Catholic media in Korea has for some time emphasized in stories
and articles the importance of community in our spiritual life. With
the ascendency of individualism in society this has been a very
difficult sell. The Catholic Times' journalist headlines his article with:
"Need to Bring Joy into the Life of Community." Community life, it is true, often interferes with individual plans and for many becomes an obstacle to participation in community activities.
One
Catholic asked, "Do I have to go to confession? I have not sinned. I
pray the rosary morning and evening, and never miss Mass. Why do I have
to go to confession?" The priest asked what have you done for the poor? Have you prayed for the poor? The parishioner replied, "Do I also have to do that?"
This is the way a priest explains individualism as it appears in parish life. More than something wrong, he
hears this with sadness. In the Our Father we pray 'Our' but many
still ask only for what satisfies personal needs.
In response to this situation, the Korean church,
realizing that many Catholics were satisfied with a personal faith
life has in recent years endeavored to bring small community life more directly into the life of our Christians, increasing fellowship, connecting faith life with daily life, and strengthening the Christians' initiative and spontaneity. The efforts have not all been successful, sometimes colliding with problems already existing within some parishes. However, even with the problems it is a good alternative, the columnist believes, to a distorted individualism.
One pastor quoted by the journalist wrote that the small community initiative was encouraged by the Second Vatican Council and is a sign of the future direction of the Church. It's a way of incorporating the poor into the life of the church and bringing joy and intimacy into the community.
At
the beginning of the Church, these small communities gave life to the
Church. In our own Korean beginnings, the early Christians were not
interested only in their own salvation. Even in difficult circumstances,
they were living according to the teachings of the church, and going
out to their neighbors in love. Recently, the building of large parish
churches has closed many mission stations where community life was
strong. When the mission stations joined the large parish communities, there was a loss of intimacy and a feeling of alienation.
Bringing back the joy of a shared faith life will be an important part of the future Church. Dioceses are working to make the small Christian communities an attractive option for their members and
consider this an important pastoral initiative. One pastor expresses
the hope that ultimately those working to build community, when they experience the joy, satisfaction and benefits of community, will be the movement's best teachers.
He spent two and half years
in prison for fraud and embezzlement and now is a volunteer in prison
pastoral work. Released from prison in 2007, Andrew, now 58, was interviewed recently by the Catholic Times. For ten years, he explained, he worked as a division head for a large corporation. He
lived comfortably, not envying anybody. However, he decided to leave
and get into the construction business, which ran into difficulties,
and those who had invested in the business were not informed. He admits the business failed because of mistakes stemming from his prideful nature and disregard for the legitimate interests of his investors. His only interest was in doing things his way; that alone, he said, made him happy.
When
the prison sentence was given, all his acquaintances left him and
problems arose within the family; leading very close to a divorce from
his wife. His life unraveled, and he fell into complete despair.
Prison
life for Andrew was hell. He was afraid, found it difficult to eat or
sleep and was full of resentment, living in a daze. He wondered if he would
be able to keep his sanity in the prison situation. He felt it was a place he didn't
deserve to be in.
He soon found, however, that his great misfortune was turning into a
blessing. Relating with those who came to the prison to help the
inmates, he began to see life through the life of faith he once
possessed. Seeing the volunteers coming to help the prisoners
with no financial incentive made him reflect on his own life of greed.
He had been baptized and married in the Catholic Church but that was the extent
of his faith life.
His thoughts began to change,
and he began to see that his life was a mess. Each day he would
think of the many things he did wrong and began to repent. A great
change took place, and he became involved with the Catholic prisoners
who had formed themselves into a community. He was a lector at Mass and
became a leader in the community; joy returned to his life.
Andrew, after release from prison Nov. 30, 2007 (coincidentally his name day) went to the
nearest church to pray, gave thanks and promised to spend the rest of
his life in service to those in prison. He has finished a training
program for mission, and is now taking a university course in theology.
He has nothing to be proud of from his past, but his own experience in
prison has made him a missioner to those who still find prison life only
a negative experience. He wants to help them find new reasons to make their
lives worth living.
"We are waiting for the liturgical feast of Christmas. Coming to the
end of the year, wearied and somewhat depleted, we find consolation in the
coming feast." With these words a priest, also a philosophy professor, begins his article, in the With Bible magazine, on the world's greatest story. Those who are not Christian, he says, often have the same
feelings we Christians have. Hannah Arendt a Jew and a philosopher also had these feelings.
A student of Martin Heidegger and Carl Jaspers, she fled to the
States during the Nazi period in Germany. Her book, The Human Condition, influenced many during the second
half of the 20th century, particularly the chapter on action. She begins the
chapter with the words of Isak Dinesen, the author of Babette's Feast,
"All sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story or tell a story
about them."
