Changing Oneself

 Writing in his weekly column on spirituality, the columnist goes back to the time when, as a young religious working as the chaplain in a mental hospital, an incident at the hospital helped turn his life around.


The head male nurse came to him and asked if a bicycle could be provided for the patients. He told the head nurse he had recently received  two bicycles for patients in the process of leaving the hospital, and were outside in the yard.  The nurse responded: "Father, not that  kind of bicycle but the kind that can be used in the hospital."
 

I asked if it would be possible to use those bicycles in the hospital. "How can we use those bicycles in the hospital? he answered sharply. "I'm talking about the kind of bicycle that you use for exercise." Still not understanding, I then asked the nurse, "How about taking the bicycles and attaching them to  the wall of the hospital so that they can be used for exercise?" The nurse left, laughing.  It was only later that he realized the nurse was talking about training bikes used in health clubs.

He goes on to say that it seemed his head was even more confused than was the mental state of the patients he was counseling; he admits to being easily flustered by the demands of the new work. He thanks the patients for being a great consolation to him during those early years, during which he covered up his feelings of incompetence by pushing himself to appear as a responsible and capable person.
 
With the passage of time his relationship with the patients became closer.  He laughed and cried a lot listening to them. He heard about their struggles in regaining health, and watched their slow and graceful  manner of relating to others. They interacted with him without reservation, and they said Mass together. Seeing their simplicity, he reflected on his own bluster and uncontrollable human desires. Gradually, he felt the surface froth of his spirituality subside and finally disappear. The experience helped shed his impetuosity. He got over the desire to impress others, and began to have greater trust in others.
 
In the beginning of the work in the mental hospital, he felt he was there to help them, but on looking back on those years, he realizes they helped to heal him. He summed up his experiences by saying that when we give ourselves in earnest to help others, we are ultimately helping ourselves.

Why the Lack of Interest?

In the recent election for mayor of Seoul almost  49 percent voted, a large number compared to results from previous elections, but the priest-chairman of the  peace and justice committee of the diocese,  writing in the Catholic Times, would like to know why more are not voting. The answer, he says, apart from lack of interest and the distaste for the whole process, can be found in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.
 
From the Compendium: "The overcoming of cultural, juridical and social obstacles that often constitutes real barriers to the shared participation of citizens in the destiny of their communities calls for work in the areas of information and education. In this regard, all those attitudes that encourage  in citizens an inadequate or incorrect practice of participation or that cause widespread disaffection with everything connected with the sphere of social and political life are a source of concern and deserve careful consideration." (191)


"Among the obstacles that hinder the full exercise of the right to objectivity in information, special attention must be given to the phenomenon of the news media being controlled by just a few people or groups. This has dangerous effects for the entire democratic system when this phenomenon is accompanied by ever closer ties between governmental activity and the financial and information establishments." (414)

The priest-chairman  says we have to examine how objective, ethical and honest is the information we receive from the mass media, and that includes the religious media. Without objective, honest information we can't make the right decisions and the common good is harmed.

He reminds us of the time under the Japanese occupation when we were flooded with all kinds of propaganda, and again, not more than a few decades ago, when  a past government, using dubious information, swayed public opinion. Can any of us affirm, he asks, that even today we are not being swayed with misinformation?
 
How we face the crucial issues of life now and in the future will affect our dignity and the common good. This will not be easy. The issues are often too technical and complicated for us always to know the facts, and even to know whether the issues themselves are being honestly reported. Not infrequently the mass media is controlled by small groups that influence the way news is reported. Lack of honest news coverage may also occur when the media, apart from defending vested interests, is incapable of presenting objective, honest news, having lost touch with the perennial truths of life.
 
We are reduced, he maintains, to being passive, unquestioning consumers of the information we receive. And as passive consumers, we are opening the way for a few people and groups to take control and manipulate the politics, the finances, and the media of the country. This situation harms not only the efficient operation of our democratic institutions but works against human dignity and the common good.

The New Evangelization

New evangelization is a term we hear often, and often misunderstand. "The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith" will be the topic of discussion at the Bishops Synod next year. A sign that we have in a few years gone from using the words 'missionary work','evangelization' to 'new evangelization' a term that more accurately reflects our present concerns.

Pope John Paul II first used the term 'new evangelization' during a visit to Poland in 1979; it has been used often since then. The Peace Weekly has written up the instruction of the Seoul diocese on the subject, making it clear that it does not mean re-evangelizing, or merely going out to those who have not heard the Good News, but is a new way of evangelizing, and what this new way might mean for Korea.

We in the Church have all been exposed to the three ways of evangelizing: the re-evangelization of those who were once members of the Church and left, the evangelization of society, and the  evangelizing of those who do not yet know Christ. Pope John Paul by adding  new to  evangelization, the  essential message of the Gospel, asks that we preach the Gospel by the example of our lives, the Gospel message changing all facets of our lives, evangelizing ourselves as we work to evangelize others.
 
The article goes on to ask why is this necessary? And answers that in today's world it is getting harder to preach the Gospel, and that Christians are facing new circumstances in society, which requires not only a  new discernment but answers to the new questions in the light of the Gospel. In this new century, with the changing times, a new way of thinking is necessary. We as Christians have to read the signs of the times and respond in a new way. 

