Inculturation is a word we often hear when we speak about the Gospel and culture. Evangelization has to be sensitive to the culture in which one is living and how to make the Gospel message understood in that environment. Articles in two Catholic Weeklies introduce a new book to the readers by a seminary professor, Fr. Lee Dae-geun. He received a prize for his recent book on 'Korean Religious History of Ideas' which was the author's efforts to understand why Korea was fertile ground for Catholic teaching.
Korean Catholicism, we need to remember, met people with a shamanistic history and Fr. Lee's efforts wanted to understand the encounter of these two religions. To understand Christianity in Korea, and the people's religious sensibilities, we have to understand shamanism, which influenced Korean culture and temperament, and continues to do so, according to Fr. Lee.
Easy it is for us to think that shamanism, exorcism rites, superstition and the like have mostly disappeared. Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism have come into the country from outside but shamanism was modified to adapt to the teachings of each of these religions.
Studies of shamanism have been going on for some time. No longer is it the study of folklore or history, but now it extends to sociology, anthology, religion, and psychology. Fr. Lee examines the influence of shamanism on Christianity. He wants to examine the motivational force that enabled the Korean people to accept Christianity when it entered Korea. He was surprised at the ease in accepting Christianity. The book is the study of the reasons in accepting Christianity, a foreign import.
Fr, Lee has a doctorate in Korean Philosophy and Asian studies and in his examination of folklore and rites of the harvest, he came to a new understanding of the legendary founder of Korea, Dan-gun, from whom the Korean people are descended. He recommends that their identity as Koreans and as Christians be understood as the meeting of these two religions.
Fr.
Lee's book was praised for his efforts to
understand the religious sensibilities of the Korean people but he has
been criticized in making some great leaps in what he has included in the
book and also in simplifying much. In the critique of the book that
followed the article, it was mentioned that many did find the acceptance
of Christianity easy but with the teaching on Creation and Redemption
there were also many who gave their lives for the faith, which brings
doubt to the minds of many on some of the points that were made in the
book.
Ascetical theology is a branch of theology, which deals with the practice of virtue and attainment of holiness.
An article in the Peace Weekly on spirituality
mentions the work that is necessary not only in controlling and purifying our five senses but also a need to purify our internal faculties of memory, and imagination. We work on the external, but need concern also with the internal.
Imagination is a neutral faculty it all depends on the way used if it is to be a help or a hindrance in the spiritual life. Jesus in his teaching used parables and worked on the imagination of his hearers. If our use of the imagination in the past has experienced a great deal of positive information, we will be helped, but if it has many harmful images, the effect on the imagination is injurious.
Our external senses have to be controlled so that we
don't have harmful images entering. It is difficult to imagine anything that has not entered by the external senses. What we consider
not helpful should not enter, if we want to
advance in our spiritual journey.
Our
memory also has to be purified. Whether we liked it or not, we have had
many experiences, some we have forgotten but many we remember. Remembrances that have impacted us harmfully should not control us. Memories of our sins and scars can be
overwhelming, and need to be replaced and forgotten.
When we have experienced God's grace and blessings, these need to be remembered and brought to mind often, and the hope they have nurtured. This is a great help in developing spiritually.
We also have internal cognitive, emotional and volitional acts that have to be purified. Without our emotions being purified, we will be bothered with sensual desires. Our cognitive faculty helps us to put light on our faith life, and foster love in our spiritual life. A strong will is necessary to do what we know we should, and to be conscious of God, otherwise we will be concerned only of ourselves.
Internal senses and faculties are all connected and working with one, will influence the others. In the past, the Church did take an interest in what books and movies the Catholics should not read and view, precisely because of the harm it would do to our imagination and memory. This is no longer advisable for the way society looks upon this interference in our daily life, but the reason was and still is, enabling us to live a healthy and happier life.
"Church opened to the world, renewal and adaptation" were maxims used after the close of the Second Vatican Council: 2015 is the 50th year from the end of the council. Korea has still some way to go to implement the changes according to the participants of a recent international conference on the theme: "Gospel and evangelization, 50 years after the II Vatican Council." The following are the subtopics: *Dialogue among religions and evangelization *Paradigm change in evangelization *Evangelizing Church * Mediums for the Gospel in evangelizing.
