Making the New Year New

Writing in a bulletin for mission stations the writer comments on a passage that he rereads often. Jesus cures a blind man and tells him not go back to the village from which he came but to go home. What was it about the village that prompted Jesus to tell him not to return?  There is  much room for probing  the reasons for Jesus' orders. We have similar requests in scripture not to return the way one came and  to go  home another way.

In middle school, he remembers his beautiful cousin who turned the heads of many young men. The father  sent her to her husband's home far away from where they lived. The day  before the  marriage she took the middle school cousin  and went up the mountain behind the house with a bundle wrapped in cloth. In a  quiet cozy area, she undid her bundle removed notebooks, picture  albums, and piles of letters. She began very slowly to burn each piece. She never looked at him, and he turned his eyes away looking at the autumn sun shinning  in the distant river. The ashes the  wind did not  blow away, she buried very carefully in the earth.

There is a time for leave-taking: to leave what you have become accustomed to, the  comfortable, things you want to do, and those you love. The writer returned home over 20 years ago, to his Father's house. He has been getting rid of much of his old baggage, but he still hears the call of the sirens of  things he left behind. He has lost some of the happiness he once possessed, and is not as  faithful in doing  what he knows he should be doing. He knows keeping both village and God both in view are difficult.

With the beginning of the New Year, he wants help in doing  what his cousin did: 'burning'  the things that need to be left behind.

He remembers a foreign missionary,  still having difficulty with the language, tell his parishioners: " The worn out year has gone, and we have the new year. The year we have grown fond of has  callously left us. The gone year has gone, let us forget the old year along with the hatred, the scars and the things we made seem important. Let us make plans to be happy living in the new year. The new year is what is important.  Let us always stay awake and let us not tremble. Let us forget the old times. When you put your hand to the plow, and you continue to look behind, you could find yourself going to another village."                             

Reflections on the Death of a Friend

There are those who have many friends and those with few, those that are gregarious and those who are not. Writing for a diocesan bulletin one of the Catholics reflects on the death of one of his childhood friends. Although his friend was not healthy, he remembered joking with him recently, so when he received the news on his hand phone, while at work, he was shocked; he was too young to die.

AT the funeral parlor he was surprised to see so few there. Before the coffin, there was his 80-year old mother and the wife of his  younger brother. No one was entering or leaving, only a few childhood buddies drinking and talking together. Usually on such occasions, whether the relationship was comfortable or uncomfortable, there would be many paying their respects. He recalls that his friend did not like to mix with others, preferring to live by himself, drinking  by himself and, in death, not surprisingly, was also by himself--his death mourned by few.

The writer, accustomed to seeing many people at funeral homes and seeing so few on this occasion, got to thinking about his own funeral.  How many will be sad to hear of his death? The answer he feels will depend on how much  concern he had shown his neighbor.  Was he more interested in taking care of his own needs than in being concerned for others?

It wasn't that his friend did not love his neighbor or was unconcerned for others; only that he neglected to do what he should have been doing. Since the writer also feels he has not been very active in loving or serving his neighbor, he wonders how the  funeral parlor will look like at his death. But then reminds himself that death is the same for all, that we came into the world with nothing and will leave with nothing. At the funeral home, whether we have many or few coming with their condolences, what does that mean? he asks. What difference does it make to have many or few to pay their last respects?

The accepted process of handling death and dying has changed greatly in Korea in a short period of time. Many private funeral homes have been built, and most of the hospitals, and some churches, have mortuaries; waking in the home has mostly disappeared.

Being part of a community will help determine the numbers attending our wake and funeral. As our writer said, numbers are unimportant but since the writer is a member of a Church community, I'm sure those who read his article will remind him that the funeral parlor at his wake will be bustling with fellow Christians, singing the office of the dead,  eating, and remembering his life in the almost festive nature of our Korean Catholic wakes.


                                                                    

Is it True That Beauty Is Only Skin Deep?

A columnist in the Catholic Times discusses a popular new remedy, among the younger generation, for an old complaint . He was riding the bus on his way home and overheard the conversation of three high school girls. "For me it will be the nose," said one. "I also will have the nose done," said another. "I will have the double eye-lid done along with the  nose," said the third girl. They looked to be first-year high school students, said the columnist, and here they were talking about cosmetic surgery; that  they could treat such a topic with such naturalness surprised him. In their tone of voice, he heard no fear and no reservations on what was required, just concern for their outward appearance. He wondered if they had the same concern for their inner beauty.

