Marriages made in Heaven

"Do you want to have a holy family? Then make this retreat" was the headline of a Peace Weekly article discussing retreats intended specifically for those contemplating marriages in the future. These retreats are the creation of a retired priest for those who would like to have a spouse with the same religious faith.

The number of parents in Korea who would like to have their children marry someone of the same faith is not small. However, the chance of this happening is small. Last year over 60 percent of Catholic marriages were not with Catholics. In our society it is not easy for Catholics to meet other Catholics of marriageable age.
 
 For over thirty years the retired priest, who heads the happy marriage movement in his diocese, has thought of bringing Catholic young people of marriageable age together. He feels this will reduce the number of mixed marriages, tepids, and divorces. The first retreat was at the end of last month.

"Marriages Made In Heaven" is the title of the retreats. The first day is intended to deepen the faith life of the retreatants and remind them of the happiness of the life of faith and to experience its grace; the retreatants do not meet each other on this first day.
 
In the morning of the second day, they meet as a group. A period of recreation allows the retreatants to become familiar with each other without pressure and in a pleasant, comfortable atmosphere. In the afternoon, they meet each other individually for a period of 30 minutes; depending on how the communication goes it may be longer or shorter.
 
15 young men and 15 women make the retreat, and each will have the opportunity to talk with each other concerning possible marriage;  this continues to late evening. On the last day, there is the parting Eucharist for the participants. At the end of the Mass an address book of all the participants is given to each. There is no pairing off during the retreat, but they are encouraged to do so after the retreat ends.
 
The priest offers to say the wedding Mass, and to keep in contact yearly and provide, when appropriate, a retreat for the newly weds. He feels this is quite different from the match-making enterprises that try to match a person's  education, employment and wealth as the basis for the marriage. He plans to have four retreats a year for those over 25 years old. The first retreat will be free.  
 
Hopefully, we will see some good results from this first attempt at having young people meet in a spiritually enhanced atmosphere before making a commitment to 'something made in heaven.'   

Why Me?

Why me?" A question many ask. A priest writing in the pastoral diary column of the Peace Weekly reflects on the same question when he received a new assignment recently. After studying abroad and returning home to teach in the seminary for seven years, he was surprised to learn he had been assigned to a parish that requires a new building.
 
The parish is called the 'flour parish?' for it was built in 1954 with the donations from the American military. (After the Korean War the United States sent much aid to Korea and a great deal of that was wheat flour) 

Since there is now a danger of it collapsing, he was assigned as pastor and has the job to rebuild. Because it was his first parish he had difficulty in understanding why someone with no experience as a pastor should be given the job. Looking back he has no trouble now with the assignment but at first there was a conflict between obedience and wanting to refuse. His plans now had to be put aside.  

While teaching in the seminary, he was going to a university on his own time and expense. Many had difficulty in understanding why a priest would want to study secular knowledge?  When he entered the course of studies for a doctorate in humanities, although there are treasures in the Catholic tradition, he had decided he wanted to speak to people in language they would readily understand; he felt that the language of the Church was not reaching many. They either were not interested or didn't care to listen.
 
 To deal with this situation he feels the Church has to learn a more secular language, the language of psychology, sociology, philosophy, and many others. He wants to speak about the treasures that were given to him by Jesus by expressing them in the 'language of the world,' and began by studying the language of religious psychology, having already studied contemporary spirituality in Canada. How was one to speak about spirituality to the world in the language of postmodernism? This was to be his dissertation.He finished the course for the doctorate,and passed the exam for his dissertation, the first proposal of his thesis being accepted. When he was assigned to the new parish, all this had to be given up. He was not able to do both.

So what was all this trouble worth? The formation for the priesthood is not only done by study and counseling, he says, but also by the example of other priests. This indirect influence should not be downplayed. He has shown the seminarians that study is something you do all your life, and he is happy to have given that message. He has given up his personal plans and will now devote all his attention to building the new church.

God in his designs, without any consultation, changes plans, and one is content to seek meaning in the new.

Maryknoll in North Korea

The Catholic Times introduces us to the beginning of Maryknoll's work in Korea in remembrance of Maryknoll's 100th anniversary. Fr. James Anthony Walsh, superior general of Maryknoll, came to Korea in 1916 to ask Bishop Mutel of Seoul for a place to work in Korea. They both agreed that Maryknoll would take the Province of Pyongan, where both the Paris Foreign Missionary Society and the American Protestant missionaries were working.
 

The missionary work in the North was not doing as well as in the southern three provinces. The Paris Foreign missioners had five parishes and 50 mission stations in Pyongan, with  three French and two Korean priests responsible for the work. Permission came from Rome to begin the work in 1922 and the first Maryknoll  local superior was Fr. Patrick Byrne.

