Understanding The Blessed Mother Without Churchy Words.

In a recent secular  newspaper column, a writer brings up a long-standing debate between the more conservative Protestants and Catholics. He focuses on the central issue of the debate by summing up a commonly repeated charge: "It's obvious the way many Korean Catholics behave before the statue of Mary that they believe in Mary. They pray to her. Isn't that idolatry?"  

Catholics usually respond, he writes, by saying it's a way of showing respect for Mary, and Protestants  respond by asking: does respect require praying to her? That has to be idolatry. He points out that this question of idolatry is not limited to Christianity. A Buddhist temple in China, called the Holy Mother temple, is dedicated to the mother of a famous enlightened Chinese sage. And her statue is in the temple, not the statue of the Chinese sage. Many who visit the temple are surprised to see a statue of a woman instead of the Buddha statue. Building a temple for the mother of a sage also seems unreasonable to many--isn't this going too far, they ask. These and similar expressions are the responses of many who visit the temple.

Many Christians also object to using the term Holy Mother when speaking of the mother of Jesus. The same objections heard when discussing the mother of the Chinese sage. What is the issue being debated,the columnist wants to know? Are we arguing about statues, about the naming of a temple, or are we arguing about an echo that is much deeper? What is  the true character of the echo?

"Holy Mother" is the place in which truth was born. The place from which truth came. The place from which Jesus came. It is not only that, but in the belief of the Christians it is also  the place from which  the  universe came.

In the Scriptures God does not have form. What does that mean? We cannot  meet God by  human constructs.So how do we meet God?  How do we go to the place that Jesus came from, where he went and where he is now?

That God does not have a form  is where we find the answer. We have to get rid of  all the forms. It is not only what we see with the eyes that are forms  but  my cravings and attachments, etc. all that takes hold of my mind. Whether the statue of the Holy Mother is an idol or not will depend on how much these forms have taken hold of us?

  When we look at the cross from top to bottom from side to side it does not stop where the wood stops but goes on to infinity. When we do not try to grab hold  of the form  of the cross,it goes on to infinity and becomes the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end become one.The writer concludes: from the cross he meditates on the the word "Holy Mother" in whom the root of life is contained.

To have a writer in a Korean daily newspaper  take on the issue of devotion to Mary by Catholics was interesting. How well he succeeded is certainly in doubt, but that he would attempt such a feat by using philosophical language was  courageous.

'My Fault Spirituality' Reduces the Non-Practicing Catholics

To change how we think is difficult. To change how a community thinks is even more difficult. A priest from Pusan wanted to invite back to the parish community those who had left the Church but soon found he had to first change the views of his parishioners toward the non-practicing Catholics. He started to do so last year in September, and within three months 703 of them returned as practicing Catholics. (In Korea, only those who have been away from the sacraments for three years or more are considered "fallen away".)

Having a  parish of about 6,200 Catholics, he decided to start with 1,200 who were alienated from the Church for one reason or another. In educating his parishioners for the campaign, he did away with all the negative terms that have been used to describe non-practicing Catholics, replacing them with language from the world of marketing, such as "The first concern is the satisfaction of the customer" --the commercial provider being well aware that when goods are of poor quality, prices high or employees rude, and customer service shoddy or non-existent, customers will stop coming.

The customers, in this case, are the Christians, non-practicing and fallen away Christians whose faith life is weak for any number of reasons: liturgy is boring, sermons uninteresting, too frequent money collections, the Church shows little interest in them. If we don't treat them with kindness, says the pastor, if the community is not satisfying their expectations, how can we expect them to  continue going to church?  It's a question the pastor repeatedly asks. Some of these parishioners even went to nearby Protestant Churches to find out how they care for their members, making what they learned a benchmark of how they were to deal with their own Christians.

Why did they leave the Church? The pastor says, if we want to be honest, it is our fault, the fault of the Church as a community. This was the change in thinking the pastor in his sermons and education programs kept repeating. He was instilling a "my fault spirituality," which focuses not on those who stopped going to church but on the community they left. This was a revolutionary change in thinking for most of his parishioners.  He was creating an atmosphere of good will that would make the return of those who had left the Church easier.

The good will was evident in every detail of a carefully thought-out  program that would make the transition back to the Church less intimidating. Prayer and education sessions were scheduled in the different  areas of the parish, and a day for confession was selected--all preparations being conscientiously followed, including the following:

 -All  parish personnel and finances were made available to the program.
-Carefully thought out  preparations were made to implement the program.
-Taking an active interest in the program  was  everyone's concern.
-A firm commitment by the pastor to the goals of the program.

The results? Church attendance increased, collections doubled, and the parish is now an example to the rest of the Korean Catholic Church of how programs with difficult  goals can be successful when there is a fully committed community working together to achieve those goals.

Children Should Enjoy Being Children

Over the years, it was often heard in Korea that our children are not allowed to be children. In a recent daily newspaper, pictures show students in middle and high school sleeping in class, noting that they are preparing to go to the academies in the evening and getting the necessary shuteye to be wide awake for the real study, preparing for college.
Spending most of their time studying for college, our youngsters are missing a critical time in their life, being children.

