Loving in the Manner Acceptable to the one Being Loved

On the spiritual page of the Catholic Times the columnist recounts what an older priest told him about a couple with whom he had spent many enjoyable hours, and has known for many years. Hearing they were not on the best of terms, he invited them to join him at a restaurant for dinner. All seemed as it had been in the past, with the husband, during the meal, showing affection for the wife.

At the end of the meal, however, while the husband went to the restroom, she told the priest that the next time he visited she wants him to meet with them separately. The meal ended with the wife's bitter words ringing in the ears of the old family friend. He told the columnist that no matter how long a couple have been together, and how many good things were done, just one serious incident that one of the spouses hated would be enough to cause a great deal of trouble.

The columnist notes that when loving someone, we always want to do good by that person, to make them happy. And when the person loved enjoys the same things as the person loving, then great blessings come to both. However, he reminds us that, more important than making positive efforts in doing what the loved one enjoys, is to refrain from doing what they dislike. Such efforts, he feels, will enable one to show more interest and care for the loved one.

Though it is understood that the lover usually loves in his own unique manner, it is important to love in a manner, the columnist says, that is acceptable to the one being loved. When one knows what the loved one dislikes, great effort must be made to avoid doing what the other dislikes, which will develop trust and foster love. 

If there is someone we love now, he suggests that we refrain from doing what they dislike. But it must be mutual. When only one party to the relationship makes the effort to refrain from doing what the other dislikes, the lack of trust will take its toll and the relationship will break down.

The breakdown of marriages and the attempts to strengthen family ties are common themes in today's world. They are likely to continue if we cannot master our emotions, direct our loving thoughts toward others in a manner they can appreciate, and put into practice the old-fashion idea of living a virtuous life. Intentions to live such a life are well and good, but will accomplish little of permanent value if they remain in the head and fail to become a part of who we are.  
                                        

Confucianism And Christianity

There are a number of similarities between Christianity and Confucianism, the tradition that has greatly influenced Korea since ancient times and continues to do so. A seminary professor, whose discussion of these similarities was picked up in a recent issue of the Peace Weekly, focused on three areas to compare: morality, the historical perspective, and human nature, as understood by more recent Confucian interpreters.

What is our goal as humans? Confucianism asks. To be the person we were meant to be. And, more important,  to know who we are. We have been given the  possibility of living virtuously and are meant to realize what we have been given. Many Confucian scholars have considered this the way to become saints.  One of the scholars tells us the reasons we don't achieve this goal is our lack of intention and knowledge. Achieving our goal is only possible, he says, if we have a clear idea of what the goal is. Another reason  is the lack of effort and sincerity.

St, Paul, to the Philippians, said: "I have come to rate all as loss in the light of the surpassing knowledge of my Lord Jesus Christ."
 

The attitude of being merciful to others is strong in both traditions. Confucianism has the negative expression of the Golden Rule: Not to do to others what you don't want  them to do to you. Also, that we must begin with ourselves and our families before society can change.

In Confucianism the idea of the after-life and the soul is missing. How could they so passionately work on disciplining themselves and practice the virtues? the professor wonders, if there is no belief in an after-life. Because of their view of history, he says. For the Confucian, humans did not just come from nowhere but broadly from heaven or narrowly from the ancestors. One's personal life was not managed arbitrarily but was connected: What has been received from the ancestors needs to be managed well and passed on. This is the reason, he says, for Confucian filial piety and loyalty to the king.
 

The article goes on to some thoughts of recent interpreters of Confucius. He selects one telling phrase: The heart has two concerns, one for the individual and one for the community. To have harmony between these two seemingly conflicting inclinations will require a great deal of discipline, with the ultimate goal of matching the interior with the exterior, words with actions, knowledge and practice.
 
Mencius describes two ways of combining knowledge and practice in his advice on studying well: one way is with our whole being, which requires training to go into the deep recesses of our minds. The second way, also requiring training, is to concentrate our minds on what we are studying to develop interior strength. The first way is the way of the scholar, the second way is the cultivation of the mind which everyone should strive to achieve.

The above brief description of Confucianism, despite its necessarily simplistic treatment here, was able to determine--relying only on the natural powers of reason and on one's own direct experience--societal rules and a way of life that have been influential for many centuries. What the Christian sees as the natural law has been well developed within Confucianism without the help of revealed religion.