Concluding the article is a list of pastoral proposals for the new evangelizing approach:

              1) Begin with oneself

              2) Follow Jesus in the way of love

              3) Meet others with total sincerity

              4) Have a preferential option for the poor

              5) Encourage the search for justice

              6) Support the culture of life and respect our environment

              7) Fight against the culture of death

   

30 Years Teaching in the CCD Program

By Church law, all parishes are required to have CCD programs, which provide religious education for the children of the parish. CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) has a long history in the Church and depends for its successful operation on lay volunteers to teach its many programs.  Parishes have always had difficulty in getting volunteers for the programs; finding suitable candidates, says the Peace Weekly, is "like picking a star from the sky."

The Incheon diocese recently held a ceremony to thank those who have devoted themselves to this work over the years. Few have been in the program for three years, even fewer have been teaching for 10 years, and unique in the Incheon diocese was Sophia,  who has taught continually for 30 years. Sophia, now 54 years old, has been teaching for over half of her years in her parish CCD.
 
Baptized in 1981, only two years later she was asked to teach by the sisters of the parish. For many  reasons she did not go into the religious life, but always wanted to be a teacher. She manages her own art academy and teaches in the parish during weekends. Thoughts of marriage were put aside as something that was to be considered later.

Asked to divulge her secret for devoting so much time to volunteer teaching, she answered: "There is no secret; the teaching is God's mission to the likes of me. He gives me the grace for which I am thankful. I take pride that I can cooperate in the pastoral work that has brought me to this day."

After so many years of service, many would have passed on their work to others. But not Sophia. She works diligently, listening to her recorded sermons to improve them for the children at Mass. To improve her teaching methods she goes to seminars and programs conducted by the Protestants, and gets in touch with her students at least once a week by telephone or by text messaging. She also visits the neighboring schools to contact the students she's unable to reach by these methods.   

When her students graduate from high school and  come to her to offer to teach in the CCD program, she feels great pride and joy. The young people today, she says, because of work or preparing to find work, and tending to personal needs, find service to the Church by volunteering to teach catechism a great burden.

At frequent teachers' meeting, Sophia will often pray: "Lord, may I be convinced  that my compensation is not here in this world but with you in the next. May I on this earth make you known, and with the children I teach realize that one day we are destined to be with you in glory. Amen."

Korean Lay Missioners in Malawi

"At first they thought we were reckless, then considered crazy but happy crazies."  Francis and Sophia, recently profiled by the Peace Weekly, are a married couple working as missionaries in Malawi, Africa, one of the poorest countries in the world, and a country ravaged by the AIDS epidemic.

They are working with the Marianists in the Lusublio Orphan Care Project in the diocese of Mzuzu, where thousands of orphans live. The couple are presently involved in starting worker-managed farms that help feed the orphans and the poor. To date there are five such farms in operation, and they plan to put more farmland under cultivation soon.

They are planting crops on reclaimed wasteland; though they lack fertilizer and good seed, they have no lack of know-how. Francis has a back ground in farming and has taken college-level courses in horticulture. Their main crop is corn but also planted are rice, tomatoes, beans, and other vegetables, and using seeds brought back from Korea, cabbage and eggplants.
 
They have also started a Food  Bank, the idea coming from examples in their Korean history: when the harvest was poor, food was donated to the needy; and when the harvest was good, the food was returned to the Food Bank for others to take. They recently lent 100 sacks of food to 100 families, receiving back in due course 70 sacks. This approach is still new and will take some time before getting to a point of self-sufficiency.
 
In visiting homes, they found none that had food set aside for the next day. The Malawians are fortunate to have one meal a day, which is one reason life expediency is less than 40 years, and the main reason Francis and Sophia wanted to begin the Food Bank.

Korea is no longer a receiver of aid, but, as the lives of Francis and Sophia have demonstrated, is now a  giver of aid. The Korean Church is also no longer in need of missioners but is sending money and missioners to other parts of the world. These missioners are no longer just priests and religious; lay people are also very much involved.
 
Both Francis and Sophia did not entertain the thought of becoming missioners until recently. It was in 2005 that they decided to leave the typical average life and go to the missions. They finished the two-year course at the Suwon seminary, and in 2008 left for Africa, leaving behind their two sons, who were working their way through college with part-time jobs supplementing the revenue from their scholarships.
 
In Malawi, life is far from easy. Even though Francis and Sophia have to deal with the dry and raining seasons, with mosquitoes, lice and bedbugs, and the endemic diseases of the country, they are extremely happy. When the time comes, Francis wants to be buried in Malawi; Sophia says she doesn't want to be a burden to their friends in Malawi and wants to return to Korea. Francis answers that God will make the decision.                                                                                                                     

Foreigners in Religious Dialogue

Recently, a group of foreign religious leaders got together to discuss religious and cultural issues in Korea. The group of more than 10 included an Italian Catholic priest, a German Lutheran minister, a Muslim missionary from Turkey, a Buddhist monk from India, and a Won Buddhist Russian academic.
 
