Progress or Regression?

A columnist of the Catholic Times, on seeing how the the disabled were treated during the Joseon Dynasty, which was the topic of a recent TV history program, was sufficiently surprised to write about it in her column. The disabled, she learned, were excused from many of the duties normally expected from citizens, and those who showed concern for the disabled would be commended, and those who abused them would be seriously punished.

Efforts were also made to help them become independent by giving them positions that fit their specialty, without concern for their place in society but only concerned to utilize their capabilities in the best way possible.  For instance, a society for the blind was established, which produced many who went on to become prominent in government. The only thing that separated them from the other citizens was a bodily handicap, and the distress that often accompanies such handicaps. The columnist sadly comments that it seems we have been going backwards as a society in the way we treat the disabled among us. 

A famous historical figure, a musician, during  the kingship of Sejong the Great, was quoted in the TV program, in reference to what the government was doing for the blind: "There is no one we can dispense with in our society."

She introduces us to Fr. Cyril Axelrod, who is considered by many the Helen Keller of the 21st Century. Both blind and deaf, he came to Korea last month to visit with the Christians and to show them what a disabled person is able to do and to help the Christians achieve a new appreciation of the disabled in our society. He stresses in his talks that his disabilities, like all disabilities, can be incorporated into our lives as blessings.

In Korea,  since 2011, over two and a half million citizens have been registered as disabled; each year, as small and serious accidents increase, the number of disabled also continues to increase. Accidents or disease after birth, she says, are responsible for disabling 9 out of 10 Koreans. She feels that being concerned for the welfare of the disabled should not be solely the concern for specially trained people but for all of us, and that our understanding of the disabled also needs to broaden and change if we are to keep pace with the latest knowledge in the field.
 but there are still many who are unwilling to accept the disabled as being equally deserving of all the rights of other citizens.

There have  been many changes in society but still many have an aversion for the places used by the disabled  and this shows in the problems many have in  building such facilities. The price of land decreases and many find it uncomfortable to be so near the disabled so they demonstrate against the building of these facilities.

Though we have to come to an understanding that the only difference between the disabled and others is only a matter of degree, we have yet to take the next step, as a society, and act on what we understand.

To repeat the musician's words, the theme of both the TV program and the column: "There is no one that we can dispense with in our society." We Christians, she says, who profess to be light and salt of the earth, should be the first to appreciate what this means.

Knowing Ourselves

Taking a picture of our self  and uploading it to the internet so everybody can see how beautiful we are, and then listening to the comments, is not an uncommon occurrence these days. Writing in the Kyeongyang magazine a religious sister, whose specialty is the media, brings to our attention this kind of personal promotion, which reminded her of "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most beautiful of all?"  As a result of this personal indulgence, the integrity of the self disappears, she says, and what remains is a desire for praise, concerned only with the way others see us.

To what extent should we be concerned with our physical appearance? she asks. Reading recently that it was considered trendy in Korea to have cosmetic jaw surgery, she admitted to feeling emotionally uncomfortable.  Why? Because having to chip away at the bones, there is always a danger of side effects; also because she became aware that so many of us are more concerned about external attractiveness than about the less noticeable spiritual qualities; and also because a woman's body has become a consumer item.

Life is like a drama, she says, being played out most noticeably on the social network service stage. The "I" of the actor  is taking over the real "I". There is no way to know how much of what is being communicated is real, and what is hypocrisy and deception. The boundaries between the real and the virtual are disappearing, she said.

We are so busy taking pictures that we forget what is beautiful and interesting, and what gives us joy. Before we have time even to appreciate the beauty of what we see, we take out our smart phone ready to capture what we see in a photograph. Even when going out to enjoy our leisure time, we are busy taking pictures and often promoting the self.

Is the satisfaction we get from virtual space more meaningful to us than what we get from family and friends? Have we become like actors on a stage, receiving the applause of the  audience and becoming entranced by the attention? she asks.

