Koinonia (Fellowship)

Five  words from Scripture are sometimes heard in their Greek form, all referring to what a community of Christians should be doing: didache (teaching), diakonia (service), liturgia (worship), kerygma (proclamation) and koinonia (fellowship). All are important, but the one that needs to be stressed today is koinonia.

The need to encourage more fellowship is especially important today because our communities are larger and pastors are busier, and the individual tends to get lost as a nameless member of a congregation with few spiritual ties to other members of the community. 

In preparation for the Bishops Synod, starting on October 7th, the Catholic Church of Korea has emphasized the need to focus attention more on the internal life of the church. Many Catholics believe that the main goal of religion is to bring peace into our lives. Many articles have alluded to this belief, which suggests that the catechizing has not been successful. Although peace is something we all desire, for a Christian, it should not be the goal of life; peace is a by-product of doing God's will, which comes about naturally from a dying to ourselves so as to be born anew. If, instead, the motivation of the Christian remains peace of mind all else is of little interest and the essentials of Christianity will be missing. It can become a selfish pursuit and, ironically, the more pursued the less achieved.

The problem with making peace of mind the goal of Christianity is that Christianity then becomes an individualized pursuit, each person searching for his or her own personal fulfillment without feeling the need to connect with other members of the community: a loss of fellowship, of communication, of sharing that will ultimately bring about the loss of community. 
 
Loss of community brings with it a loss of faith-sharing among our Christians, which the Church has worked hard in developing over the years, but is conspicuously absent in the life of many Christians today. In the past all Christians would come before the priest as individuals or as a family two times a year, once before Easter and again before Christmas. The process demanded coming to the church and relating with others and the priest, in order to help the Christians to focus on the community rather than on themselves. They were asked to reflect on their lives as Christians. This pastoral approach, though it has been very successful in the past, is now no longer possible.

There are many suggestions in the Catholic papers and magazines on how to  deal  with the growth of the parishes and the lack of maturity among many of the Christians, which has worked against encouraging more community life. Jesus, when he selected his disciples, did not see them as fully formed but saw what they could become with the graces given and accepted. Koinonia, as experienced in community, can help a great deal in preparing the proper environment to enhance Christian growth, opening them even more to the graces God continues to bestow on us.

Web Page for Pyongyang Diocese

Maryknoll priests and brothers  who worked in North Korea have all died. They would have enjoyed reading the web page recently inaugurated and seeing the pictures of the Pyongyang diocese they knew so well before the Korea War. This was the diocese that was given to Maryknoll by the Paris Foreign Mission Society in 1927 when it was separated from Seoul.

The first prefect apostolic to Korea when it was united  was Fr. Patrick Byrne, who was later made a bishop and died in the forced death march to North Korea in 1950.  He arrived in Seoul in 1949 and was arrested, July 1950, by the Communists after they invaded South Korea.  There are still many Korean priests who remember the history of the diocese and who took the place of the Maryknollers after the repatriation of the Americans at the beginning of the Second World War. 

After the Korean War, many Maryknollers from the North returned to the South to work, as  did the Korean priests who were not kidnapped and killed.
Last year at a meeting of the Seoul diocesan priests, it was decided to create a website like all the other diocesan sites, which finally went online this past month. For those interested :(http://py.catholic.or.kr)

At the inauguration of the website, the archbishop of Seoul said that only a spark remained of what was remembered from the N. Korean experience. The  surviving clergy from the Pyongyang diocese are now working in other dioceses in the South. Because of their advanced age, they felt a need to start a website similar to those of the other dioceses so the memories will not fade.

However, the reason for the website is not only to remember the  good days of the past, said the archbishop, but to keep in mind that in God's good time there will be a rebirth of the diocese, which is the hope of those entertaining this dream. There are now 16 seminarians studying in the Inchon diocesan seminary for that eventuality.
 