In the same year two other Maryknollers came, which was the start of a new beginning for the Church in Korea. Up to that time only missioners from Europe were working in Korea, and many Koreans, knowing only the American Protestant  missioners, were surprised to learn there were also Catholics in America, thinking that Catholicism was a French religion and Protestantism an American religion.  In 1924, more priests and six Maryknoll sisters joined the original group of Maryknollers.

The group started a dispensary and clinic and a language school to teach Korean to the missioners.The number of Catholics soon rose to 5000 in the Pyongan province. In 1927 it was made a prefecture, with Fr.Byrne as the first Prefect Apostolic. When it was decided to move the headquarters from Siniju to Pyongyang,

Fr. Byrne was elected Vicar General of the Society and had to return to the United States. Fr. Morris then became the second ordinary of the prefecture. During his tenure, there were 36 missioners, 19 parishes, 134 mission stations and a total of 17,738 Catholics. At the beginning of the prefecture there had been only three seminarians. In 1932 Fr. Morris began the community of the Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the first Korean native community.

It was during this time that Maryknoll began a new way of doing mission work, believing that to advance the work it was necessary to involve lay people. They had workshops for training youth leaders and catechists. They also began publishing a magazine which, after many name changes, was finally called Catholic Chosun; its main focus was to educate its readers about Catholicism until it was forced to close by the Japanese in 1938.

Maryknoll  Korea was also making known the work of the missions to the American Catholics. The article ends by offering thanks to the Maryknoll Society, especially during the Japanese occupation, for filling the vacuum in the history of the Korean Catholic Church.

Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church

Of the world's 7 billion people one out of three are Christians, and one out of ten Christians are Orthodox Christians, about 250 million. In Korea there are less than 3000 Orthodox Christians so their way of life is not well-known. The Peace Weekly, in its series on Catholicism and other religions in Korea, profiles Christian Orthodoxy this week. Though their number is small in Korea, Orthodoxy is an  important part of Church history.

With the travels of St. Paul, the Gospel spread to four large areas around the Mediterranean Sea: Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, and later Constantinople, when the Holy Roman Empire moved its capital there from Rome. These became the 5 Patriarchates.

In 381, this was the accepted make up of the Church, but because of the different languages used in the liturgy, the disagreements concerning the use of images, and the political conflicts, the divisions between the East and West became more pronounced, and in 1053 Rome and Constantinople excommunicated each other, which led to the formal split.

Constantinople soon began to evangelize the Slav population: Bulgaria in 864; the Russian Kiev in 988; Serbia in 1220; but when Constantinople in 1453  fell to Islam, Russian Orthodoxy became independent of  Constantinople and became the third 'Rome'. In Orthodoxy, the Patriarch of Constantinople has the highest dignity but all patriarchs are considered equal.  Orthodoxy in Korea is part of Greek Orthodoxy and is affiliated with the province in New Zealand.

Orthodoxy differs from Catholicism in several main areas: There are 3 more books in the Old Testament than in the Catholic Old Testament. They do not use the word Trinity but the trinitarian meaning is accepted. They do not teach the existence of purgatory but acknowledge the possibility. They make the sign of the cross somewhat differently. At baptism they have a threefold immersion and the priest who gives baptism immediately gives Confirmation and the Eucharist, under both forms, even to babies. They do not use the confessional for the sacrament of Penance, and they follow the Julian calendar, which makes their dates for Easter and Christmas different. They do not use statues but use icons on flat surfaces, which are very important to their cultural way of praying and decorating their Churches.
 
The writer feels there is good  reason for Roman Catholics to be interested in the Greek Church Fathers and the spirituality of Orthodoxy. Although the similarities are many, the differences are important and deserve to be studied. The hope of Roman Catholicism is that in time and with a lot of good will, we will see the two again united.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Growing Old Gracefully in a Difficult Society

The guest columnist in the Catholic Times recounts the story two American professors who had a bet with each other on estimating the average age of those living in the year 2150. One said it will be over 150; the other said no one will reach 130. They both put money in a special savings account that would go to the winner's grandchildren in the year 2150.
 
Those who study the subject of longevity believe that in the future the average age will exceed 80, which we are now approaching in Korea. We now have over 2000 centenarians. The writer feels that it is not unreasonable to expect the young of today to reach the average age of 100.
 
Living longer, is it a blessing or not? he asks. Living to be 100 is a blessing if preparations have been made so the advanced years can be enjoyed; otherwise, he feels it can be quite the opposite. Korea will enter a super-aging society by 2030, which means that one out of four will be over 65. For those who enter this period with dignity and grace it will not seem long, but for many the situation will not be bright. For the poor, sick, alienated and lonely these years will be difficult, requiring much effort if their situation is not to be intolerable.
 
