The Feast of the Epiphany

Today is  the day we remember the visit of  the three wise men to the manger, after following the light of a star which brought them to Jesus, our light, the light of the world. In the Easter Church, the Feast of the Epiphany is celebrated together with Christmas. The  editorial in the Catholic Times reminds us of the influence we have received from the East in understanding the Feast we celebrate today.

The light was to be for the whole world and these wise men, foreigners, were to be a symbol of the gentiles who would in later years be coming to the Jesus. The feast is the feast of light and of the  manifestation of this light to the whole world. A quote from the sermon of Pope Leo I mentions that God did not want the birth of  Jesus to be confined to the narrow area where his mother gave birth to Jesus; he wanted it known to the whole world.

The editorial asks what meaning does this feast have for us today? Becoming more mature Christians is the answer. And since Christ came to us as the light of world, we need to reflect that light, our light, into our world. 

The light motif recurs often in the Scriptures and in our liturgy. We started off as Christians with our baptism. At which time we were given a candle to hold, either directly or with the help of our godparents, and heard the words: "You have been enlightened by Christ. Walk always as children of the light and keep the flame of faith alive in  your hearts." 
 
Again at the climax of our liturgical year, at the Easter Vigil, we are reminded of what happened at our baptism. We begin the service at the Vigil blessing with the new fire and lighting of the Paschal Candle. Three times during the procession to the front of the Church we hear, at three different times, the chant, "Light of Christ"  and we answer, "Thanks be to God". At the second chanting, the candles of all the parishioners are lit, which is a ritual way of experiencing what we are meant to be and do as Christians.

This year, no different than last year, many areas of the world are involved in violence and war. The  interests of many are not on the important things of life  obscuring the meaning of the Christmas message. This is the reality and the editorial asks us how are we to face the darkness that we find in life. Since we consider ourselves witnesses to Jesus, are we not to shine this light that we have received in the darkness that surrounds us today? This is the meaning of the Epiphany for us.

Pope Francis has given us a good example of what it means to be a light in the darkness. Light used as a metaphor is free of detractors; few will take issue with this metaphorical use of light. Though, when we speak of  unity, truth, goodness and beauty, there are many who will have difficulty in understanding these concepts in the same way. However, if we make an effort to be a light to others, using our values and work as a light, there is a possibility the light we engender will enable others, along with ourselves, to see the transcendental values more clearly and objectively.

Farmers of Korea

Agriculture, the world's largest industry, employs more workers than any other industry but rarely gets recognition for its importance to the human family. The pope, in his peace message for the New Year, recognized the contributions of farmers to the common good: "In a particular way, the agricultural sector is the primary productive sector, with the crucial vocation of cultivating and protecting natural resources in order to feed humanity."

Agricultural policies in Korea, however, have routinely sacrificed farmers’ interests and provoked protests from the farmers, including farmers represented by the organic farming movement, which was begun by the Catholic Farmers’ Movement in the late 1970s. The movement has done much to promote the concerns and interests of farmers, but not without a great deal of difficulty. One of the problems having to do with consumer issues was written up recently in the Peace Weekly.

The journalist begins by noting the words he heard from a farmer. "When we have a bumper crop we worry, when we have a bad year we worry." Whether it's a good harvest, meaning more competition and lower prices, or a bad harvest, meaning less crops and, despite the higher prices, less total income, the net result is the same: hardship for the farmer. Farming is not only hard work but there is the anxiety that is always there because of the many variables in the life of a farmer. 
 
This year the crop for winter cabbage and turnips was better than expected. (Cabbage and turnips are important for kimchi, a traditional fermented Korean side dish, made from cabbage and other vegetables with a variety of seasonings). Cabbage was 18.3 percent better than the previous year, and turnips saw an increase of  27.8 percent.  Cabbage did well because there was more land available for planting the cabbage this year and the weather was favorable. But with the bumper crop the market was flooded and prices dropped.  The price of cabbage last year was three times what it was in 2011, which induced the farmers to plant more cabbage, only to be disappointed when the prices dropped drastically. 

The apple and pear harvests this year also were excellent. The apple harvest increased 25.1 percent, the pear harvest 63 percent. The bean harvest was 25.7 percent better than the previous year. This also means it was not a good year for farm income. When prices are so deflated, there are farmers who won't harvest their crops.
 
How to determine the best time to market their produce to get a higher price is one of the concerns of farmers.  This would also be true for some fruits and for crops like sweet potatoes; they would fetch a better price during the winter months. 