Arendt says that the power of the story comes when we finally disclose in narrative form who we are by noting our actions and words. When we become conscious
of our life in this way, as recounted in our actions and words, we can begin to see our life as part of the fabric of the society we
live in. Realizing that our lives are individual stories enacted between
a birth and a death, we understand and pass on our stories, says Arendt, by acknowledging our
weaknesses and our inability to foresee the future. However, within this imperfect reality, we
nevertheless must act and speak.
This perception comes from her understanding of
the word 'natality.' The professor notes that her idea is the mirror
image of what her teacher Heidegger taught: "Being unto death." For Arendt,
birth was a new beginning, giving the person trust and hope that even
the wisdom of the Greeks was not able to discover, and that Arendt, though not a
Christian, was able to comprehend. She ended her reflections on this point with the
words: "Humanity in this world has been given trust and hope expressed
in the joy that comes with the Christmas story: the birth of a child."
To understand the word 'natality' that Arendt uses, the professor says we
must understand her use of the words 'forgiveness' and 'promise.' The past
cannot be undone, and we do not know what the future holds for us. Because of our innate weakness--the weakness of a newborn--we become dependent on our willingness to extend forgiveness, both to others and to ourselves. And since we do not know what the future
will be, we become dependent on the promise of a better future, which gives us hope to go into that future to "build islands
in the big ocean of life." Arendt says it was Jesus who gave us this hope for
forgiveness and promise.
We are not born to die but
to be reborn into a new beginning. We can know happiness, says Arendt, by using the twin tools of forgiveness and promise. The same good news of the Gospels we try to live daily. Merry Christmas.
Walking the city
streets, we see many symbols of Christmas but few that are close to the
meaning of what the day should mean. We see Christmas trees, wreathes,
stars, candles, bells, Santa Claus, candy canes, stockings, and many
other symbols which in years past had a clear association with the
Christ event. Today they are merely attempts to increase sales and make
more money. So begins the column on View from the Ark in the Catholic Times.
This
is a good indication of what has happened in all aspects of our
society. We give meanings to symbols that fit our view of life. And for
many the Christmas event has lost its meaning. It is a time to be merry
and probably has more to do with the winter solstice than with Christ.
Recently,
a woman without religious beliefs asked me a question I had
never been asked before; it made me laugh, but also think.
What does God do all day? I was surprised by the question but did
quickly find an answer.And the more I thought about it, the more I
thought it was one of the best questions I had ever been asked.
We hear in John I, 4:8 that God is love. The answer came rather easily, remembering these words: God
spends his time in loving. The answer did seem to say something to the
woman, and it said more to me. "God's love was revealed in
our midst in this way: he sent his only Son to the world that we might
have life through him."
For a Christian, if God ever forgot the
world and his creation for a moment, we would all cease to exist. What
keeps the world and the universe in existence, though not for the
scientist or philosopher but for a Christian, is the love that God has
for what he has made. He showed us this love with a visual aid that can't be surpassed. He came to earth to live with us. It would be
hard to beat that even in the world of children nursery and fairy tales.
The editorial in the Peace Weekly would like to know what questions he would have for us today. And wonders what would be our answers. Merry Christmas.
A Catholic priest philosopher, writing in the Kyeongyang magazine,
headlined his article: Those Who Want Happiness Need to Walk the Way of
Love. He then gives us some examples of this theme.
For
St.Thomas the answer to the question What is happiness? was the
beatific vision. Many have difficulty with his "sugared,
intellectualized," as it has been called, meaning of happiness. The writer goes on to say
that this happiness that comes with gazing (the beatific vision) is the
purified and completeness of love. When St.Thomas speaks about happiness
what is presupposed for him is that full knowledge equals full love.
Shakespeare said something similar: “Love talks with better knowledge,
and knowledge with dearer love."
The answer to the meaning of love is
love. We learn love by loving. We have to find the way of love to get
to happiness. We are all weak and scared individuals, but the first
step on this road to love is the way to happiness.
The musical
made from The Tale of Two Cites was popular here in Korea, and the
priest uses the story as an example of love. It is a melodrama, with
the French revolution as background. Old fashioned but with skill in
the presentation, the musical leaves a strong impression on the viewer. Sydney Carton, a very talented lawyer, has
lost faith in himself and in society. His unreciprocated love
for Lucy, pure and full of mercy, remains and, in thanks for what he was
given, offers up his life for love. The last scene shows the saintly
and happy death of this once lost soul.
The thesis that love
is happiness is known by those who walk tirelessly along this way. Is
this not the love of imperfect human beings for other imperfect humans?
Though this love is still finite and selfish, is it not the imitation of infinite
love and the beginning step on the way to happiness?