The columnist compares Korea with the West, where 2 out of 3 retirees  see it as a time of freedom and happiness. In Korea, it is only 1 out of 3 that see it that way; for the rest, it is a time of money problems, fear and loneliness. For one to have a high quality of life in retirement not only money and health are necessary but leisure time, something considered worthwhile to do, and mental maturity.

For a person to live without anxiety, the columnist believes there are three necessities: tranquility at night, tranquility during the winter, and tranquility in old age. There needs to be, he says, more organizational thinking on how to use time well in retirement.
 
The columnist thinks the Church should take notice of this and get involved with the elderly in society. Society will have to find ways to deal with their failing health, inadequate finances, their often crippling loneliness in order to help them adjust to a society that pays little attention to their needs. These common problems experienced by most of our elderly are what societal welfare programs will have to consider. The Church can help with spiritual maturity and loneliness issues.

Jesus, he concludes, gave us a very explicit field to work with in service to society: the hungry, the thirsty, those to be clothed, the sick, those in prison--and now we can add another, the lonely old people of society.

Korean Office of the Dead

In Korea when one enters a large  funeral home,  you have many grieving families in their own rooms greeting the mourners. The Desk columnist of the  Catholic Times tells us it is easy to find the  Catholics because of their  singing the prayers for  the dead--'yeon do'.

November is the month of the  liturgical year in which we remember the dead: the  last month before the new year of Advent. Catholics during this month will have the occasion of  remembering the souls in purgatory by reciting the 'yeon do' in groups, according to their traditional melody and rhythm. A large group would be divided into two 'choirs' that alternate  with the responses.  It is something only seen in Korea.

The meaning of the two words  'yeon do' means prayer for the souls in purgatory. The columnist tells us that many think that the 'yeon-do' is a translation from prayers of the Western Church, but this is not correct. Those who have made a study of the issue say it was part of the early Korean  Church. Prayers of the Church were set to their own music and in a special order by the Korean ancestors in the faith.

The 'yeon do' is a very important part of the Catholic rites for  the dead. Since in the beginning Catholics did not follow the ordinary Korean rites for the dead the 'yeon do' helped to take the place of the traditional rites. After religious freedom was declared the purgatorial societies had a big role in helping  the grieving families.  After the Korea War with the introduction of  the Legion of Mary they also played an important role in helping the mourning families.  It is well known that this help to the grieving families was  instrumental in spreading Catholicism.

There are many who have been moved greatly by the response of the Catholics in  the help given the  families when someone has died. With the 'yeon do' and the service to the bereaving families this has moved many to see Catholicism in a different light. 

To show their respect for the dead, which many in society thought was missing from Catholicism, and one of the reasons for the persecutions, the Catholic ancestors devised the praying of the 'yeon do' for the deceased which in later times became a means of spreading the faith. This gives us plenty of matter for thought.


                                                                           

The Meaning of Prayer

The Catholic Times has selected the author of the Introduction to St. John of the Cross for recognition. The author has a doctorate in Spirituality, and besides teaching in the seminary is also the  pastor of a parish.

In an interview with the Catholic Times, the author said, " In the process of imitating Christ the  obstacles we face are personal faults, desires, attachments, the capital sins. Spirituality is detaching ourselves from these obstacles. We have to discern when and how we do this. We use the Scriptures and  Church teaching to achieve this goal.  Our Catholics have read the Scriptures with their heads, and now it is time," he stressed, "to examine how the words are to change our lives.  St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross show us how this is to be done."

The study of spirituality has not been a strong point of the Korean Church. The theologians of mystical theology talk about our feelings about God and those who have not experienced contemplative prayer find their words difficult to understand. These theologians are not only telling us how to approach God but how to get rid of everything that is preventing this union: when we go deep into meditation and rid ourselves of all desires, we can experience God. God gives us a taste, so to speak, for something more, a taste for extra- sensory phenomenon.

The author introduces us to a case in Korea concerning a woman who was said to have experienced  extraordinary phenomenon.  Most know that what she maintained was incorrect but few know why, this being the work of the mystical theologians.

To understand the mistaken notions about prayer and meditation, it is necessary for Christians to read and understand the books of these mystical theologians. 

Prayer, he concludes, "Is the changing of myself. However, many Christians believe that it is pestering God to do what they want. Before they despair in dealing with God, they should check to see if they have the correct understanding of prayer. The more I pray correctly the more I will be imitating Jesus and become like him."