The journalist ends the article by asking the consumer to be more sympathetic to the plight of the farmer. One way this can be accomplished is to market directly from producer to consumer--as is done in farmers markets--which assures the consumer of getting produce that can be trusted. The government also has to help by keeping the farmers on the farm, and not be concerned only with big business.  There  are many intangibles that must be considered if a solution to this issue is to be found, otherwise they will be overlooked when interest is unwisely focused only on the big companies, causing many farmers to leave their farms, as is happening too frequently here in Korea.

Problems With Technology

At an academic meeting recently, a research professor in the philosophy department of Sogang University was shocked to hear about 'wet-life' and 'dry life', about a future time when humans will not need water to live.  The "new humans" will not die and will be freed from their biological bodies and given man-made parts, while at the same time keeping all the faculties of human consciousness: memory, intelligence, and feelings. She reflects on this possibility  in a  recent issue of the Peace Weekly.

On the first day of Lent, she says, ashes are placed on our foreheads to remind us that we will die. We look over our lives humbly and make plans to do better in the future and realize the need for virtue. Our dignity as humans comes from this moral base. Would it be possible, she wonders, for humans freed from death to live a moral life?  Without fear of punishment and judgment for the evil we do, would we be sufficiently motivated to live such a life? If the meaning of life becomes deeper and more urgent because of our encounter with death, then we might ask ourselves, she says, whether the possibility of life without death is a blessing or a curse.

For the professor, freeing humanity from death is a frightening thought. Expecting a moral life from immortal humans, she feels, would be too difficult. The philosophers Heidegger, Hans Jonas, Erich Fromm, and Vittorio Hosle saw, with trepidation, that the marvels of technological innovations was making man think of himself as possessing God-like powers.  Humans, by thinking they can make anything through the power of technology, are in danger of rejecting their shared humanity. And, today, there appears to be no way we can restrain the power of technology, which threatens to take over our lives. Enormous sums of money are poured into the technological sector of our economy,  and we can hold no one responsible.
 
She gives us an example of what she means by citing a personal experience. One night while sleeping, she heard a banging. She got out of bed and went out to the balcony. The banging was coming from the next door apartment. She called out: "What's the problem?"  A voice expressing urgency answered: "I'm locked here in the veranda, please help!"  The professor had recently moved in and had not made the acquaintance of the new family.  After much difficulty, she was able to enter the apartment.  The woman, who had locked herself out on the balcony, was shivering  from the cold. The automatic door lock system had operated smoothly and could not be unlocked once anyone entered the balcony, unless set manually to do so.

Who was to blame? the professor asks. She was not able to get angry. The door was doing what it was made to do. There was no one who was responsible for what happened. This is one example of how we become enslaved by technology. Technology becomes automatic and autonomous and we have no one, she says, that we can hold responsible for its failures.  One big fear is that we can't expect any moral sensitivity from technology. Isn't this a reason to be frightened by the trust we have given all too quickly to the technological advances rapidly changing our lives?
 
Technology doesn't fear anything. For us to be without fear, however, can be dangerous, she says. Some fears are virtues that enable us to live noble lives--fears that superficial humanity is unaware of.  Before we continue to sit back and watch the development of this fearsome technology, we need to ask ourselves if it is wise to go ahead with technology, without imposing any conditions.

Hope for the New Year

Today we start with a new day, a  new month and a  new year. New is something different from what existed in the past. Time is not new, but what we will face, how we interact and prepare will be new. This is a time for resolutions as we look forward to a new beginning with hope. The Peace Weekly editorial wants us to be like the horse (the Asian symbol for the year 2014), with its strength to make the jumps necessary for a year of hope.
 
Pope Benedict, in the encyclical Spe Salvi, in the first paragraph, writes, "In hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom 8:24). According to the Christian faith, redemption (salvation) is not simply a given. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present time. The present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads toward a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey." 
 
We started the last  year with hope. 51 percent of the citizens voted for President Park with great hope, and those who didn't vote also continued to hope that things would be different. We Catholics had the hope that the Year of Faith would revitalize our life of faith. However, we have seen, instead, a lack of trust, an increase of confrontation, in politics no meaningful dialogue, the  breakdown of communication, and the pride of self-righteousness. Because of the illegal participation of government officials in the recent election process, there is a movement demanding that the president resign, and the opposition is also criticized for not acting maturely in the National Assembly.

Each diocese has worked in various ways to make the Year of Faith a profitable one for all, but one survey, which was considered a good reflection of the whole country, showed disappointing results.  Most Catholics, it was determined, follow their own values instead of the teaching of the Church. This is the reality of the Catholicism in Korea. Moreover, whether the Church should actively participate in political and societal issues is highly controversial. Even though those who do participate make up a small segment of the Church, it has brought on confrontation and hostility.