Another
example in our times is the sister Emmanuelle, who lived with the trash
collectors in Cairo for 20 years, showing her love to a forgotten
segment of society, living in their poverty-like circumstances. In her
words: "Many people carry within themselves the eternal face. Their gaze
gives a response to love. They very naturally grow close to those they
meet. Even their everyday duties, which are repeated over and over again to
accomplish their tasks, are freed from emptiness and finiteness." Isn't this the
result of love?
The priest concludes that his love is his
happiness. For his happiness to be real he has to eagerly desire that
his love be real. St. Augustine said after finishing writing one of his books, the book
is finished but the quest is not. He ends his article on happiness
by wishing that we all continue the quest in learning how to love.
Many seeing those dying of hunger in Africa, the agony of families losing everything in natural disasters, and not mentioned by our spiritual columnist in the Catholic
Times, the recent horrible killing of 20 kindergarten children, who has not been deeply saddened by these tragic events.
Here
it is not the head but the heart that is moved. The head has no need to
think, examine or cross examine; there is an immediate response from
the heart (the spirit). We are in harmony with the will of God; the head
rests, and we give ourselves over to the spirit.
This
is true also with a devote reading
of the Scriptures. If we have only a rudimentary
knowledge of Scripture and do not understand, we still read. With
greater knowledge we understand more but even then we need to stop our
thinking
and read with the heart. We leave aside our rationalizations and rest
in
the fullness of the words. We can remain a whole day with a few words of
the Scriptures: "found it very good" from the first chapter of Genesis, pondering over these words as our prayer. All becomes one and simple because we have given the
mental faculties a temporary rest.
The mental faculties
are good but when they are overused problems develop. At present in Korea the intellect has primacy. From grammar school on to college too many adults, according to the columnist, are living in the head: centering on the 'I' and seeking personal fulfillment. We are not giving
the spiritual its rightful place.
In Korea, there are many who are addicted to internet games. They have not been able to surmount the mental, which often develop into addictions to the internet and gambling, and fantasizing about sex. And these problems are not restricted to a few special people, repeats the columnist, but mostly those who live entirely within the head.
Reflect
for a moment on a person kneeling before the remains of a loved one. For
the moment he or she has left the thinking faculties and cherishes the memory
of the dead person, crying in the heart and spirit. In these
cases few are those who are still there with the ego, or worrying about
work, or absorbed with future plans, but only present to the dead
person. It is a a time when one is lost in silence. It is not a silence that is intended but comes naturally. That is the way we are made. Most of us are
not familiar with this way of behaving that comes with putting aside our thinking
faculties.
Putting ourselves out in front, criticizing others, does not appear when we are concerned in
forming the self in harmony with the will of God. We get rid of our
thinking and are content to rest in the abundance of our spirit. It is truly a precious present we have been given. It is here we experience the fullness of truth.
Life
is often like walking a
tightrope: needing to dream and at the same time needing to keep our
feet firmly on the ground to escape unhappiness--if we are to keep our
ideals and reality in the proper perspective. If we only go in search of
our ideals, there is
a chance they will disappear, and if the present reality is all we
trust, there is no guarantee we will always possess it.
There
are many that dream big: they will change the world, become
rich, a great scientist... these dreams help in achieving one's goals. However,
many will run up against reality, and have to deflate the dreams to make
them more realistic.
In life,
we have success and failures. New beginnings, new efforts making new
dreams, practicing becoming more of what we should be. The efforts are
tiring but they also add to the beauty of life. If before the
wall of reality is encountered, we feel frustrated and give up, not
giving it our best, we are not searching for our ideals. Even if we
fail we need to search and try our best to achieve our ideals.
The desk columnist of the Catholic Times gives us the example of a taxi driver who envied all those he saw who
were successful; he wanted to get into the business world but because
of poverty began driving a taxi to support his family. He expressed
this feeling of disappointed to a passenger who looked prosperous. The
passenger told him to leave what he was doing and begin to work to
achieve his dream. The taxi driver told him that was impossible because
of the needs of his family. The passenger told the driver that he
should not demean what he was doing, that there were people who would gladly exchange their jobs for his. But if he wanted to quit his job, he should search for another dream and make plans systematically to achieve it.
When
one is dissatisfied by what he is doing the dream is usually missing. Dreams
are what motivates us. But when we distort and stubbornly cling to our unrealistic dreams
we may be running away from reality and sinking into shame, says the
columnist. We have to be prepared to jettison unrealistic dreams.
For a
Christian, following Jesus is both our ideal and
our reality. We trust
and rely on him; we do not use the yardstick given to us by the the
world. Jesus' way is not always what we would like, but it is the way we need
to go. He told us not to be afraid and to trust.
The
columnist ends by telling us that it is necessary to dream. Without dreams,
we are going to be miserable. If we do not know where we want to go, how
can we find strength. We will have to decide on how this is going to be
expressed in our lives. What is important is not to give up, to have
passion, and to make the effort.