Working for Unity Among Christians

 

The World Council of Churches (WCC), which meets every seven years, have done so this year for the tenth time, in Pusan (Oct. 30th to Nov. 8th), with the theme "God of life lead us to justice and peace." The largest number to ever attend these meetings (8,500) are here, and 4,630 are from Korea.

The World Council of Churches is an inter-church organization founded in 1948. Members include most mainstream Christian churches, except for the Protestant churches who  say the World Council  of Churches represents:  inclusiveness. Many Korean Protestants believe the Council is going against Bible teachings, and staged a protest in front of the building where the delegates are meeting.

The Roman Catholic Church is not a member of the World Council but  sends delegates to the meetings. 12 Catholic theologians are present in the religious faith committee and over the years the Church has kept in close contact with the WCC. Both Catholic papers are reporting on the meeting, as well as the visit of Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who is attending, along with a delegation from Rome. The Cardinal, quoted in a secular paper, said "All the Christian denominations with the same belief in Jesus are brethren. God desires that we become one, without unity we will not be able to receive the world's trust."

After the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church has taken ecumenicism and the search for unity as a serious mission. In keeping with this mission, the Cardinal visited with the Anglicans and the Orthodox and had a meal with the heads of other Protestant groups; Buddhist and Confucian groups will also be visited--all efforts to foster a new way of "being world and society."The  Cardinal hopes the meeting of the WCC will have some influence on solving the country's North/South problem.

 

The  Peace Train, which left Berlin some 22 days before, arrived in Pusan two days before the start of the meeting. They were hoping to get permission to fly to Pyongyang but it was not given, so they took the ferry from China to Inchon, and from there by bus and train to Pusan and the WCC meeting.

The goal of the meeting is not only to break down the walls between religious groups but also to work for unity among all people of the world. With more societies becoming secularized, the existence of God and the moral order and the realization of love is being shaken with relativism, a formidable obstacle that religious people in the world today must face. The imperative to be open to a deeper dialogue and cooperation is more urgent than ever before. The editorial stressed the hope that the WCC meeting will help foster a greater appreciation of the Gospel of Life and be a catalyst for spreading this message throughout the world.

Mutual Understanding Indispensable to Communication

The editor of the Peace Weekly recently discussed the kind of requests and complaints the paper routinely receives. They can usually be divided, he says, into two types: Asking for information would be one type; the other type (nine out of ten) would be protests, most often telling you to cancel their subscription.  When he asks the reason, the answer they give is they do not like the editorial direction of the newspaper.  Why do the priests and religious have to get involved in politics, upsetting the Christians? is often a complaint he hears, as well as the complaint that the good  works of the priests and religious are not covered by the paper.

Recently, a group expressing the opinion of the public on the energy policy of the country has resulted in changing the policy of the previous government in two significant areas: Reducing the dependence on nuclear energy, from 41 percent to 22-29 percent; secondly, changing the emphasis from the supply side of energy production to  reducing the demand for  energy. But even if we reduce the use of nuclear energy to only 20 percent, the increase in the need for energy means that more nuclear power plants have to be built, which, as this group points out, increases the dangers inherent in having more nuclear power plants. The other side sees that dependence on liquid natural gas,  which is more expensive, will require an increase in the cost of electricity. The Peace Weekly has tried to see the position of both sides fairly. 
 
The editor expresses frustration in the inability of both sides to budge an inch from their positions, an indication, he feels, of the lack of communication in our society. What is the reason for this inability to communicate? he asks. The desire to resolve the differences is missing, he answers. The parties are concerned only with their own understanding of the situation. Another reason, he says, is a lack of trust in the newspaper. People who want to cancel their subscription are not interested in hearing both sides of the controversy, perhaps doubting the objectivity of the newspaper. The same lack of trust may also be a factor for those who disagree with the findings of the committee to study the problem of energy.

If we want a society that can communicate with each other, what is needed, the editor says, is a culture that respects the other, and is open to listening, negotiating, and compromising with those who have different opinions. Achieving such a culture, where mutual understanding is the goal of everyone, requires effort on the part of everyone. 

He ends his remarks by mentioning a problem he experienced that morning on the way to work. He usually takes public transportation but that morning he wanted to get to the office early and decided to drive his car. Without much traffic at that time of day, he thought he'd be at work in 30 minutes. But suddenly the traffic stopped because of construction along the way, and he had to accept that he would not get to work early as he had planned. Even though the wait was not much, he admitted he was not able to take the traffic snarl in stride, which he saw as a lack of concern and respect for the circumstances which made such a delay inevitable.
 