The  desire we have to appear attractive to others is a basic instinct. We cannot  criticize the desire to make ourselves attractive to others. However, the columnist feels that many in our society have gone beyond what is reasonable and normal, adding to our vocabulary such terms as cosmetic-addict and cosmetic beauty. The importance we put on appearance has made the waiting rooms of cosmetic hospitals bustle with new customers.

This new emphasis on physical beauty can be attributed to the mass media, the 'beautiful people' seen in TV dramas and advertising, the thin bodies and beautiful faces in fashion magazines; even in books and animations, we have the prince charming and beautiful princess ideal--an unrealistic new look, the look of physical perfection, and it's taking hold of the young in our society.

A research team from Seoul Medical, in a survey of 1500 women college students, found that half would like to have cosmetic surgery; of that number 82 percent are planning to have surgery and 95 percent of those who have had surgery plan to have it done again.

The poet Khalil Gilbran says:

"And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy...  
It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes
And a song you hear though you shut your ears."

The columnist reminds us that we are all beautiful, that we all have hidden beauty. Beauty, as we so often say, is in the eye of the beholder; it's something relative, something  not seen in the same place but is like a movable feast. For a Christian, he believes it's most often seen in acts of love and sacrifice. In Korea, it is often said of someone: more than a beautiful face, a beautiful heart. Physical  beauty changes with a change in time and place, with the changing cultural standards of a particular society; not so with internal beauty. 

That we have so many who do  not  see more than what is reflected in  a mirror is a reason for great sadness. What is needed is for all of us to become reflecting mirrors, seeing in others their internal beauty, and responding to that beauty so they can begin to see it for themselves.

Changing the Perception Towards Hansen Disease in Society

Written up recently in the Chosun Ilbo, Franciscan Fr. Yu  has been assisting and comforting those diagnosed with Hansen's disease for the last 31 years. He came to Korea in 1976 from Spain, a country not unlike Korea, both populations having experienced the horrors of war. Now 65-years old, he has made working with the survivors of this horrible disease his mission in life.

After Mass every morning, he makes the rounds of the patients. "Although I can't see and hear, I know it's the priest," says one grandmother, "he's the only one who warmly hugs us."

The facility of 200 patients, once a village with thatched, slate-roofed houses that made up the colony, shunned by society, is now a much different community thanks to Fr. Yu. He says that you can tell by their eyes that they desire to be loved. He serves not only as their chaplain but as the driver for the community; they feel uncomfortable using public transportation, he says, so he takes them where they want to go and does their errands for them. During this time, he has been at the bedside of over 500 who have died; he wants them to know they are not alone at the last moment. He has also prepared the bodies for burial, serving as their undertaker. He was proud of the Hwan Gap party they gave him on his  61st birthday. He considers them as family and hopes to be with them for his 70th and 80th, to give hugs.

The  disease can lead to disfigurement of the outer limbs and facial features. With the introduction in the early 1980s of multi-drug therapy (MDT), the disease has been successfully treated, and those afflicted are no longer carriers of the disease; confinement is no longer necessary.  But the facts of the case have not lessened the fears of many when they see the tell-tale marks of the disease.  Attempts have been made to give these unfairly treated citizens their human rights but ideas change very slowly.

Korea does a good job, however, in taking care of those who have the disease, which has been eradicated in Korea. But unfounded, fearful thinking is not easily eradicated. The word leprosy--named after the infecting bacterium (M. leprae) discovered by a Norwegian physician Gerhard Hansen--is not used now as often, which is a sign of  change. But problems still exist. When a person is known to have someone in the family who had the disease, it becomes difficult to speak about it and prospects of marriage are diminished.

 Fr. Yu is helping to change this thinking in the least confrontational and yet meaningful way possible: doing what many fear to do.

Why is Collaborative Ministry So Difficult?

Off and on over the years there have been attempts within the Church to incorporate within Church ministry different ways to do pastoral work: team ministry,  partnership, collaborative ministry a community vision for the work. The attempts in Korea do not get the publicity they seem to deserve, or maybe they may not have been as successful as contemplated when started.

Looking back at one of the attempts (its web site is no longer operating), one can see that the dream was to work on educational programs for team ministry-- a suggestion that apparently came from the  Synod  of the Seoul Diocese, but the  effort did not achieve the expected results.  Discussion of the topic also took place in our diocese but there was little interest.

Because the work a pastor is asked to do  is usually beyond his capabilities, this vision of working as a team becomes a dream for many. The basic goal of the team ministry (and wherever it's been tried, it follows the same pattern) is to work with others in coming to decisions, in the execution of those decisions, and getting diversified talent to help out.