This year is the 85th year since the founding of the diocese of Pyongyang. It is also the 80th year of the formation of the Perpetual Help Sisters, the first Korean congregation.

When the diocese was turned over to the Korean clergy, there  were 19 parishes, 106 mission stations and 26,400 Catholics in the diocese; 57,000 Catholics in the North were  31.8 percent of the total number of Catholics in the whole of Korea. In 1948, with the ascendency of communism, difficulties began and many of the clergy and  religious were kidnapped and their whereabouts unknown.
 
The website contains a brief history, pictures of the ordinaries, the churches built, biographies of some who died at the hands of the communists, and a bulletin board. It is hoped that the website will stir interest among the Catholics who were parishioners in the different parishes of the Pyongyang diocese and had to leave when the war began. The website is an ongoing endeavor, which looks forward to the participation of many who will help to fill in the empty spaces.

Door of Faith--New Beginning

Today, Oct. 11, begins the Year of Faith.  Here in Korea they will begin the celebration this coming Sunday and continue on to next year's feast of Christ the King. Some dioceses have given their parishes  program guidelines in preparation for the year.

The Pope has expressed the hope that the  Holy Year be a time for us to meet Christ, see the beauty of faith, and increase our interest in the Church. Put simply, a renewal of our faith life. The reason for the Year of Faith is to help resolve the crisis that Christians are now facing. The religious problems of Europe and South America are serious. The traditional ways of thinking and behaving are being eroded by our encounter with secularism and relativism, and God is forgotten.

Here in Korea, says the Peace Weekly editorial, we are not free from the elements that are changing the religious environment of the West. We also are seeing changes in the behavior of our Christians. The desire for living the prophetic role in life is greatly diminished. Some would like to blame it on the pluralism of society, but the editorial believes that our Gospel values have been weakened.

To overcome this crisis in our lives, we have to experience the meeting of Jesus and the joy from this meeting. Without this experience and joy, our attempts to be a light to the world will be only a noisy gong. The Pope is asking us to become reacquainted with what we believe and to give life to this belief.  It is hoped that we will look deeply at our faith life, which has a direct relationship to the renewal of the Church, and we can't do this with one-time programs and events.

The editorial hopes that we will all become familiar with the apostolic letter, "Door of Faith." and make it part of our concern during this year. We are being asked to change the way we look upon what we  believe by proclaiming the Christian message with a renewed  passion and a new expression.

The aspirations of many is that the Year of Faith will be for the Korean Catholic the beginning of a renewed faith life. 

Helps in Fostering Eye Level Communication

Walking the night streets  of Seoul up until a few years ago, women had little  to fear, today even men walking in some of the alleys have need to be concerned.  Writing in the Kyeongyang magazine a professor emeritus feels it is a breakdown of communication, no community. TV, the internet the social network has taken its place, and we have become hermits. The extended family has disappeared, and we are living isolated from others, satisfied to communicate by machines in the privacy of our rooms. And crime, he wants us to ponder, the kind that is even difficult to speak about is one of  the fall-outs from the breakdown  of communication. 

In the West, the individual is center stage while in East Asia, it is the "we" that is important: relationships and community. These are values from our culture. Our relationship and communication are not vertical but horizontal. Plurality, differences, tolerance, embracing, understanding, coexistence, win-win,  concern, these are our cultural  values. The problems that we are facing in society can be seen as this failure in  communication.

Because one has lived longer,  or has a better education,  or has more of this world's goods does  not give them the right to  lead  and  attempt to change things to meet their own expectations. This is not what we mean by communication. This kind of vertical  relationship strictly speaking  is using force and commands   to communicate. What we need is eye level communication not enlightening communication.

The writer introduces us to Cardinal Kim as an example of a communicator for our times. He wanted to be food  and a fool and a vessel for others. In talking to others, he lowered himself to the lowest possible level to initiate his relationship with the other. There are three words that the professor uses to describe the Cardinal's approach to others: food, being a fool and a container. 

