The Difficult Road to a Career in Music

Koreans have a gift for music: they do extremely well in musical competitions throughout the world. The Catholic Times tells us how a high school student Gwak Ki-ae (Theresa) won the pipe organ competition for high school students this past month. She started playing the piano at the age of 7 in the neighborhood church. After three years with no formal lessons, she took first prize in the national competition for elementary school children.

Because of her families difficult financial situation she wasn't able to take any serious piano lessons. But the remarkable ability that she showed at the piano caused the people in the neighborhood to see her as a child prodigy. She was asked to play the accompaniment for the Masses in her parish with an old organ that they received. She fell in love with the organ and went to bigger churches to use their organs. Playing the organ which required her feet along with her hands and hearing the majestic sound of the music was enough for her to turn her attention to the pipe organ. The Cathedral Parish in Chongju had an academy for organ and she decided to attend; returning home she would go to the church and push on to late hours practicing the organ. Her father found himself out of work when she was going into high school so Theresa felt that music would require too much money and decided to go into nursing.

In preparation for college she discontinued the study of organ for two years to give herself to her studies full time. However she could not extinguish the desire she had for the organ and she again went back during her third year of high school thanks to a teacher at the school. Just a few months after returning to the organ she took first place in the Taegu competition and 3rd place in the Seoul College competition for students.

She has wondered why she has had to face these difficulties in her desire to learn the organ. Her answer is that God wants to prepare her with more passion and zest in her desire to become an accomplished organist.

She is now dreaming of entering the School for Fine Arts for organ. Through the auspices of her high school teacher she has been given the opportunity to take individual lessons from a college teacher. She thanks all who have helped her and have encouraged her. She is grateful to the teacher who is giving her lessons and the family that is taking care of her in Seoul.

There are many who are in the same position as Theresa and some are not as fortunate. Theresa is getting the help necessary to follow her dream of a musical career and is very grateful to all who have made it possible.

Retired Korean Catholic Priests

The clergy in Korea for the most part are young but the old timers are having their Masses of retirement rather frequently these days. We see this at the time when new assignments are being made and in many dioceses this was recent. The age of retirement for most dioceses is 70 and for many it is still too early to rest. In Korea, society does retire their workers rather early but the Church is still one that keeps them on the rolls until they are 70.

Even though they are retired there are still many who are very active in many different works. We have men who have volunteered for the foreign missions, those who are still teaching and have there own web sites, many have just changed their place of residence.

There is one priest from Taegu who from the time he was a pastor was interested in Street Evangelizing. He started this in his parish in 1990 and has spread it to many other parishes and even to the Korean Communities overseas. At the start he had 100 or so Catholics with the same mind and trained them for two months. He printed 5000 pamphlets introducing the Church and sent the team out. They started at 12 o'clock noon and ran out of pamphlets within an hour. It gave them a strong desire to make the movement part of the way we evangelize. Let us gather to pray and go out to evangelize, was the motto of the movement.The priest is now retired but feels that he now has more time to give to street evangelizing.

This year starting from June 19th to next year June 19th is the Year for Priests. The Holy Father has hopes to see a revitalization of the priesthood and a desire for a spiritually intense new life on the part of priests throughout the world. It is the “150th anniversary of the death of the saintly 'Cure of Ars', Jean Marie Vianney". Some of the Korean retired priests are giving an example of how to be apostolic even in retirement.

Beware of Number Nine

Unlucky numbers are a part of almost all cultures. In Korea we have the number 4 which is considered unlucky; true of those countries that use Chinese Characters. Four is spelled and pronounced the same as the word for death. In Korea many hospitals do not have a 4th floor, this is true also of apartment buildings.

In the Catholic Times this week there was an article on the number 9. This is also a hand down from China. Usually you hear that when you reach the age of 19, 29, 39, you have to be careful it may not be a good year.

This year in Korea we had the death of many influential Catholics: "the death of Cardinal Kim, Kim Dae -jung, the archbishop of Taegu and many others who did not live to see the year 2010. People do not like to move on a date with a nine, or get married . If one team has 9 victories the 10th seems difficult to make. They do not want to get married on their 19th or 29th year. The multiples of 10, which are good, follow so be careful.

In the old days one could not build a house with 100 kan or larger for that was the privilege only of the king during the Chosun period. One Catholic told me he thought that the inauspiciousness of the number 9 began from this time in Korean history. We can leave the facts to the historians to uncover, it could simply be the closer you come to your goal the more you have to be careful; the digit 10 and its multiples being whole numbers are something good.

We as Catholics try to stay away from what we think is superstitious. It does harm to our way of reasoning and brings fear into our lives for no good reason. Having all these folktales, legends, "old wives' tales" to influence what we do in our daily lives is not beneficial for our mental and spiritual health and even our physical health.

The Catholic Catechism #2111: Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even effect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance , apart form the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.

Third World Country to a First World

One of the Maryknollers, Fr. Michael Bransfield, who died in 1989, was involved for many years with laborers and knew their problems. He wrote a book, Wrinkles in the Heart with very graphic pictures illustrating his short essays at a time when Korea was not a first world country. I have printed the introduction to the book by Stephen Cardinal Kim, the deceased Archbishop of Seoul , which will indicate why the Cardinal was so loved by those who worked for the forgotten in Society.

Michael Bransfield graduated from the University of Notre Dame, served in the United States Naval Reserves, and left a promising business career to enter the Maryknoll Seminary.

Father Bransfield came to Korea in 1959 and neither hardship nor serious illness has dimmed the love, devotion and enthusiasm he has for the Korean people, as pastor, educator, author and chaplain of the Young Christian Workers in Seoul.