In the column "Daily Life and Faith Life" in the Catholic Times, the writer tells us that when a child acts like grownups  most adults will consider it praiseworthy. He asks us if we think that children truly like to do what others consider the grownup thing to do.  Children, he says, are naturally programed to act like children in a world of toys and dolls where reality can't be separated from imagination. They cry when frightened, they easily sulk and do not listen to reason. They brag and cling tenaciously to their possessions, and there is no saying no to any temptation that comes their way. Above all, there is no end to their capacity for curiosity. He believes that it is acting in this way that children grow up to be mature adults, able to distinguish what they should and should not do in society. Little by little they gain responsibility and concern for others.

However, when adults have spent childhood acting like adults, the writer thinks they will often revert to childish ways when they are adults. He quotes a  hermit scholar-priest who  said, " Please let the children be children. Don't hit them when they act frivolously. If they don't act like children when will they? If they grow up acting too much like adults, when they become adults you will be spending a great deal of money for counseling sessions."

The writer says that when he was working in the mental ward of a hospital or in his counseling practice, he often met adults who acted like children. But we can become, he says, too permissive and lacking in discernment, which will tend to form a selfish and egoistical child.  A balanced approach is obviously best. By asking ourselves whether we are healthy adults or child adults who need to act like children, we may gain in this soul-searching a better understanding of what it means, for us and for our children, to grow into an ever-evolving mature adulthood.

Results of Abusive Language

A parish priest, a professor in the diocesan seminary, writes in the opinion piece in the Catholic Times of the pervasiveness of foul and abusive  language in society. We hear it when riding in a bus or subway car, from middle and high school students and also from the older generation, and from those in all walks of life. The routine and mindless abuse of the marvelous gift of language bothers him, as if  his use of it is  contaminated as well.

He brings this truth to our attention by quoting the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). "Humans have within themselves consciousness  and the spiritual. This internal consciousness is expressed externally with the words we use."

This is easy enough to understand: words express our internal character, who we are. Words are the way we relate with others, how we  dialogue with others. If we remember this, we will not easily use vulgar language when speaking with others. The consequences of doing so are great.

He mentions a story from the Talmud: A king asks that the most useful and  the most harmful thing in the world  be brought to him; the  object found  was the same--the tongue. Examples of this double character of language are many. There are those who heard only negative things when growing up who  ended up in prison. And those who had everything going against them, but hearing words of affirmation have done great things.


He quotes the following words: " Be careful of your thoughts, they will become your words. Be careful of your words, they will become your actions.  Be careful of your actions,  they will become your habits. Be careful of your habits, they will become your character.  Be careful of your character for that will be your destiny."

There is no doubting the mutual relationship between the words we use and the person we become. Whether our character prospers or suffers will  depend greatly on  the words we choose to use. The society will be changed when we start changing the little things. That this society has  become desolate and dreary  may  have  something  to  do with the words we choose to use.

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Seeing Depression as a Cold of the Spirit

In the Incheon Bulletin this week, a therapist at the Spiritual Research Center of the diocese writes about depression, comparing it to a cold.  As we all know, he says, we are attacked by the cold virus at the change of seasons when our immune systems are run down. Similarly, many doctors, psychologists, counselors and spiritual directors say depression is the cold of our minds and hearts.

Our society has been alerted to the problems associated with depression by the recent spate of highly publicized suicides of well-known people who suffered from depression. A very common mood disorder among adults, it affects 5 to 12 percent of men, and 10 to 25 percent of women. And we are not talking here about simply feeling down, which can happen to anyone during difficult periods of life. Serious depression, as a despairing state of mind and heart, makes it hard to function and carry on even simple daily activities. Though the symptoms are many and varied, typical symptoms can include losing our taste for food, losing weight, becoming physically fretful, procrastinating, and experiencing a general slowing down of our mental faculties, accompanied by aches and pain. Since the urge to kill oneself often is present, the therapist believes the depressed person should be hospitalized when the symptoms are serious.


Returning to the  analogy of the cold, he says that just as there is no clear cut treatment for a cold--it usually cures itself--the same can be said for most colds of the mind and heart. Colds of the body and of the spirit can often be prevented, he believes, by bodily health, sufficient sleep, good eating habits, regular exercise, and, especially no worrying. He mentions most of the ones he has counseled are worriers--worries being the death of the spirit. As with a cold, he advises us to pay no attention to supposedly worrisome things; let the things go and the worries will go with them. However, if complications develop, either with a cold or with depression, it may be necessary, he warns, to see a specialist.

It is always difficult to know what to say to help the depressed person. It is easy to tell them to see a doctor, knowing the  uselessness of our trying to give advice, but doing so anyway even when trying not to.  It's not always easy to do what we know we should do. The quick-fix answers that tend to come to mind: "Look at the bright side of things; get rid of the negative thinking and try to be positive in your approach to what comes your way" will not help and are best left unsaid. Sometimes, not saying anything is what we should do. Being present, simply listening to their pain may be our best response, the compassionate response. Depression  being in many cases an affliction of the spirit, may be best handled by letting the depressed person reach into the spiritual depths of the disease with a compassionate listener--heart to heart.