Interrelgious dialogue has been part of our reality from after the council. Reason for the dialogue is not to convert the other but as companions in search of truth. This, said one of the participants, is a change from our traditional ways.
Our understanding of evangelizing has changed from understanding others only as people to be saved by baptism. In the Americas, missioners risked their lives to go to the aboriginal peoples and using pressure to save them was the understanding of evangelizing. Salvation of the non-baptized was the thinking and the council has shown us a need to walk with others and discover how God speaks to them in their culture, a need for inculturation: not only to receive a response of religious faith but sowing love. The lives of the Christians become attractive and people want to join, not imposing but proposing.
One of the results of the Council was a Reforming Church: always in need of renewal for it is continually being secularized. We need to renew the face of the earth with God's original plans for the world. We need to help those who are weakest to appreciate their dignity and showing them God's love. Another participant said more than stressing the word renewal is to live a life of renewal: a poor church, poor priests, born again Christians.
We have to give Jesus by our lives. We have to work for justice and peace for the common good. This work for justice when seen by others will be admired and people will want to join.
The process of catechizing in Korea has been by transmitting knowledge; we have to change to accompany them. It is not changing the way we have worked in the education of the Christians but to add another facet to what we were doing.
Lay people should feel free in giving their opinions and the clergy and the diocese should listen. Dioceses have to spend money in the education of lay people.
One of the participants stressed that the Council was a pastoral one, and this must be remembered. Lay persons must realize they are the church. He wonders whether most of the lay people see themselves only as objects of pastoral work and as helpers of the clergy, but they are the church and have been given their mission by Jesus. Both papers had articles on the conference. On the front page of the Catholic Times, the article ends: without change in the thinking of the clergy the ideas that have followed from the Council will be impossible to achieve.
Anything that is written is done with a bias. Historians admit this rather obvious reality. Some biases will help one get closer to the truth than others. One danger is that history, for the most part, is written by the victors and written by the most favored in society.
Korea is conflicted at present by the governments desire to control who writes the history books used in the secondary schools. Schools can choose the books they want but from 2017 all schools must use the books selected by the government. Present government does not like the left-leaning, American bashing, and pro-North Korean language. How much that is the case is a matter of debate. In the Peace Weekly a history professor, emeritus, gives his opinion on the matter by answering a series of questions.
History is the combination of fact and interpretation. There is much room for interpretation, and this gives life to what we read. We don't have any established theories unless it is controlled.
To the question, whether we have any international standards to go by, he rules out being influenced by ideology or politics. With the United Nations, history is turned over to the historians. Most of the developed countries do not get involved with the history books used and turn this over to those writing the history. Those using the books have freedom to select the ones they deem the best. When the government does the selecting, we are approaching totalitarianism.
He reminds us the books considered left-leaning now in use were approved by the government, and if there is a left-leaning, the Education ministry is at fault and not the editors of the books.
When history has to be approved by the government, we have a black-and-white camera with pictures that are in color. History is not to be interpreted by a certain class of society or written to imbue patriotism in the citizens. Danger is high that, controlled by the government, it will be written to build up love for the country.
A Christian way of looking at history would see it with the glasses of love and peace and the universal extension of fundamental rights, which would not be much different from the way the historical academy would see it. If we have a love for humanity, peace and the pursuit of happiness as values, they will help in the writing of history: against war and on the side of the poor. We have to keep in mind the universal common values: a proper view of the world and life requires a universal outlook on values that serve as our starting point for interpretation and teaching.
Renewal, reformation, being what we are called to be is an ever present
desire on the part of many. Seven religious groups Buddhist,
Protestants, Catholics and others began the movement for the members to live according to their own groups' teachings: like human beings, like religious people,
like government officials, like workers, like fathers, like mothers and
so
forth.
Doing what we are called to do
by our duties in society, giving an example to society with the hope
society will follow. Since over half of the Koreans have a religious
affiliation this would make a difference in society. The movement was
written up in the Catholic papers and also in the secular press
mentioning a diocese that in a general meeting, 461 priests promised
to carry out the proposal, the first group of priests in the country to
do so.
*They have promised to be faithful to their duties as priests.
*To be evangelizers to the best of their ability and live by the Gospel.
* Read the breviary devoutly and be an example of a prayerful life.