His message is universal, Korea the microcosmic setting. He exhorts men of good will to exercise the charitable imperative to love the poor and spiritually enrich themselves in the process. The author, in unminced words and vivid pictures, challenges the reader to embrace the values of Christ in the clear and unequivocal terms set forth in the scriptures.

The book is not for the faint hearted. It is a holy rail against social injustice, economic inequality, and political oppression. It demonstrates the tragic consequence resulting from indifference to the oppressed people of the world as enunciated in Mater et Magistra: " It will not be possible to preserve a lasting peace so long, as these glaring economic and social inequalities persist.... We are all jointly responsible for the undernourished people" Wringles in the Heart assaults the conscience and attacks hypocrisy.

It is Christ's message unexpurgated.

We in Korea still have the problem with the 3 Ds. Work that is dirty, difficult and dangerous but now it is often in the hands of foreign workers. There has been a great deal of improvement in workers' rights although a great deal more needs to be done. The treatment of our foreign workers also has improved greatly. There is more interest in their human rights and attempts to help them both in the public and private sectors of the society.

The GoodNews portal and UCC

The Seoul Diocese has lately joined the many others in the field of User Created Content. The Catholic Internet GoodNews service has entered a new era. The Diocese feels it is late in joining this new way of interacting with their viewers but with this new beginning they see great meaning.

The diocese with the help of the other Catholic Media will have about 700 videos available for use and will be open for anyone who has Catholic material and wants to upload it to the UCC GoodNews Portal which is the largest in the Catholic Church of Korea.

They are hoping that it will be a great help in fostering many to use their talents for music, sermons, teaching plans for doctrine, making liturgical aids, teaching liturgical flower arranging and enabling religious groups to reach out to the youth in their vocation work.

In time they hope to produce "stars" through this new medium: star teachers, liturgical flower arrangers , singers, lecturers and many more that can help improve the culture in which we live.

This program will allow the Church not only to evangelize but to to shine the light of the Gospel on the culture of the times. There will always be concern on what is upoaded and there will be care made that the material is of a Catholic nature and of help to the viewers.

Korean Catholic Church and Leadership

There are many different leadership styles; they are seen in all areas of society. We have those who lead from the front, the center, and the rear. Korea is familiar with all of them but the Confucian ideas are still very strong: relationships- young and old, father and son, king and the ruled.

Some years ago I heard a lecture by one of our diocesan priests mentioning how a pastor asked the pastoral council to look into a problem and see what they could do to solve it. Nothing was done, months later he brought the issue up again, telling them it will cost a great deal of money if we do not solve it quickly, still no interest. A year or so later, I have forgotten all the facts, he told the council that he received word that they had to proceed with the project and the cost was a substantial amount of money. The priest mentioned that it was an expensive lesson for the Church to learn but he thought it was worth it. Here was someone who was leading from the rear. His hope was to educate the council and it was expensive. Some would consider this foolishness. I was surprised to see at that time this kind of leadership.

We have been hearing in recent years a great deal of team ministry, collaborative ministry servant leadership. This is far from the reality in Korea but they are talking about it. Maryknoll went through a period where this was very much a topic of conversation but our history in that area is poor. It was attempted and failed.

The Catholic Church of Korea has all kinds of leadership styles: those who feel a strong leader is what is necessary and can be considered autocratic, those who are very democratic and listen and try to get participation, those who have a hands off policy and let the community go their way, those who spend a great deal of time educating and trying to inspire the community and in recent years we are hearing a great deal of the servant leadership style. What is strange is that this style is more prominent in secular society than in the Church.


Team ministry, servant leadership are beautiful concepts but we have no great examples of success in the church, there is little to imitate. This was a topic for discussion in the different areas of our diocese some years ago but nothing ever came of it. Probably Seoul has put the most time in trying to implement the idea and will probably be the leader in the years ahead. There are many studying the concept still dreaming of the possibilities. I am sure in time they will bear fruit.

What Is a Life Well Lived?

One of the columnists in this weeks Catholic Paper explains what she believes a classy life would be. After getting their children married most couples can sit back and enjoy a freer life. They are no longer troubled by the children, they can take care of the daily living expenses, and are not overly bothered by their surroundings.

Most of her friends are in this situation but they are lonely, They have their old husband and old wife to gaze at , it is tasteless and a life with no feeling. What is there to do now? Isn't there something that will put some zest into our lives they say laughing quietly.

Life is not basically one of thrills. It is humdrum and unsatisfactory Isn't too much to ask it to be interesting? However there are interesting times in our lives that we all have been given. We have just not been conscious of them . There's the sky, rays of the sun, flowers and birds they are there. Old age is the time to appreciate these many gifts.

She introduces us to a couple who she admires very much for their life style. They are retired and have drawn up a plan on how to live. One of the most important parts of this plan is not to spend much money and to enjoy life. They get up early and go mountain climbing to see the changes in nature. They return to their home taking turns in preparing something to eat and even if not tasty they are able to laugh and enjoy. In the afternoon they go to some exhibition that does not require money, go to the campus of some college to walk the sidewalks with the students, and at times take a train or a bus to some city that they have not seen.

What she finds most surprising pleasing is that each one reads a book once a week from a list they have made and write a book review of what they have read and exchange... what is more appealing still, rather than telephoning their children they spend time writing letters.

That is not all they spend time reading old poetry and exchanging their thought on what was read. This was awkward in the beginning but has turned into a very profitable activity.

The writer would like to see them someday holding hands and find their way to the Church. She has given them a Bible, a hymn book and a book on the rosary but there has been no response. We are all going to be faced with a time of emptiness and fear we want something to hold on to especially as we come to the end of our lives. She admires their style of living but feels that there is one thing missing that would give it a more flavor and that would be Faith. She concludes by saying that she believes that day will come.