The Kyunghyang newspaper reported on the meeting, the first of its kind, sponsored by the Korea Dialogue Academy.

The Catholic priest, living in Korea as a missionary for over 20 years, said he felt that in religious matters the proper forms are more important than the  contents. He went on to say that Koreans change religions easily: Catholic to Protestant, Protestant to Catholic, Buddhist to Catholic, Catholic to Buddhist.  From the outside it appears that all is harmonious in the religious world. However, that is not the case, and can be easily seen in the context of the family, especially concerning marriages and family rites. There is also pressure at times to convert to or from a religion by family members. And the dialogue between religions can sometimes by contentious, and to avoid this possibility there is often fear of  going too deeply into any meaningful discussion.
 
The Russian Won Buddhist academic had a counter argument, believing that changing one's religion is a positive development. The frequent changing of religions gives support, he said, to the unimportance of dogma in today's society, and points to the current vitality of religion. On the other hand, the Muslim   missionary said that Muslim Turks will say they are, first, believers of Islam and then Turks, second. Obviously, their religion is not taken lightly.
 
The Buddhist from India said that a novice monk in India is required to give up all material possessions, while in Korea a monk takes his money with him;  money in Korea, he said, is the second Buddha. The reason is that the welfare of Buddhist monks in Korea is very poor. They have to take care of their hospital expenses and even buy their clothing, which requires at times having to work part-time.

A Polish sister counseling foreign workers said the workers are most frequently asked why they came to Korea, adding that the Korean like to make distinctions.  A Nepalese  Won Buddhist mentioned how a foreign woman worker was refused entrance to a bathhouse. She also criticized the discrimination towards the foreign workers in Korea.
 
The group meeting of foreign religious leaders in Korea was praised for providing a forum where cultural and religious issues could be discussed freely. It was a meeting that would be difficult to find in other countries. A priest from  Kwangju said the discussion took place in a peaceful atmosphere.  The missionary from Turkey said he disagrees with those who say Islam is not open to dialogue, maintaining that Islam is a religion that prides itself on its openness.
 
There is in formal meetings of religions a desire not to offend, which makes the dialogue very self-conscious. Easier than dialoguing about religion is discussing cultural differences This first attempt to take up religious issues, however, is a sign that many want to see more in-depth discussions about the religious differences that separate us. More understanding of these differences will help to break down some of the walls that now separate us in this crucial area of life, enabling the human family to move closer together.                                                                                                                                             

Culture Helped Catholicism to Grow

At the beginning of Catholicism in Korea, with the many difficulties that the new religion encountered and with the lack of leaders, it is surprising to learn that it was able to grow and spread throughout the country as quickly as it did. One important reason why this happened was given by the Peace Weekly, in its latest article in their series on Catholicism and other religions, as it discussed the relationship of 'Jeonggamrok' and Catholicism.

Jeonggamrok, a book of prophecy, whose author and date of publication are unknown, is a mixture of divination, including geomancy, Chinese Philosophy and Taoism. It has come down from the past in many versions, and has had many followers, exerting an immense influence on the intelligentsia, who were disillusioned with the ruling elite, as well as on the lower classes. During the  last years of the Jeosun Dynasty, the Jeonggamrok was studied and debated often by the anti-establishment movement.

These prophecies also continued to influence society at the end of the Jeoson Dynasty, during the Japanese occupation, the independence movement, and into modern times. There were  ten places in Korea, named in the prophetic writings, that were considered safe havens from hunger and wars; and not a few people would  migrate to these areas, an indication of how influential the book had become.

Comparing the Jeonggamrok and Catholicism, the Peace Weekly notes huge differences. Jeonggamrok is  fragmentary, non-systematic and desultory, and yet it had a big influence on religion and politics, and prompted many to band together in secret societies that often planned insurrections.

During the last years of the Joseon Dynasty, the Jeonggamrok prophecies for the future began spreading throughout the country. At the same time Catholicism was also reaching a wide audience so they couldn't help  but influence each other. There are many within the Church who see this mixing of two ways of seeing the future as helping to spread Catholicism, even during the times of persecution. When one remembers that Catholicism was an import from outside the country, it helps to explain how it was able to put down roots so quickly in the  culture.

Why this book led to the acceptance of Catholicism in the country is not difficult to understand. We know that for many years Catholicism had no priests to lead the Christians. Their  introduction to Catholicism was not systematically possible, and those that entered were helped  by the hope that they found in the Jeonggamrok, even though much of this would be contrary to Catholic teaching.

Also helpful in the spread of Catholicism was the Nipokjeun, a book of prophecies similar to the Jeonggamrok, that circulated among members of the Catholic Church. Written in 1846, the book is believed to be the words of Yi Byok, John the Baptist, (1754-1785) who appeared in a dream to the author of the book. Yi Byok was a  leader in  the early church, and in the book he explains the principles of creation, why the first parents were expelled from paradise, and the basic Catholic teaching. He also points  out what he considers to be the errors of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism; and criticizes idolatry and the rites for parents, and directs us to  the future world. The  writer concludes that  the Nipokjeun was  the Catholic Jeonggamrok.