A priest with the
responsibility for pastoral work in places of labor says Mass in
different groups once a month. In time, he realized this pastoral work
would allow some flowers to bloom and gradually make a bouquet and even a
flower garden. He writes about one of the incidents in Bible & Life.
In the workplace groups you have two types who attend the Masses: workers who want to be there, and those who are there because their work bosses thought it was a good idea.
He
brings to the attention of his readers a man from this second group. He
met him for the first time waiting in an area where those preparing to
receive the sacrament of reconciliation were seated. His facial
expression was one of displeasure, and he told the priest: "I don't want
to go to confession."
"Well
let us talk about it." The man after a long period of silence and a
deep sigh said he hadn't been to church for some time, and presently,
he has no desire to return. His section boss learned about his baptism
and that is why he came.
After
a short period he go up and went to the place for the Mass. The other
fellow believers went to communion but he did not, and during the Mass
he showed on his face that he did not like being where he was. At the
end of Mass the priest expressed his desire they all find hope in the
work place. The man was seen by the priest writing something on a piece
of paper.
On
the way to the meal the man came up beside him and gave him a slip of
paper. After a distracted meal the priest headed for the subway and
took out the slip of paper on which was written: "The work place is a
war zone."
He
wouldn't be going back to that work place for a month and prepared an
answer on a similar slip of paper: "Even in a battle zone flowers can
grow." They continued to communicate with these written messages on
slips of paper.
"Flowers don't put an end to war. "
"Those who see the flower will not be fighting."
"One person who stops and looks at the flower is not sufficient."
This
last message got the priest thinking. After receiving the slip of paper
and seeing the man leave, was like seeing his father and made him sad.
He
ran after the man and asked if they could go for a cup of coffee. They
talked for sometime on many topics. He as a young man was active in the
church and even after beginning to work, but he became frustrated and
faced many difficulties and did not feel the warmth of God's presence
any more.... Tears began to form in his eyes when he received a
telephone call from his work boss. Waiting for him to return the priest was
wondering how to answer his last complaint.
Shaking
his hand as they separated the priest said: "The ones looking at the
flower are two, you and I , so that is reason for you to have hope,
isn't it?"
Activists who take what they believe seriously, and want to do
something about the wrong they see are not always welcomed in "polite"
society. They rock the boat and make us uncomfortable. It is better not
to see, or hear if is going to change the way we have been accustomed
to live.
A religious sister in her article in the
diocesan bulletin tells her readers about two fathers she admires: the father of a girl who died in the Sewol Tragedy, and father of a girl who worked in Samsung's Semiconductor Industry and
died of leukemia.
She met the father of the girl who died
in the ferry tragedy and asked him why he continues the
fast. He told her that he wants to know the reason for the death of his
daughter, and since he has no money and no power he resorted to fasting
and is willing to risk death to find the truth.
By watching the movie 'Another Promise'; she met the father of the girl,
who died of leukemia, a taxi driver, struggling to meet family expenses.
He was proud, when he heard that his daughter got a job at the
biggest conglomerate in the country. Within two years, however, she
returned home with leukemia from which she died. The daughter before she
died asked the father to show that working in the semiconductor section
of the company was the reason for her leukemia, and not something that
came from her. The company kept denying any responsibility for the
sickness. The father gave up his job and spent all his time trying to make
the company acknowledge their responsibility.
Her article
shows how a father sacrificed the life of his son to save the lives of
those who were riding in a train that had come to a drawbridge over a
river. He was the railroad worker responsible for the working of the drawbridge. That day he brought his son to the workplace, the son fell beneath the tracks as the train was coming towards the bridge,
there was no time and he chose to save the passengers, and sacrificed his
son. This was the theme of a short movie that the sister remembered
seeing, and relates it to the love of God for Jesus and all of us. There are times when we are called to sacrifice our comfort, our money and even our lives for something greater.
The
two fathers on the occasion of the death of their daughters decided
that the situations which caused the death of their daughters was not an act of God but of human culpability and were prepared to risk everything
to bring this to the knowledge of the world. The sister admires these
two ordinary men, who were willing to sacrifice for truth. There has been some success in the fight of
these two fathers but the curtain has not come down on the final results of their efforts.
Korea has been divided for over 60 years, the lack of communication
between the North and South has affected the once common language of the
country. North Korean Refugees who have come to the South are the first
ones to experience the change and the difficulties in communicating in
the same country. The language spoken in Pyongyang and Seoul are
different. At present, basic communication is possible, but if we continue going our two different ways, with
unification we will have a problem not easily remedied.
