Helping Others to be Renewed (Rothem)

The House of Rothem, a diocesan home for girls who are living in unhealthy conditions, was written up recently by the Peace Weekly. Several stories told by the girls living at the home were highlighted. Angela, 18 years old, noticed that her hair was turning white, that she was having no menstrual periods, and that her breasts continued to grow, which she found strange. She never thought what she saw at the movies would happen to her.

 

The girl, said the journalist on meeting her, looked much younger than her age. Her skin was white and dry. She had been raped and became pregnant, but she  couldn't see any sadness in her appearance. Relating and sharing with those who have gone through the same ordeal, and receiving the help of professional therapists, gave her strength. The new school she was attending made a big difference, she said. 

 

After the baby was born she did get a chance to hug the baby but shortly after it was taken to an adoption home. Angela is now busy studying and wants to be prepared to some day meet her child again.

 

Another girl, Sophia, wanted to go to a place that nobody knew about, so she became a Rothemi girl. Her family condition was not good, and so she depended too much on her boyfriend for help. When she said to come, he came, and to go, he went. When he put his hand on her, she did not push him off, and what was undesirable happened. Now her biggest fear was that what happened would be known. However, what was feared happened quickly. The whole school soon knew, which made staying in school impossible. The lies that her boyfriend had spread made her decision to leave everything behind and go to Rothem easy. Meeting other girls who were enduring the same pain gave her new reasons for living.

She was going into third-year middle school and decided to make plans to go to a special high school where cooking would be taught. She saw a future in being a cook at a hotel restaurant.

 

The name Rothem was taken from the first book of Kings 19:4-8. Elijah the prophet, fearful for his life, runs into the desert, and wishing for death falls asleep under the broom tree. (Rothem  is the name of the broom tree in Hebrew). Awaking he finds  something to eat and drink, and with this refreshment was renewed enabling him to walk 40 days in the desert. 
 

Rothem has 21 teenage girls. The scars that have been inflicted will not disappear quickly.  Of all the psychological helps given the girls the dinning table is the best, reports the journalist. Sharing a meal, they find it easy to relate with one another, accept and love each other, which returns dignity and a sense of worth to the girls.

The girls of Rothem have put together a play that reenacts what they have experienced. It is made up of all the elements that make up a musical and has been well received. When Angela, who plays a girl  in  the same predicament as her own, says, sobbing, after sending her baby out for adoption, "I ...I have a baby, how I want to see my baby," her words had the audience in tears. By being encouraged at Rothem to express their feelings outwardly, many hurts these girls had been carrying with them have been brought to the surface and healed.

 

Catholic Key Words

One of the daily papers gave space to a Catholic media report that picked out seven key words found in Catholic  newspapers, magazines, bulletins, broadcasts and advertisements: year of faith, social gospel, healing, marriage, pilgrimages, talk shows and social networking.

Year of Faith has been emphasized by the 16 dioceses of Korea. The Church sees serious difficulties in the life of the spirit with the prevalence of relativism, secularism and materialism within society, and wants to work to strengthen the faith of the Christians.

The failure of understanding that our relationship with God relates very closely to how we relate with our brothers, and sisters is a problem that the Church seeks to minimize by  speaking often and in depth about  the social gospel. Many of the dioceses have established schools for the study of the social gospel and we hear lectures and sermons and see articles in the Catholic media bringing the social message of the  Gospel  to our attention.

Healing is  of great interest in society, and the Church is making healing a bigger part of her message. There have been many sermons on the healing effects of the confessional and the sacrament of the sick. And the need to  heal the scars that many have from their different relationships.

There are over 111 places of pilgrimage in Korea, which bring back to our thoughts the lives of our first Christians and what they had to endure to be true to what they had learned. There are many talks and recommendations on taking walking trips to these holy sites, ways to deepen our faith, and to familiarize us with the beginnings of Christianity in Korea.

Because of the frequency of divorce in society, the Church has shown great interest on ways of helping our married couples overcome the difficulty they encounter. A new translation of the rites for marriage was published and efforts made in strengthening the bonds of family with various programs.