When we cannot  express our true selves and are manipulated by others, we become slaves, she says, controlled by the vision of others and not being true to who we are. We forget that as Christians we are God's creation, made to be like him and to be true to ourselves. True happiness wants to be shared with others. When one is happy there is no need for words, our happiness just naturally flows out to others. 
She tells us about a study that showed that those who associate with happy people also tend to be happy, and those around unhappy people tend to be unhappy. So it's good to keep in mind, she says, the thought that if I'm happy, those around me are also likely to be happy.

However, she points out that this happiness usually does not result from having a large audience of admiring fans. "Happy the man who meditates on wisdom and reflects on knowledge, who ponders her ways in his heart and understands her pathways" (Sirach 14:20-21). Those who do, she says, will have their happiness extend naturally to their friends, and to friends of their friends.

Last Foreign Bishop of Korea

Bishop McNaughton, the first bishop of the Inchon diocese, recently celebrated his 60th year of priesthood in a Korean Catholic parish of Boston. The Mass of Thanksgiving was written up in the Peace Weekly.

The bishop retired in 2002 and returned to the U.S., and his home state of Massachusetts. It gave the Korean community an opportunity to thank Bishop McNaughton for his many years of service to the Korean Church. During the sermon he recalled leaving for Korea on a boat from San Francisco, and 16 days later arriving at the harbor of Pusan. He was greeted by a delegation of Korean Catholics, which made him feel he was beginning life all over again.

His sermon, given in fluent Korean, said the journalist, was attentively listened to by the congregation. His forty one  years as the ordinary of the diocese and his zeal for the growth of the church was praised by many in the congregation, who admired what the 'old missioner' had accomplished. The bishop regretted learning that while the numbers of Korean Catholics have increased, those going to church have decreased. He asked the parishioners to have a love for the poor and to share their faith. After Mass, there was a celebration for the bishop in the church hall.

Bishop McNaughton began his missioner life in the Cheongju diocese. He was pastor of two parishes in the city, and in 1961 was made a bishop and the first ordinary of the Inchon diocese, which he led for 41 years. In the beginning of his tenure as bishop, there were 9 parishes, 19 clergy and 23,000 Catholics. Today, it is the fourth largest diocese in the country, with 20 parishes, 300 clergy and 460,000 Catholics. His retirement brought to an end a long line of foreign bishops in the Korean Church.

Maryknoll came to Korea in 1923, and this year will celebrate 90 years of pastoral work in Korea, which began in Pyeongyang, North Korea, at that time Korea was a  colony of Japan. In 1950, with the beginning of the Korean War, the Maryknollers moved South and were given the diocese of Cheongju, the diocese in which Bishop McNaughton began his missionary life.

One of the bishop's great achievements was building a seminary which has proven to be very successful, educating seminarians for  future work in North Korea and China besides the diocesan clergy. It is a fitting memorial to his long years of service to the Korean people and will continue to serve them well into the future. After the sermon, the pastor thanked Bishop McNaughton for his many years of service to the Korean Church, and said the Korean clergy will be paying back the debt by working zealously in the vineyard of the Lord.

Young People are like Kites Buffetted by the Winds

In the diocesan bulletin, the head of  one of the city youth centers discusses the differences among the young persons who come to the center for help. There are of course the young persons we would call ordinary, and  persons who have been raised in poverty, the single parent youngsters, persons who have been abused, and persons who have been hurt in other ways. They are all individuals with special personalities, and he feels that as a person responsible for the center, he needs to respect the individuality of each of them.

Using the metaphor of flying kites, he looks on some of these young people as kites flying at low altitude, with little of the string released. Adults, however, who have an abundance of string can fly high in the sky. They are flying high above the winds that the young people  have to contend with at their lower altitude. They are at the whim of the wind going high and falling low, always causing concern. Since the string they have doesn't allow them to go higher, they lose hope and their kites do at times nosedive to the earth. During this period, their emotions go to extremes. Environmental influences, which he refers to as the wind, can easily affect them. Like the quiet before the storm, they never know what to expect, he says, and as a result they often feel agitated. Since they feel confined (the string), they have difficulty with their own identity, and with those who are trying to hold on to them. One solution for some of them during this time of struggle and mental confusion is to break the string, to run away from  home.