This reality, instead of giving us hope, upsets and gives rise to sighs and anger. But despite this feeling of frustration, we have to allow hope to be operative. Again, in the encyclical Spe Salvi, "All serious and upright human conduct is hope in action. This is so, first of all, in the sense that we thereby strive to realize our lesser and greater hopes, to complete this or that task which is important for our onward journey, or we work toward a brighter and more humane world, so as to open doors into the future. Yet our daily efforts in pursuing our own lives and in working for the world's future either tire us or turn into fanaticism, unless we are enlightened by the radiance of the great hope that cannot be destroyed even by small-scale failures or by a breakdown in matters of historic importance (#35).
 
As we begin this Year of the Horse, the editorial concludes with hope that we will not have the unhappy events of the past destroy our hope for the future. We, like the horse, should be vivified by new strength and should begin this new year with great hope. Place our trust in the Lord, and remember the words of  St. Paul, "Hope will not disappoint us" (Rom.5-5).

Happy New Year

Time is like the flowing river, one year flows out and another flows in. The desk columnist of the Catholic Times  introduces us to the Latin words Januarius and Janus, from which the month January takes its name. Janus, with his two faces pointing in opposite directions, was the Roman God of beginnings and ends, and fittingly names the month of January, which sees the end of the previous year and the beginning of the new year.

Janus was also known as the God of the gate, the gatekeeper of the heavenly gate. The columnist describes the new year as throwing off the old and beginning afresh with new hope and joy. She remembers many words about bringing in the new year but the most memorable were the words of a sermon. The priest mentioned that at the beginning of the new year we should remember the words of Jesus to his disciples: "What I am doing is sending you out like sheep among wolves. You must be clever as snakes and innocent as doves" (Matt.10:16).

The intention of the sermon was to remind us that though we will have joy in the beginning of a new year, we need to remember that during the year we will meet rough and threatening times. There will be challenges, and the words of Jesus will be helpful in navigating through the year. The pack of wolves are ready to fight, armed with relativism, secularism and materialism. We who are Christians have to fight daily against this culture of death, which will require wisdom and simplicity.

The Korean Church has already sent out the warning signals concerning the  dangers we will encounter in society, more so today than in anytime in  the past. There is the glorification of material well-being, and conflict and division are not decreasing. We cry out for mutual understanding and compromise, but are most often met with confrontation and selfish attachment to one's position, and a society that seems unwilling to deal effectively with the rising tide of suicides and divorce, the crisis of family life and the problems with our youth.

Wise as serpents and simple as doves is good advice for us to remember as we go into the new year. Pope Francis has told us in his New Year's message that the keyword for establishing peace is fraternal charity among the world family.  Since we are all brothers and sister under God, fraternal love should be a governing instinct in our lives. However, because of the spread of egotism, secularism and consumerism many are becoming impoverished and alienated. When we begin to see these brothers and sister with fraternal love will we not be closer to world peace?

Pope Francis went on to say, in his message on World Peace Day, some powerful words  to remember as we greet the new year. "Fraternity is an essential human quality, for we are relational beings. A lively awareness of our relatedness helps us to look upon and to treat each person as a true sister or brother; without fraternity it is impossible to build a just society and a solid and lasting peace...."

What Do We Mean by the Humanities?

The lack of interest in studying the humanities is the  reason for the many crises in society today, according to a professor emeritus writing in the Kyeongyang magazine. He even fears to read the newspapers, he says, with their many tragic tales of human  suffering. Why the many suicides, the break up of families and the other problems of society which are reported on a daily basis? The bonds that bind the members of a family--love, trust, understanding, sacrifice-- are, he says, as slippery as sand, difficult to hold on to, as we pursue worldly goods and honors.

He quotes Pope Francis: "The crisis is not a crisis of finances, or of culture but  the crisis of being humans. Persons have fallen into crisis; we are destroying ourselves." The professor lists the many reasons he feels that these words speak the truth. Our culture should be helping us to attain a fuller life; however, money and ideology  are putting on their armor and facing each other with violence.

We know what is happening to our environment: the waste products of industrialization have contaminated our ground, our water, our atmosphere, and is causing the disappearance of many animal species. Nietzsche is quoted as saying that humankind will remain as a useless virus on the face of the earth. There are those that agree with him, says the professor. These are just a few of the negative results of our material development.

Our culture is changing us, and not for the better. The professor divides our history into four periods: the ancient, the middle ages, the modern, and the present period. Each period had a particular method of education. The ancient Greeks and Romans aimed at bringing about a unity of mind and body, the cultivation, disciplining and improvement of the self.

During the middle ages, there was an emphasis away from attending to the needs of the individual to focusing more on achieving a relationship with God and religion. On the way to God, we are, he says, pilgrims in pursuit of understanding with faith, building character as we endeavor to lead a life of faith. 