Many talks are heard about the difficulties of living in the world we have made. The Catholic TV and radio programs have discovered the popularity of talk shows and are working  to develop communication with one another.

The Social network is alive and doing well in Korea and in the Church. With the smart phone and the many ways of social networking this topic was given a great deal of space in the Catholic media. They are developing different applications for the smart phones everybody  carries around with them. The smallness of the country and the way it has adapted to the digital world makes communication on the national level rather easy, hopefully this will in time influence the communication on the community and personal level.

Marrying a Foreign Worker

"Sister, can I come over to the center to spend some time?" "Is this Yong-hi? Come on over!" This is the conversation the religious sister in charge of the migrant center begins  her article in Bible & Life magazine.

Yong-hi is the Korean wife of a Pakistani foreign worker,Jasideu,who lives close to the center. Her husband failed the exam necessary for naturalization and was coming to the center for classes; she accompanied the husband on occasions. There were a number of Korean women who had married Pakistani workers. Sister was cautious in relating with them for she had heard of foreign workers who were looking for simple Korean woman to marry to gain citizenship.They have even, said the sister, flirted with her. Since those from Islam have the practice of plural wives even if they have a wife back in Pakistan they can easily think of a second wife.

Listening to Yong-hi on many different topics she heard about how she met and married Jasideu. Her parents when she was young divorced, and she lost contact with her mother. Since her father was in construction work he moved around a great deal and left Youg-hi with relations. She felt uncomfortable in their family situation, and while in middle school ran away  a number of times.

The father would  spend much time going to the different centers where run-a-ways would go for temporary shelter. She was found in the last place with religious sisters who were running a home for young people. At the center she received love  she never experienced before. But this did not prevent her from continuing to run away. She met an older girl that enticed her to leave and they continued together until they had a fight and each went their own way; during this time she met Jasideu.

Jasideu had a similar background for he never knew his mother and lived with his father. Yong-hi became everything to him.Because of the childhood that Yong-hi had to endure she found in Jasideu something she never had before which explains the love she has for her husband. She wants now to share that love with others and wants to volunteer to work at the center.She wants to throw off the many years of unhappiness and gloominess that she experienced. 

For  Yong-hi what difference does it make what country your other self comes from as long as they help in seeing the world positively. Sister hopes that this love that Youg-hi has found  will continue to grow.

Mass Media And Truth

There is no one on the face of the earth who asked to be born in a certain year and in a certain country. Our appearance on earth was a completely gratuitous event, putting aside for the moment the providence of God, writes a priest in his column in the Peace Weekly.

Letting his imagination roam, he wonders what his life would have been like if he were born in a tribal culture thousands of years ago, or born in a culture ruled over by a king, or even born into a relatively similar culture to his own but born a hundred years ago. Preposterous, he admits, as the thoughts are, he came to the conclusion that his life would have been as simple and uneventful, or as complicated and difficult, as the society he lived in.

If living a simple life, there would have been no need to doubt the information being received; no need to question how information is packaged and routinely distorted when trying to discern the true from the false. This, however, has all changed for those living in the 21st century, he says. We are overwhelmed with information from all over the world. What is happening in another part of the world will often affect us. The president elected in a country on the other side of the pacific will influence, for good or ill, what happens in Korea or in any other country. And it will, the priest claims, have an influence on our personal lives. 

Without  our approval and without our knowledge, events no matter where they occur will commonly cause changes not only where the events originally occurred but throughout the world. The mass media brings us news about G2, the group of two, the United States and China, which caused us to adjust our thinking from what we believed, just a few years ago, that the two super powers were Russia and the United States. These two powers brought us close to World War III, and led to the so-called cold war. Now, with the change to G2 China and the United States they are trying to keep the peace by increasing their military resources. Korea is no doubt being influenced by this increase in the military might of these two nations by  the  naval base on the island of Chejudo. The columnist wonders if Korea is an expendable pawn in the confrontation between the two superpowers.  