The
representative of the bishops' committee for reconciliation of the
country writes of some of the difficulties he has experienced in dealing
with the refugees from the North living in the South. He has invited
young people from the North to a meal. The answer comes back
bluntly, not a refusal but neither an obvious acceptance: he
surmises they don't want to relate with him, not interested, no
need to be concerned. This understanding comes mostly from the
intonation of their voice, facial expression and rough exterior. He learns
quickly that's not the message that they want to give. The answer is
actually OK, and is embarrassed in harboring the negative thoughts.
On
one occasion after finishing a meal together in a restaurant the person
said to his understanding: "my back hurts because of the way I put on
my shoes." This was not at all what was said, but: "for no reason my
back hurts." What the South would call octopus they call squid.
And many similar examples are the different meanings for words used.
Some are completely opposite from their use in the South.
The
North has made great effort to exclude foreign words in contrast to the South. Many of the words in the South, because of the long interaction with the rest of the world, uses many words from English and other
languages but the North has maintained a desire for 'purism' this
movement is also present in the South but has not progressed far. A
limited use of Chinese characters have been accepted in the North after
years of refusal; the South continues with the 1800 characters they work with in the schools.
The
article mentions how often they use the same words to mean two different
things. In conversation they think they are understanding each other
but are not. This is not an infrequent occurrence.The foreign words
that the North Koreans see are one of the biggest problems they
have in feeling at home in the South.
When relating
with those from the North he recommends to remember how it would be living in a foreign country doing your studies. Gently ask after
speaking whether they understand what was said. Because of embarrassment
they will not ask you to repeat, but will give the impression they
understand when they don't. Don't force the issue, don't look down on
them, don't get angry. Remember how we would be in a foreign country.
With this attitude we will come to an understanding and acceptance of
each other.
A
survey was made among 1500 citizens on their knowledge of hospice and
palliative care, the results showed that only 39.5 percent were
familiar with the hospice movement. An essay in the Catholic Times by a nurse in a Catholic University hospice ward gives us her thoughts on the subject of palliative care.
She
has been a nurse for thirty years, and only a few years before did she
become acquainted with the movement; if this is true of a nurse, she
says, how much more so for others. She has worked in all the
different wards of a hospital, and remembers the efforts she made to
solve the problems the sick faced, and found great satisfaction and
was filled with confidence in the work.
Assigned
to the palliative care ward this all changed. In the beginning she felt
helpless in dealing with the terminally ill cancer patients. She felt
her limitations and great uncomfortableness in working in the ward. But
with the passage of time she began to feel a numbness to her
surroundings and felt guilty in being so callous, and wanted to get back
to the thoughts she has when she first became a nurse. This coldness
appeared unconsciously, she feels, in defense of seeing so many who
were dying, something she did not experience in the other wards of the
hospital.
One
of her misgivings, at present, is not being able to make the last
moments of the dying into memorable events for the families and the
terminally sick. As she mentions there are many, even among the medical
personnel, who feel those in hospice are only there awaiting for death.
It is true that they are there because death is imminent, but we can't
say we can't do anything. We can search for what makes them happy,
and make the last years of earthly life memorable for the dying and
their families.
We
are all preparing to die. Hospice workers are trying to make this
bereavement into something that will leave beautiful memories behind.
Efforts are made to make the time before death as painless and profitable as possible,
and to minimize the sadness attendant on the death of a love one.
Isn't
this the aim of palliative care? She concludes her essay with her
desire to be of more service to those dying and their families. She
feels like an important fellow traveler with the sick person and the
family member, and to serve as the outstretched hand of an
angel.
Families are the basic unit of society. When families are healthy
society is healthy. The role the family had as producer and consumer has
now been reduced to being where members sleep. The intensity of
competition in our society prevents families from being places of
security and rest; the influence of religion on the family has
weakened. These are the words a university professor, with experience
in the field, uses in his article on the family, in the Kyeongyang
Magazine.
The extended family in the past was able to
respond to our needs, both essential and non-essential. With
the change to the nuclear family this has become difficult. We find not
only the non-essential needs are filled outside the family, but also the
essential ones. Even the nuclear family is beginning to wobble. We have
both husband and wife needing to work, the pressure on children to study, and even the living apart of husband and wife for
the sake of the children's schooling. In the last 25 years we have a fourfold increase in divorces, and two times the number of unmarried
families.
Because of the lack of communication within the family we have the breakdown of family bonds. We do hear:
"Have you eaten? Where are you? Are you home? "Can we call this
communication? According to the mass media the face to face
communication has given way, in many instances, to the use of the smart
phone. Part of the reason is not only the lack of time but the lack of
matter to talk about; not only the generational gap but also the lack
of a common culture: without some commonality in
life we have little to talk about.
So what can we do? He
asks. Most know the present family reality is not conducive to happiness,
and are looking to bring joy back to the family. The professor
does not consider the solution as impossible or difficult: get rid
of competition, and work to build up community. We need an attitude
which sees the value of working together; work
against the coldness of materialism which denigrates our human dignity,
and find the values of community. These are the values that we as
Catholics have stressed and have tried to practice.