In Korean when  a person is beneath taking notice the expression, he or she is our food can be heard. The Cardinal had this idea of being food for others. A container does carry food but also can be a receptacle  for night soil.  When speaking to another if we do not have an authenticity on both sides with  eye level communication where words and  thinking are  the same we will not have heart to heart dialogue. 

Without conversation, it  is impossible  to live. In the family without dialog, we have a rupture. This is true for the teacher and student, priest and Christians,  politicians and people. Without dialogue, it is impossible  for a society to subsist.

 In conclusion, the professor reminds us of the words of the Cardinal not to blame the darkness but to be a light to the world. If we are the first to light the candle, then others will join us one by one until we have thousands doing the same. This will gradually permeate society, and we will be on the way to  realize our dreams.             

Winners and Losers in Society

Increasingly, crimes in recent years are the kind we don't like to talk about, but a psychologist has recently done just that in the Bible & Life magazine. He discusses what he believes is involved in these horrible, indiscriminate killings.

Traditionally, crimes of anger have been understood as the result of a personal  grudge against another, with the intention of keeping the crime as private as possible. However, the crimes the writer brings to our attention are the kind that the perpetrator wants everyone to know about. Since the victims are randomly chosen and the motivation is not clear, it creates a climate of fear throughout society. Those who have studied these cases believe these crimes are motivated by a deep-seated anger directed toward society and the world in general.

Why do some people have so much hate? According to the psychologist, it's because of the recurrent failure and frustration they have experienced in life, perhaps stemming from the importance placed on winning in our competitive society. And it does not involve achieving any one particular goal; winning in whatever competition one is in, it is believed, will determine whether we succeed or fail in life. We also fear to lose because of the embarrassment of not measuring up to expectations, our own and that of others, knowing that everyone close to them will know, and that their chances of having a successful career will be diminished.
 
He tells us that on average, 210 students drop out of school daily, and 41 kill themselves every day. An obvious sign, he says, that something is wrong in society and that steps need to be taken to correct the situation. The way to do this is not going to be easy, and may not be acceptable to those who have the ability to adapt to this unhealthy system. But to label as losers those who can't adapt, he says, is not the proper way of seeing the problem.
 
Those who are able to adapt to the system we have created  are not necessarily the healthy ones, nor are those who have problems with what we have created necessarily the unhealthy ones. Rather, all  should not only strive for good scores but enjoy the pursuit of learning, focusing on the process more than the results of the competition.

In every competitive society there are the so-called winners and losers. Though winners are on top of the competitive ladder, and the losers at the bottom, they do have something in common: both have their eyes on what others are doing to succeed, and on societal expectations. Winning, one feels superior; losing, the other feels inferior. But both fail to understand the nature of true happiness.

The anger that many feel, if not addressed by society, has the possibility of finding an outlet in ways that are not healthy. The situation is not easily dealt with since many often do not know the reason for their explosive anger, which has slowly built up over the years.  And the reason for this, the psychologist says, is that they have accepted the rules of a dysfunctional game.  They are not conscious that they have accepted these so-called rules of life. This perception of reality, received from parents, school, the media, and friends, these rules have become part of who they think they are. Who is responsible for this kind of thinking, unknowingly accepted by many? All of us.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

A Different Way of Feeding the World.

For 40 years, his food each day was only one meal and his transportation only walking. And yet he  lived to be 91. He slept at night on a plank which one day would be at the bottom of his casket. He felt he was one with the universe. The Kyeongyang Catholic magazine gives us some thoughts on  Yu Yeong Mo 1890-1981,  by a professor emeritus, head of a research institute. Yu, also called Taksok, was searching for a way everyone could easily follow in living together in peace. It all depended, he believed, on our habits of eating and reproduction.