Many at the center, not surprisingly, have low self-esteem. One young man is not able to associate with his classmates and doesn't speak during the whole day. Another, when on the receiving end of a joke, cries, and  one stays by himself all day long. After a year at the center, however, there are many who do change, he says. They approach you and greet you, and are willing to talk about what bothers them, whether with friends or with teachers. This is a sign that the interest that is shown them at the center does have good results.

Returning to  the kite example, the adults want the young to fly higher and even though the wind is not blowing they give them more string; when the young do not want to go in that direction, the adults want to control the direction of flight. Our interest should be on the kite, the young person, and then, trusting them, give them enough string to fly where they want to go.

We say the youth are the leaders of the future but these leaders, he strongly points out, have to be given a future now.  When they see the value of the present, the future will be all the brighter. We should trust and encourage them, accommodating ourselves to the direction they want to go. That, says our writer, would be enough.

The dilemmas faced by parents are extraordinarily difficult, characterizing the frustrations they usually encounter by the oft-used statement: "You are damned if you do and damned if you don't."  It is important for all to realize that children are raised, as we hear often, not only by parents but by all of society. The health of society will determine how successful the nurturing will be, and is reason enough, he says,  for all of us to be concerned with what is happening in the world around us. 

North South Conflict Remains After 60 years

Most people  are not pleased with their personality or situation in life and would like to see a change, says the Catholic Times columnist writing in a recent View from the Ark. This is not all, he continues, for they want also to change the world. This wanting to change the world is stronger in the young, for they have the higher ideals, and a greater dissatisfaction. Most of the changes in the world come, he believes, from those who have this  dissatisfaction, and one might even say, he points out, that those who have attempted reformation, revolution, and innovation are similarly motivated.

The Chinese character used in  the above three words--reformation, revolution, innovation--refers to leather, and the verb would be 'to embellish leather.' With the passage of  time, the meaning becomes 'to change' and 'to fix'. To clean and polish any fine article requires care and earnestness. This is also true for the changes in the world, which only humans can accomplish. What is necessary to change the world? he asks. Without the need for discussion, the only thing necessary, he says, is a changed heart; and young people actually want to see this change.

What enables a person to change his way of thinking? Is it criticism, ridicule, pressure? This can develop quickly into conflict, as history tells us. One of the famous nationalists and patriots, Shin Chae-ho, expressed a view of history that evolves around competition between the “I” and the “non-I”.This has been a fact of our history, and we know it leaves aftereffects. There is no quicker way to bring about change, he says, but it's also the way of inflicting much pain and sorrow to both winners and losers.

We have seen this in our conflict between the North and South: Even after  60 years we are still experiencing the aftereffects. The results of change that come from war show that it was better never to have gone to war. With war, we leave the area of the heart and enter the material realm to achieve our purpose.

With war we have left behind the interior dimensions of the heart and opted for the material. Using our material strength we bring about great devastation. Obviously this is not the best way to bring about change. Conflict and war presupposes hostility between the parties, which is seen as  criticism, ridicule, pressure.This is certainly better than conflict and war but when it happens those who should be subjects are made into objects.

What each party to a conflict should try to understand, he says, is to see the situation through the eyes of the other. There has to be sincerity and love for this to succeed, only then will we see change. This will enable the two parties to acquire what each one lacks. This is the teaching of all religious leaders of all persuasions. Sincerity and love will naturally be followed by praise and awe. And with humility, each party will not be afraid to do what the world would naturally affirm as the right thing to do.