Missionary Spirit of the Korean Catholic Church

A recent article in The Peace Weekly on two diocesan priests from Suwon, working as missioners in the Sudan, notes the many Koreans working in the missions, not including  Korean communities overseas. At the end of 2009 the Catholic Church of Korea had 863 missioners working in different parts of the world.

"To live as a missioner is a daily challenge" was the way the two missioners expressed what life is like in the Sudan. They are working in a country with severe poverty, disease  and ignorance. The situation is desperate and cannot be compared to the usually less than ideal situations in most of Africa. The Sudan has suffered many years of war, and the scars remain. Most of their teenagers have been in the war and still have family members in the army, many of them having lost members of their families in the fighting. As a result, starvation is a reality for many. Kept at  bay until 2005, when food dropped from relief planes ended, and they are now asking the missioners to do the same: send planes with food.

In the meantime, the effort to get the Sudanese to become self-reliant is a full time task. Many have never done any service for others. They have grown accustomed to being dependent on others to survive, so it will take years, the missioners believe, to wean them of this dependency and allow them to take charge of bettering their lives. The missioners realize that it is not only what they do that is important in keeping them there in the Sudan, but the help of the Korean Church and individual  Catholics is also necessary. 

The mission in the Sudan is an expensive one,  for there are few resources there to rely on. "Giving the Sudanese material goods that will enable them to have a self-supporting Church is not enough," say the missioners. "Buiding solidarity with the people and with those who will follow is also important, and it will not come with more material goods but when everyone involved works together to achieve a common goal.  From our point of view, we cannot  find satisfaction in what we are doing by only giving, for as we  followed in the footsteps of the missioners from the West, we hope also to encourage others to  follow us.  We  were able to  put down roots because of the sweat and tears of the western missioners."


They go on to say that the Mission Sunday collections back home in Korea, important as they are, do not compare to the sending of missioners. It is now time for the Korean Church to be concerned not only about their own problems but about the poverty and hunger in other parts of the world. Africa, they point out, is the Lazarus of our day, lying on the floor by our food-laden tables, looking for scrapes to sustain itself.

Half of the Korean missioners are working among the Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, and those living in  Hong Kong. 640 are sisters; the men religious are few, the dioceses not yet actively taking an interest. But the Peace Weekly article is confident that it will not be long before we will have over  1,000 working in the missions. Compared to about 20,000 missionary Protestants, we still have a long way to go.  However, there are hopeful signs for the future. 

Living As Partners To Creation--The Green Martyrs

We have all heard about the martyrs who shed their blood for their faith--the "red martyrs." Some may have heard about the "white martyrs," a bloodless dying to the world by those who renounce the world by emptying themselves for their faith. Now, in an article appearing in the Kyeong Hyang Magazine, a priest finds connections between the meanings of martyrdom and ecology by going back to an early Irish experience when monks would go into the wilderness of the countryside to study, pray and commune with nature. Those today who leave behind the comforts of life, like the monks of ancient Ireland, and retreat to the woods and mountains, the lonely green  spots of the world to commune with God and partner with nature can also be called, says the priest, martyrs--"green martyrs." He extends the term to include those who are concerned about the health of the environment and who work to protect it. 

The color green, which results from combining the blue and yellow colors or, symbolically, the 'blue' and 'yellow' parts of our human nature--blue: sometimes seen as the unfeeling intellect and yellow: sometimes seen as the feeling warmth of the sun--combine to give us a symbolic 'green'.  The green of spring, reproduction, joy, trust, nature, paradise, plenty, prosperity, and peace. In the liturgy at this time of the year, we use the liturgical color green to signify all the above, along with hope and life.

Attempting to make this world a green world is the green martyr's task-- not an easy one. A person who sees the destruction of God's creation as a spiritual problem tries to atone for the carelessness by carrying out the duty we all have to take care of creation.

The writer mentions the Catholic Farmers Association as an example of those who  have tried to live this green martyr's life. They are fighting the habitual way of farming that leads inevitably to the destruction of  the environment.

These farmers living the environmentally friendly lifestyle--not  using pesticides and artificial fertilizers have suffered a loss in income, been ridiculed, treated coldly, and  even called communists for their efforts.  Fortunately, those in the cities concerned for their health buy their products,  otherwise the zeal of the green farmers would not have lasted. The consumers who assist in this way can also be considered green martyrs for the sacrifice they are making in spending more to buy their food.

 It is not a sin to live comfortably, but it can be addictive; there is always the danger that it can become an idol to which we do service, increasing our blindness, says the writer, to the needs of others and also to the destruction of our environment.

The green martyrdom approach to life is to accept a certain amount of living uncomfortably. Obviously, not an easy thing to do; it requires a kind of death--a dying to the comfortable life we've grown accustomed to. Our reward, however, is to make all of creation our partners in living harmoniously together--stewards of God's creation.