During the modern era, Europe went through great changes. The fighting among Christians brought about a devastation that brought despair to the lives of many. We went from God being the center of our lives to placing humanity once again in the center. With the Renascence, there was a return to the ancient times of the Greeks and Romans, and a desire to rebuild the dignity of the person with humanism. This was the beginning of the study of the humanities in college, and those who championed this method of study were called humanists.

Now that we have entered the present times, we are faced with an ongoing clash between divergent cultures and civilization, between what we are and what we have. We can no longer insist on one culture, one viewpoint, one way of seeing God or man. We have to learn how to live together.  

Many thinkers acknowledge this situation, and they are looking for another way of being members of the human family. The professor believes we need a global humanities program, and then goes on to outline the Asian understanding of the person. Asia also has had an understanding of the humanities. There was a pattern for the human engraved within us, he says, just as there was a  pattern for the heavens. This division appeared first in the Book of Changes (The I Ching).  "Looking at the heavens we see change, looking at the pattern of humanity we see enlightenment." Asia has a tradition of poetry and ritual. We bring to fruition the pattern of life we have received  by the life of truth and virtue.

In conclusion, he doesn't want Asia to follow along the path taken by the West. The West, he says, was interested in the intellect as seen from the male perspective. They forgot that women made up half of the world's population and that 70 percent live in the East.

The study of the humanities, both in the East and in the West, is to form a mature individual, a whole person. How to form the  mature individual is what it is all about, to build for character. At present Korea has lost the idea of what education is meant to attain. The present aim is to get grades, pass the college entrance exam, make money. It is not interested in the formation of a mature person of character.  It is time to make a change, a global change, in the way we go about educating our children.                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Using to Abuse

In June of 2013, Korean TV ran the first advertisement for condoms. A young man is busy in the house attaching something to furniture and even to a tree outside the house. He hears the door bell ring and rushes to open the  front door. His girl friend outside has just dropped her handbag and is picking up the contents, which includes a pack of condoms made by the largest multinational in the field. 

Writing in the Kyeongyang magazine, a specialist in promoting the culture of life discusses the methods used in selling condoms in Korea. Referring to the ad, he asks: Why does it put two incompatible items together: a rosary ring on the finger of the girl friend as she leans down to pick up the contents of her bag, which contains a pack of condoms. 

The obvious intention is to show the use of condoms in a positive light, a part of ordinary life. Though this attempt is easily accomplished with the younger generation in Korea, it is not so easy with the older generation. The marketing objective is clearly focused on desensitizing us from one way of thinking, and moving us along to another. The young girl, portrayed as a chaste, simple Catholic, has come to her boy friend's house prepared to have a "safe" sexual encounter.

All are familiar with the Church's teaching on premarital sex and artificial contraception--not exactly what would increase the bottom line for condom manufacturers, who feel the need to counter this influence--if they are to increase their share of the market--by ads that encourage sexual activity among those least likely to do so. The multinational is working to create a new type of culture. The writer shows this by the way they have treated the Catholic way of life in their advertisements in the West. One example shows a father of 12 children who he is calling them by name from a second story house window. Each one has a saint's name, and as he calls each one he begins to stumble in the middle of the name calling, finding it difficult to remember all the names. He wants them to come in to eat, and as the ad ends, we see the tired face of the father and the words: "If only he had known about condoms, he would not have had so many children to worry about."
 
Of course the  company is not doing this in a vacuum: The Church's teaching is not taken seriously by the Catholics themselves. There is no need for a frontal attack on the Church when Catholics do not see any problem with condoms and premarital sex. More of a problem, he says, is aiming their words to the younger generation. In the advertising segment shown on TV,  we are shown a young man, alone at home, attaching condoms all over the house and a tree outside, waiting for his girl friend to arrive for sex.

The writer recommends to parents a number of responses to this kind of advertising. First, to complain about the marketing of sex to the young. Second, be a wise consumer.  Reckitt Benckiser, the maker of the condoms, makes many household articles, any of which could be the object of a shopper's boycott. (When one of their humidifiers recently caused the death of a number of children, there was no apology or compensation from the company.) Third, educating their children about the media (media literacy) is necessary. Showing sex as something without consequences is a lie, and should be exposed. Fourth, simply becoming more aware of the many conditioning forces surrounding us. We can excuse a commander who fails in battle, but one who has the job of protecting and doesn't do the job is something quite different. In the world of media, we have to be alert so as not to be deceived. The company is spending big money to silently educate viewers with their up-to-date tactics on how to influence us through the media. We also should be as wise in combating this assault on our values.