The priest responsible for the  movement in Seoul expressed it as casting off the one-person approach to the work and working in solidarity in a horizontal manner with others to give life to the community.

He finds models of this approach from the incidents in the life of Moses (Exodus 4:13-16), where Moses was given the mission by God and then shared it with Arron. He mentions Joshua and Caleb and others, and also Jesus, who sent the disciples out by twos.

There are a number of things that have to be remembered, he reminds us:

1) A common vision of Church. All must have similar ideas and  values and be able to come to a consensus, otherwise it will not work.
2) The Church's Canon law has to be followed.
3) Respecting everyone as having  received the call of discipleship.
4) Getting  rid of all discrimination: gender, age, birthplace, education, etc.
5) Conscious of the vocation to the work in the  Church
6) A fair distribution of the work among those with different talents.
7) A mechanism of communication has to be established  and continued.
8) Educational programs for the group have to continue.

This is a big order, and possibly the reason success stories are few. There are also the synergistic  results that can be expected when we are able to sacrifice some of our autonomy; this is difficult, for the ego is not easily subdued. And yet, the Church would seem to be the ideal place for team ministry to thrive.

Changing the Rules for Fighting Between Husband and Wife

Fighting between husband and wife is a common ordeal that all couples have to contend with. Writing in Bible and Life  magazine, a father of eight children tells us what he has learned about fighting in a friendly way.

Most of the time when the fight is over, you have forgotten what you were fighting about. It is usually a trifle but at the time it seemed momentous. For example, his style of dealing with the children, he says, is to let them figure out what to do while the wife finds this  difficult, and was nervous about  having  the children looked after by others. He thought it would be a good idea to leave the children with the grandparents in the country for a month; his wife was adamantly against it. The grandparents, because of the work the couple were faced with, agreed with him, and wanted to have the children stay with them, but she continued to oppose it.

The writer had difficulty accepting his wife's feelings on the matter and, being angry, he became aware of the many critical things he wanted to say to her. When she entered the room, she asked him: "Your angry, aren't you?" He wanted to answer that he was, but instead, surprising himself,  answered:                                                      

"Dear, our parents are getting older and many things have changed. These strong positions we hold now were absent in the past. We will have to change the way we treat our parents." She replied, "What shall we do?" indicating she was open to discussing it.  He was surprised that he was able to answer his wife without anger, even though there had been a strong desire to do so.

The writer feels that he was being helped in keeping calm by remembering the lines from Rom. 8:26, "The Spirit too helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groaning that cannot be expressed in speech."

Before a possible fight, he says he doesn't have time for anything more than the words: "Holy Spirit help!"  Three little words but they helped  change shouting matches and  passionate confrontations into quiet discussions: listening to what his wife was saying, and saying what he had to say in a few words. The new way left him feeling purified, he said, like taking a shower.

He concluded that when they  fought, they were not seeing each others true self but the darkness within. He was mistaking that darkness for his wife.

He recently read that in Korea 9,000 couples marry daily and 3,000 divorce. If only they would take time to say a prayer before the inevitable fight, he believes there would be far fewer divorces. Bringing  Jesus into every discussion before there is a possibility of fighting was the wisdom he has gained from married life.                                                                               
            

Challenges to the Catholic Church in the World of Cyberspace

Writing in the Incheon  bulletin the priest responsible for public relations in a neighboring diocese discusses the world of the Internet. Anybody riding the subway can see the  changes that have come to society--everyone seems to have a phone, some smarter than others. As convenient as this is, not all is positive; though nobody can deny the change it is bringing to society.

First we had the printed media, then the electric-wave media, and now Internet  telecommunications. In this whirlpool of readily available information the Church's mission, as always, is to spread the gospel message.

The church experienced  acutely the importance of the media when Guttenberg's printing press came on the scene. Before the printing press, knowing the written word of scripture was a rare thing; all this changed and the world of the spiritual was never the same.

The printing press enabled Protestantism to spread quickly, as pamphlets and books spread the new ideas; and for the first time, many Christians could read the Bible for themselves.  The Catholic Church also used the medium to defend itself against the 'heretical ideas' of the Protestants. However, the Church was slow in using the new world of print in the way the culture of that time required. It did not fully appreciate the value of the new medium, and, as a result, the Church was severly wounded.

The advances in this area are not only technological but personal, by changing the way we perceive the world; our consciousness of what is real, therefore, tends to be different from that of the  past.  This has to be recognized, the priest says, in presenting  the word of God to a media-savvy world . The Church has to get involved in this new world  and adapt to the world of cyberspace. Precisely because the mission of the Church is to make known the word of God.