The mass media should be giving us the objective facts but only those who are able to go 'behind the scenes' will have a chance to know what is happening.This is of course difficult, if not impossible, for the ordinary citizen. Mass media reporting about the state of the world often ends up providing confusing and contradictory information, and fostering a general repugnance toward politics with 'no questions need be asked, just vote'. This is easily seen in the excessive slanting of the news, making it difficult to see objectivity, and to believe that any information is being reported impartially.

Are the citizens living in a democracy the masters of their own political fate, as they are led to believe, or are they the unenlightened masses that can be used and discarded at will?

"Political parties have the task of fostering widespread participation and making public responsibilities accessible to all. Political parties are called to interpret the aspirations of civil society, orienting them towards the common good, offering citizens the effective possibility of contributing to the formulation of political choices. They must be democratic in their internal structure, and capable of political synthesis and planning. (Compedium of the Social Gospel#413)

"Information is among the principal instruments of democratic participation. Participation without an understanding of the situation of the political community, the facts and the proposed solutions to problems is unthinkable. It is necessary to guarantee a real pluralism in this delicate area of social life, ensuring that there are many forms and instruments of information and communications. It is likewise necessary to facilitate conditions of equality in the possession and use of these instruments by means of appropriate laws. 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)
     
           

Pope Benedict Relating in the Social Network

 The Pope broadcasts live each Christmas with the Mass from Vatican City. In 1996, Pope John Paul II sent his Christmas message throughout the world for the first time by internet. And two years later the sermons of the pope were relayed to the world using the Vatican's website. This interest in cyberspace by the Vatican was the subject of a recent desk column of the Catholic Times.

 

The Vatican website began in 1995, with Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and English translations. Within two days of the inauguration of the site, it had 300 thousand visitors. When news of the pope's illness became known, the website was flooded with well wishes and prayers. The pope was a cyberspace star.
 

With the beginning of the papacy of Benedict 16th, despite his age, he continued this interest. In 2007, we have  the Vatican joining the YouTube world; in 2007, Facebook and, last year, he sent his first tweet through the Vatican account while launching a new website. He wrote on an iPad: "Praise be our Lord Jesus Christ! With prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI." Within 3 hours he had 15,000 followers.
 

The tweet that was sent last year came from the Vatican's official account. But by the end of the year, the pope will have his own Twitter account and be part of the Social Networking Services. Is this not all to get us involved in getting the message of Jesus out to as many people as possible? At present, the most popular people on Twitter happen to be Lady Gaga and other entertainers. 

The desk columnist tells us that we do have many in the Church who are taking the pope's example to heart, and he praises, especially, a bishop for his initiative in the use of the internet. Many lay people, clergy and religious are using cyberspace to make it a healthier place  for all. The pope is a good example to all on the need to take advantage of this new media.
 

That the pope is going to have his own personal account on Twitter is full of great meaning to all of us. Twitter, Facebook, My Space and Cyworld and many others are ways of meeting in cyberspace. No matter how popular you are or how big you are in society, in cyberspace you have only one vote, says the columnist. It is a one-on-one meeting. Your off-line persona does have an influence online, but the offline persona is not the same as the online persona. The columnist is curious to know what the pope's thinking is on these new systems of communication and their meaning for us and society.

          

Pope Benedict XVI, 85, sent his first tweet last year through the official Vatican account, while launching a new website. He wrote on an iPad: 'Praised be out Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2230364/Pope-Benedict-XVI-set-Twitter-account.html#ixzz2DlFTErUZ
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Pope Benedict XVI, 85, sent his first tweet last year through the official Vatican account, while launching a new website. He wrote on an iPad: 'Praised be out Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2230364/Pope-Benedict-XVI-set-Twitter-account.html#ixzz2DlFTErUZ
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Moving from the Mental to the Spiritual

The look in the eyes, the words from the mouth, how we eat, work and play, all are affected by the spiritual life. If God's spirit is in me then my spirit needs to reflect God's spirit, which will then very naturally appear in the life we live, says the writer of the Catholic Times' column on spirituality.                                                                                       We can, he says, live in the contemplate mode when playing tennis, climbing mountains or riding a bicycle. We do not have to be in church. He wants us to realize that it is not when  using our intellects to its full capacity that  we are in the spiritual mode. Determining how to swim faster or how to get to the top of the mountain the easiest way is using the mental faculties.