These
are not the values of our society so we have to work to change the
foundational system of our society. Egotism and the policy of
development at all costs has to change. The government has to
guarantee the right to a human life for all the citizens. This is not
the reality in our present society.
He concludes the
article by presenting us with the countries of Northern Europe and
their welfare state, as examples to follow. Instead of efficiency and
competition, the emphasis is on equality and care for all the citizens. Once we start looking at where the families live and the process of
education comes under the blanket of public welfare the original
understanding of family community and its function will recover.
Last Christmas, Fr. James Sinnott, died, a
Maryknoll Priest, who helped make known to the world the tragedy
surrounding the legalized murder of eight members of the People's
Revolutionary Party, that never existed. The government of Park
Chung-hee expelled him. He couldn't forget Korea, and with the arrival
of democracy, returned. A diocesan priest from Pusan, writing in the
View from the Ark, in the Catholic Times, reminds his readers of the
gift that Fr. Sinnott gave to our society.
Another
Maryknoller, Fr. Michael Bransfield, also left us quietly. While on the
island of Kang Hoa Fr. Mike in 1968, helped the young workers in a
textile factory on the island, working in difficult conditions, to
unionize. His efforts were strongly opposed, and he suffered much during
this period. This was the occasion for the Bishops of Korea to publish a
statement on the plight of the workers which was the beginning of the Church's formal concern for laborers. The article wants
us to remember the work of these two priests.
Bishop
Ji-Hak-sun, was the person that left us the gift of the priests'
Justice and Peace Committee which continues the work for human rights and
democratization; he did much before his death, to make Catholicism a
religion that has won the respect of many of the citizens.
However,
says the priest, in 1997 at the end of the 20th century with the IMF we
had something we had never experienced before, the beginning of the Neoliberalism period.
During the last part of the 20th century it was a fight for democracy,
in the 21st century a fight for distributive justice.
We
have those who have left us a gift with their mission and zeal in 20th
century but what are we in the 21st century going to leave behind for
our world and our descendants? Magnificent buildings that we are
leaving behind is not the answer. The problem with having enough to eat
is an issue with which we need to respond, and not something we can dismiss. Social justice and economic justice are two wheels of the same
cart,
Let us look
at the Scriptures with new eyes. We have a new way of looking upon our
society. We have to see our society in the way God looks on the society.
We have to have a different theology, a new spirituality. Are we not called to accept freely a life
of detachment--poverty- that will be the key to meeting the heartless
and selfish capitalism that we see around us? This is the key to
prevent our human existence from being trampled.
He concludes, they are working to incorporate a new type of spirituality in their Theology Research Center, and in the lay organizations in the diocese. Spirituality is not for the exclusive use of the religious and
clerics but for all. This, he says, will be our gift to those who follow
us.
In many of the interviews for employment one of the questions asked: "
What is it that you absolutely don't want to do? On the opinion page of
the Peace Weekly the writer mentions some of the answers: "I have no
problems." "Nothing special." She doesn't know if these answers are coming from the heart; and mentions her own response to the question in
an interview for a job some 4 years before. She remembers exactly how
she responded: "I hate to be forced to do something which I think is
wrong."
We spend a great deal of time in the workplace.
When the system to which we belong is going in a direction we don't
like, it is difficult to be content. Our whole body will revolt. When a
monk doesn't like the temple he has two choices: to change the temple
or leave. He has to choose the way that benefits him. If he decides to
leave, he has to realize that he will not have a chance to eat the tasty food of the temple again. Life is short, and to live doing
something you don't want to do is asking a great deal.
Last
May she heard about a friend who refused to go into the military. She
asked her friends about the young man, and was told that he wanted to
work against violence, and made his choice, and was imprisoned. This is
not something that happens rarely. In Korea we have over 850 who are now
in prison because of the draft, and a great majority are
Jehovah's Witnesses. Worldwide, 90 percent of those who are in prison
because of the draft are in Korea.
She doesn't want to
get involved with the arguments pro or con on the military; she doesn't
know what she would do if she were in her friend's shoes but she thinks
that there should be an alternative to prison for those who refuse the
military. Korea refuses the right of conscientious objection and does
not provide any alternative civilian service. Korea continues to violate the international agreement to respect this human right of conscientious objection; and insists their situation is different because of security.
On a train trip she noticed all the advertizing for academies for children: called so and so military academies.
Parents seem to have no problem with this, and go along with the
situation. The writer reflects how natural the military situation of
Korea is accepted by so many, and she sympathizes with those who are
poking us to wake up to this reality. We have conscientious objectors
who when released from prison will be call ex-convicts when they are not
convicts. There should be a way, she says, for those who do not want to bear arms to do so.