Obstacles in Building Small Christian Communities

Setting up small christian communities has been an important goal the Church in Korea has been endeavoring to achieve for the last 20 years. The results are not as favorable as many would like, and efforts have been made over the years to improve them. Recently, the Bishops Pastoral Research Center conducted a workshop for priests from nine dioceses; 23 priests attended whose specialty and expertise were working with small communities. They  discussed the problems and aimed to draw up a Korean model for what these communities should be. The Catholic Times had an editorial on the workshop and two articles that summarized some of the ideas that were shared during the workshop.

Several presentations on the small community concept, and the discussions that followed on what has already been accomplished, dealt with diagnosis and assessment. Important as these were, more interest was shown over the proper role of the pastoral leader in the small community.

Is it possible to build small christian communities in Korea? was a question that was often raised during discussions. The clergy in Korea have been so central to the work that to overcome this thinking and the secularization that has been experienced by the Christians will make a return to the Gospel message very difficult. The place of small communities in the  pastoral vision is not helped by  the understanding of the common good held in our society. But more to the point: the Church has not  stressed enough the place of fellowship in community. Consequently, as one of the participants suggested, if we look at our situation dispassionately will we not agree that we have built a middle-class Church?

The small communities were to be the future, a new way of doing pastoral work--a variety of different expressions were used to describe our intentions, but most turned out to be little more than empty words. On the parish level, where they were working with the small communities, there were serious problems in their successful implementation. We were not able to have a model for our people that fit the situation. The attempts at inculturation and making it fit our Korean situation have been slow.

The Church has been more intent in facing and coming to grips with our everyday challenges, according to the Catholic Times, than having a Christ-like vision for the work. We have to make our own a common vision of pastoral ministry, and do away with the imperial authority structures for the proper evangelization that is the mission of the Church. When this problem is acknowledged, this will be the first step in the shortcut that will facilitate the building of successful small communities and constructing a workable model for small communities here in Korea.

Janitor in a Korean Sauna

In the Kyeongyang magazine, a man who retired from his government job writes of his recent experience as a janitor in a Jjimjilbang, a gender-segregated public bathhouse furnished with the traditional Korean saunas and massage areas, and places to eat and sleep, all for a reasonable price. It was not what he expected to be doing after retirement; he saw himself doing some kind of volunteer service work. 

However, after his severance pay was gone and needing pocket money, he looked around for work. Though he appeared to be in his fifties, his life history made it clear he was at that time in his late sixties (now 75). Nobody was  interested; if an accident happened there would be serious problems, he was repeatedly told.

For a couple of years, he continued to look for work without any results. He then heard there was work available in a Jjimjilbang; without any thought of what kind of work it would be, he accepted the job. Not only did he have to sweep and clean the premises but all the accumulated trash had to be separated and readied for disposal, which was difficult to do at his age. Even using a mask, he found the smell awful. And in the winter his fingers would become ice cold, and in the summer he would perspire so much it felt as if he were in a sauna. But he did manage to stay with the job,now going on for three years.

During this time he was the secretary of the parish purgatorial society, but found he could no longer manage both jobs and told the priest he had to leave his parish work. He said he was doing the janitorial work for money, but it was also penance for the sins in his past life. He had been very active in the parish over many years, serving as parish council president and the president of many parish groups. 

Because of his work in the Jjimjilbang, he met many Catholics and workers that he knew from his past work places, and felt embarrassed, he said, to be seen doing janitorial work. One visitor to the Jjimjilbang was a subordinate he used to work with; the man told him he found it difficult to continue coming to the sauna and seeing his old boss working as the janitor.  Overcoming the problem of 'saving-face', he realized, was also a problem that others had to deal with when they met him in this situation. He remembers reading that humility is a difficult virtue to practice, and without God's help difficult also to understand.

Whenever he's asked now about his work, he answers without hesitation: a janitor. Putting into practice what he has learned about humility, he is perfectly at peace and has no problems with the work. Jesus used the word peace, after the resurrection, to greet those he met. Without God's help, it is difficult to experience this peace. He ends his article with a request: asking his readers for their prayers as he continues to work to clean his own interior of the garbage that is still there.