There is a big difference in using our mental faculties and using a spiritual approach to life. The intellect is a great gift we have received, and to use our intellectual powers to understand God and life is a great good. But remaining in this mode we will never come to what God's providence wants to realize in us.

What do we do to  free ourselves from being habitually tied to the mental mode and begin living the spiritual approach to life? First, he tells us to remember something from our past. We all have something from  the past, he says, that can bring us to the spiritual. When we were baptized, we experienced something of the spiritual. But because of our humanity, we slip quickly into the mental. Those who become tepid  go through this process.

One antidote to fixating on the mental is to become more contemplative, perhaps praying before a burning candle, among other practices. Slowing down our lives is necessary if we are to find in our too-hectic lifestyles the leisure for contemplation. But what appears to be doing nothing is difficult for us to accept. We revert to our smart phones, to the TV or to our hobbies. Because of our acquired need for constant stimulation, our internal abundance is difficult to reach. Prayer and the contemplative approach becomes difficult the more we frustrate ourselves by trying to understand everything by our mental approach to life.

We end up failing to distinguish the mental from the  spiritual. Consequently, when using our intellects, we commonly misunderstand this to be spiritual. Many only serve and pray in the mental mode.
  
God likes the concrete. Our eyes, thoughts, words and actions should be concretely spiritual, he says. God is always working inside us, though we often think that God is sleeping. When is God going to  return? we ask, not realizing he has always been with us; our task is to discover him. And for this to happen, we don't need calendars. When our minds are constantly busy, the spirit will not be able to enter. When we can't activate our spiritual faculties, we will not be fully alive.

Happy New Year: Liturgically Speaking...

What  makes for a good leader? Christians have Jesus as an example, and we begin with him today as we journey through the new liturgical year of 2013. On the first day of January, as world citizens, we usher in the new year, and on February 10th, as Asians, we usher in the lunar new year. Today, as Christians, we wait liturgically for the birth of Jesus and go on to grow by his  example in the yearly review and study of his life.

Writing in the  Catholic Times, a columnist tells us of rereading a book on ethics for public servants, written 50 years ago. The second reading was prompted, he said, by the daily media reports, commentaries and evaluations of the candidates running for president of the country.

The book, he says, gives us the qualities that a politician should have and what he should avoid. According to the author, the ethos of a good leader is consistency, fortified by penetrating conviction, followed by the need, both in word and action, to act on these convictions. In addition, the leader should strive to make the will of the people his mandate for change, and should accept with patience all criticisms that may come his way, as possibly useful advice to be explored and acted upon in the future. 

To be avoided are personal traits that come from human cupidity and that can lead to the distortion of democracy: the lust for power, excessive personal profit motivated by avarice, loss of dignity because of vanity, and favoritism that breeds all kinds of injustices.

The columnist would like these traits to be the standard by which to judge the candidates for the presidency. No one, he said, should rate a 100 percent evaluation, but an excellent rating can be the high goal that all should strive for. Even if this is not a possibility, he said, we should pick the best of the two candidates. It  so happens that both candidates have known Catholicism first hand. One considers himself a Catholic, and the other was once a Catholic.

We should have the intention of electing a leader with the qualities of the good shepherd, he said. A leader with whom we can enjoy liberty and order, who searches for love and justice, listens to the people, is humble and willing to sacrifice; one who can inspire  us with his hopes and dreams, and lead us in the way of life and truth. A leader who is concerned for the poor and alienated, and can unite us as a nation.  

Jesus was such a leader; he came to be our friend and continues to come to us as a friend. Our response is to have an open heart, changing our seeing from bodily eyes to spiritual eyes, in order to see what is impossible to see with the bodily eyes. The Good Shepherd model that we have is not only for politicians and public servants but for all of us. And thankfully we have another whole new year to work toward its attainment.