Problems of this type not infrequently come from our lack of mastery over ourselves and our emotions, and, put simply, reveal our lack of wisdom. There are also issues which do not fall into this category, where compromise is not possible. But that does not mean we don't listen to, show respect and concern for, those we disagree with.

Can Religious Life be Fun?

Many people complain having too much work to do and not enough time to get everything done. Others would like to be busy with work, but having none are wondering what to do with all their free time. Some find their work boring, always fretting, while others who have worked don't know how to use leisure time when it comes. With this kind of thinking it is not difficult to see how the happiness of our citizens is affected. A seminary professor, in the Kyeongyang magazine, writes about the problems that come when there is no joy in what we do.

Even though the workweek has been reduced  to a five-day, forty-hour week, Korea is still known as a country addicted to work. A Korean psychologist is quoted as saying we have more leisure time than in the past, but many do not know how to use their leisure in a constructive way, such as learning to know themselves, being creative and communicating with others. The increase of leisure in society often results, the professor believes, in creating more disorder in our lives. 

Married couples in their middle years, once too busy working to find time for dialogue, now with the increase of leisure are faced with conflict and divorce. Young people also have more leisure to enjoy the single life; marriage is put off as the partners easily accept living together, without any interest in having children. This type of logic, he says,  is not improving the quality of life. More leisure time is an opportunity for consumer enterprises to reach more people with their pleasure-based commodities, giving us even less true joy in life.

This kind of thinking has also come into the religious life. The young children attending Mass do not know what is going on and the expression on their faces shows that they are not interested in knowing. If it's not fun, they're not interested. Adults have also been infected with this same spirit. The cultural code of society has changed our appreciation of holiness and the sacred. The repeated Masses and sermons and the problems with members of the community take their toll on the faith life of the Christians. Men at work and throughout society are bombarded with the ever-present commercialization of sex, making temptation ever present, and the accepted moral teachings a burden.

The professor asks if it's possible to make the religious life fun.  Or is it rather more like adding a necessary duty to our life?  To the secularized individual of our society, the religious life is a hindrance to enjoying the freedom of human existence. And to merely stress its necessity for a fulfilling life, lacks persuasive power. What is needed, says the professor, is a way to show the attractiveness of the religious life.

Examples of those who enjoy their life as Christians are easily found, and should be the examples presented  to our Christians, he says. The spiritual life is one of great joy and this has to be expressed in sermons and programs, with priests and pastoral workers obviously in the forefront, showing this joy in the way they relate with the Christians. If we are filled with the Holy Spirit this should be shown by the joy we experience in our daily lives. And the more familiar we become with the way God works in us, the deeper will be our experience of this joy. It may very well be necessary, the professor believes, to teach the various methods of finding joy in our religious life as society is in explaining their techniques in finding happiness in the secular life.                                                                                       

Maturing in the Faith

Levels of religious faith are many. First, it is with the legs, then with the head, and finally with the heart. With these words a novelist begins her article in the Kyeongyang magazine, discussing a book that gave her a deeper appreciation of her faith.

One can be a faithful church-goer, she says, and suddenly be filled with doubt and troubling questions such as What is it that I believe?  Does God really exist? Questions usually followed by a decision to stop going to church. Looking over her religious life, she muses whether that wasn't partially true with her. She became acquainted with God and Jesus at an early age, and became close to the Catholic Church. She read many books, read the Scriptures and memorized favorite lines, made frequent retreats, and felt great peace.

Remembering those days she feels personal pride might have been present. Talking to  parishioners and hearing what they said God did for them--how  they were blessed with money and material things--religion suddenly seemed to her more like a search for material blessings, then it did about God and Jesus, so she began to have doubts.

Why wasn't God answering her prayers? Was her faith weak?  Did she have only a superficial acquaintance with the Scriptures? These were the questions that she was asking herself. Is asking for blessings what religion is all about? The God she believed in and loved unconditionally, was, she was sure, just and bountiful with his blessings. But the reality she saw was quite different. She came to the conclusion, much later in life, that the way she believed was tainted with pride.

One day, she happened to come across a book in her possession that she had read many years before. The book, written by the first Swedish woman to receive the Nobel prize, Selma Largerlof, was titled The girl from the Marsh Croft.  She began to read the short story  again; the plot follows:

There was a young girl, Helga, who was very poor and living in a marsh area of the country.  Her father was  sick. The girl found work in the landowner's house as a servant. The owner found the girl attractive and one night forced himself on her and she had a child. The wife of the landowner noticed she was pregnant, and chased her away. She went back to her home and had the baby boy. 