Jesus played a prominent role in his life and was an important motivating influence on his thought. Though baptized as a Protestant, he had his own understanding of Christianity. The professor says that if we copied his way of living, the problems of the  21st century would be solved. Even though we may not  agree with Taksok, the professor says he can teach us something worth knowing.

In Korean, the word for 'life' has not only the biological meaning it has in many other languages, but also the metaphysical meaning of the breath of life that comes from God. For Taksok, giving up the biological understanding of eating and reproduction is required if we are to follow God's understanding. The body is born to die, the ego must die for the spirit to live.

The Word of God plays a prominent role in Taksok's thinking,  but skipping over many of his ideas let us focus on one of the most upsetting. For him, whenever we eat, we are participating in a funeral rite. The following explanation sums up his surprising words: the mouth is a tomb since we are putting living remains into our mouth. Though there is of course a difference between animal and plant life, they are all living matter.

For us to eat, he says, other living matter has to die. So everyone of our meals can be considered a funeral for the matter being eaten is or was alive, and is the reason he reduced his meals to one a day. In place of the other two meals typically consumed,  he would say, "I'm eating from the flesh of my body, and offering it up in sacrifice." For Taksok, this was the zenith of prayer.

Rice, for Koreans, is the sacrificial offering. St. Paul said that our bodies are temples of God. Those that understand this have the right understanding of what eating means. What I eat, I'm offering up to God. Without this thinking, according to Taksok, whenever we eat, we are stealing. The act of eating itself is only possible because of God's grace and the abundance of nature and the numberless workers who produce and distribute that abundance to all of us. We should reflect on this, says the professor, every time we eat.

If we were to accept Taksok's intriguing idea that eating is a participation in a funeral and a sacrifice, feeding 7 billion inhabitants of the world would not be such a huge problem. The solution might at least begin by reducing the size of our bodies by less feeding of the body. Tightening the belt surrounding our greed, he says, is the way to accomplish the goal, which would lead naturally to more sharing and serving of others.

Experiencing God

 

Is there a God? A young man writing in the Kyeongyang Magazine has wrestled with this question for some time, and now discusses what effects it has had on his life. It's a question, he says, that is not freely expressed with family and friends. Those who have accepted belief in God are not the one's you go to for help in answering this question. For him, searching for the answer was to remain a secret that was not a secret.

As a child he enjoyed playing in the parish churchyard with his friends. Later, many of his friends moved to the city, and his own family moved to a nearby city that was close enough to his parish church to continue going to Mass. But he did not go because he wanted to; he went because he was forced to go. Gradually, pumped up with his school learning, he had more doubts about what was written in the Scriptures, but through it all he kept asking the same troubling question, Is there a God?

He continued the search for God even though he admitted to not being properly qualified to make the search, and in fact did finally give up the attempt. But he didn't miss Mass even though his mother was the reason for attending. He  enjoyed the sermons and in college was involved in Catholic groups. It was during this time that he came across Fr. Cha's book, which answered the questions of an industrialist concerning God, religion, and humanity. The book helped him find a solution to his quest.

The passage that was especially meaningful to him: "When a question comes to mind with persistent seriousness, one should search for the answer. When even minor problems come to mind, we may have difficulty sleeping. Why are we not more concerned about the serious problems of life, like how and why we got to be here. When faced with these important questions, we often act as if we are looking at a far-off mountain with our hands  behind our back. To have doubts is not the problem, but to have doubts and not search for answers is a serious problem."

Another line from the book that meant a great deal to him: "God is not an existence to be proven but an existence to be experienced." Until he came across that line, he had been trying to understand God with his head and not working to experience him with his whole being. "To go to the writings of the wise is in itself wisdom," he quotes from the book.

Motivated by what he read in Fr. Cha's book, he began reading the Scriptures, philosophy and theology books, and prayed. After many months, he came to a feeling of God's love, which ultimately moved him to enter the seminary. He doesn't know what the future has in store for him, but he no longer fears or worries about it. He lives sustained by hope and peace, because he found God's will for himself.