems. He feels that the wheel most often missing, and causing us the most difficulty, is the one that aligns us with the will of God.

In Korean culture the spiritual dimension was acknowledged even if vaguely. And over many school gates in years past were the three words: body, knowledge, virtue. Granted that virtue can be a very natural attribute with no spiritual overtones, but it was better than what is generally considered today's primary goals for our young people: dreams,  success and health. These goals are similar to the attempts to satisfy just bodily and mental needs in marriage, while paying no  attention to the spiritual dimension. Without acknowledging the larger, spiritual dimension of life which makes possible our wise  pursuit of all limited goals, life ultimately becomes meaningless.           

Teaching that Speaks to the Needs of the Listener

How often have we heard the complaint that sermons are dull and boring, that they do not address the daily life concerns of the parishioners, that they are concerned with theological issues having little meaning for many? A priest writing in a pastoral bulletin mentions the typical example of the well-meaning but overly scholarly sermon of a priest, having recently returned from studies overseas with a doctorate, talking at length on issues of little interest to the parishioners.

The writer mentions hearing of a similar incident recently. A young man working in a textile factory, when preparing for baptism class, was told about the sacredness of work. He quickly disagreed, saying, "Those are the kind of words you only find in books. For me, work is difficult and tedious. Those who talk about the sacredness of work would not be using the word 'sacred' if they had the experience of doing tedious and painful work." Without understanding the difficulties of workers, teaching catechism to workers, without presenting both the negative and positive aspects of the work environment, will be difficult, the priest said.

"Blessed are the poor" is another example of a Gospel truth that we have difficulty explaining to those who see nothing good about poverty. Those who have not known poverty but speak about the benefits of poverty, the priest said, will find their words not accepted. In his experience, those who have known poverty can see its positive contributions to a fulfilling life but know the serious problems that come with the lack of material goods.

Those who have experienced the small basic community environment--where discussions start with the truths of Scripture and extend into the practical affairs of their daily lives--frequently see a great deepening in their faith lives. This was also Jesus' method of teaching. Even those who did not have any education could understand what he was saying. This was also the way the wise of the East taught in the past. Today we have, he says, the Greek method of teaching, with its abstract reasoning and speculative meanderings.

He concludes his article by acknowledging that a theological presentation of the truths of the Church needs the input of people who are committed believers and are willing to delve more deeply into their faith experience. He feels we have a movement in Korea that is trying to bring this into being, but for a lack of leaders it seems to be losing steam. In the meantime, let us be content to speak in a language that is readily understood and practical, consigning our dull and boring sermons to the nearest wastebasket.  
  
Happy Lunar New Year!