Now back to her life of poverty and with a child, everything got worse for Helga, and so she went to the landowner and asked him to support the child. When he denied all knowledge of the affair, she began legal proceedings against him. On the day the judge was to give the verdict, the court room was filled with spectators.  When the judge asked the landowner to put his hand on the bible and swear that what he was about to say was the truth, Helga cried out from her seat:  "Your honor, I can't bear to see the father of my child lie to God, I withdraw my case."  And she quickly left the court room. 

The court room quickly filled with commotion, and the judge, an old man, quieted the crowd and said: "I have worked for many years in deciding what is right and what is wrong. But this is the first time I have felt so great a happiness. "  You could see tears in the eyes of the silvered-haired judge, and the court room became extremely quiet. 

The feeling the novelist had during her second reading was different from the first reading. Religious faith, she realized, is not of the head but of the heart. Her faith had gone from her feet to her head, and now gropingly arrived at the heart.  When she prayed in the morning, she felt a shiver in her body, realizing that God was within her. Both when she prayed or did some good work, she was confident that it was God that was acting. And overcome with this knowledge she wept with joy. She remembered that God chose the weak, the sick and the deficient--the thought brought her peace.

                                                                                                                                                           

Abbassador In Chains

History helps us to understand our present reality and the reasons for social change and development. The head of the Korean Bishops Conference, writing in the Kyeongyang magazine, reveals that the Vatican was the first official connection with the new Korean government after liberation from the colonial rule of the Japanese.

The connection with the Vatican, the smallest country in the world, says the bishop, actually began before the setting up of the new republic of Korea. Mutel, the bishop of Korea at the time, felt that the work required in Korea was too much for the Paris Foreign Mission Society and asked the Vatican for permission to invite the American Missionary Society of Maryknoll to take care of the work in the Pyongan Province in northwest Korea.

Pyongan Province, in 1920, had a population of 2,441,000, with 41,000 Protestants and only 4,800 Catholics. The Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith gave permission for the area to be handed over, in 1922, to Maryknoll, at which time Patrick J. Byrne was named the first superior. Fathers Cleary and Morris followed, and shortly after, in 1924, six Maryknoll sisters and other priests entered the country. Fr. Byrne was elected as Vicar General of the whole Society and returned to the States, with Fr. Morris taking his place as apostolic prefect.  At that time, the bishop points out, there were 36 missioners, 19  parishes, 134 mission stations and 17,738. Catholics.  A big difference from what it was 10 years before.

In order to help the Maryknollers, Bishop Mutel sent some of the young devout Catholics to the States to study.  Chang Myun (John) and five others were sent  to the Maryknoll Seminary. Fr. Walsh, the Maryknoll superior, helped them to get into college. And John Chang was sent to learn English at the Venard, a high school seminary where Fr. Byrne was the principal. He helped the young man with his growth in spirituality, and was an important influence as John Chang continued his studies, finally graduating from Manhattan College in 1925. He attended the beatification of the 79  Korean martyrs, as the representative of the young people of Korea. Although he was offered many openings in Seoul to teach, he decided to work with the Maryknoll Fathers as their language teacher, where he remained until 1931.

After liberation in 1947, at the request of the Korean Church, Fr. Byrne was selected by Pope Pius 12th to be his representative and first ambassador to Korea. In June Fr. Byrne was made a bishop and officially appointed the apostolic delegate to Korea. Although the bishop goes into some detail on the Korean War, he devotes the last section of the article to Bishop Byrne's last days in Seoul.

As a bishop during these difficult times, Bishop Byrne was, he says, a significant figure amidst the surrounding turmoil. So much so that he was told it would be best to leave but he said his place was with the Korean Christians, and refused to leave.  On July 17th the bishop and his secretary Fr. Booth, a Maryknoll priest, were arrested by the communists. They were tried by the peoples' kangaroo court, sentenced to death, and transferred to Pyongyang. In September they were made to walk the  "Death March" to the Yalu, during which he died of pneumonia. Before dying he said,  “After the privilege of my priesthood, I regard this privilege of having suffered for Christ with all of you as the greatest of my life.”  He was a good example of being with his people even at the price of death.