* Serve God's people.
*Will work for the unity and fraternal love among the priests of the diocese.
They have promised this in the presence of their communities.
They have also decided to help with a gift of about 1,000 dollars for
all the families with a third child, and for any third child 1,000
dollars for high school, and if accepted for college, another 2,000
dollars.
In surveys made to determine the first need for renewal within the church, the answer in first place was priests'
authoritarianism and clericalism. The response of the diocesan priests
is an understanding of this reality and an effort to bring about a
change. It was a surprise to many to see the response of the diocese to
the movement 'to live like we should'.
Dec. 8th begins
the Year of Mercy and the diocese has decided to set up a permanent
place for confessions, and next year in May, they will have a day for all
all couples with a renewal of the marriage vows.The response of the diocese has already moved another diocese to follow their example next year.
Recently, Korea had a three-day meeting of separated families in the North's Diamond Mountain resort. One of the columnists in the Peace Weekly writes about the meetings with a great deal of feeling. North and South never signed a peace treaty, so we are dealing with a truce and continuance of conflict.
One of the elderly Koreans who is just short of his ninetieth year, after 65 years met his daughter who was only 3 years old when he left his family for war. His wife died 35 years ago and the child he left is now a grandmother of 68. She wanted to hear her father sing, an accomplished singer in his day. The father was only a father in name to the daughter. She held her father's hand while he sang and cried and never stopped. When the time came to separate there was no promise of a future visit only wishes for good health.
After some time, we have resumed the visits of the separated families which begin with tears and end with tears. Meeting family members, not knowing whether they are alive or not, is always a happy moment but shortly ends with the beginning of pain. Joy turns to pain, and we see the cruelty of the situation. Watching the meeting of families on television is filled with great sorrow on the part of the citizens, not difficult to understand the pain of those meeting each other.
Families have done nothing to merit this separation. Nothing can justify this evil, and cruelty inflicted on so many families. Russia and the United States both looking for hegemony divided the country with the help from both sides: a symbiotic hostile relation that has brought pain to many. Each side looks only to its own benefits, and forgetting the good of the citizens. We are all accomplices in this evil, he laments; we all sat idly while this was accomplished.
In the last eight years, we have had only four meetings of separated families. We can ask the two governments of the South and North why should this be. The previous 'liberal' government had 16 meetings of separated families. No matter, the reasons given the columnist found this difficult to accept. Those who profess the name conservative should have a great respect for family and should be working to decrease the pain that the separated families endure. The age of the separated families continues to increase, and the hope of meeting is left unresolved.
He hopes the two governments will allow regularly a place where the separated families can easily meet. He hopes they will think more of the families, instead of their own advantages and disadvantages. He would like the Cardinal of Seoul to use his position as the acting ordinary of Pyongyang, North Korea, to work to overcome the heartburn that so many in both parts of the peninsular have to deal with, and want to see resolved before they die.
Pleasure is the gratification of the senses, fulfilling our desires. The opposite would be pain. Hedonism is the school of thought where pleasure is the highest good. These are the words that introduce an article in the Kyeongyang magazine, by a Catholic College President, writing about one of the ever-present temptations we face.
Pleasure's common element is being temporary; we are gratified, but it soon disappears and we long for something else: 'hedonic adaptation' followed often by addiction.
We hear that modern man is losing his roots, his inner pillars are shaking and she seeks self-preservation in pleasure. One becomes alienated from the self. Young people, no matter how hard they work and save for the future,when obstacles are too many to overcome, the danger of falling into a life of pleasure is present.
When education is not for the building up of the human and aimed only towards wordily success, young people will not have the necessary knowledge and virtue to overcome difficulties of life.When the culture and the social order begin to fall apart, and morality becomes muddied, values are confused.
Happiness that comes from pleasure is located in the body; the fullness of happiness comes from the mental and spiritual. What do we learn from this distinction between the two? Bodily happiness may start with spice but leaves us with a thirst. It is only the authentic happiness that has God in the equation that will last.
Psalm number four shows us what the spread of the hedonistic culture will mean for those that confront the culture."Men of rank, how long will you be dull of heart? Why do you love what is vain and seek after falsehood? Many say... put gladness into my heart, more than when grain and wine abound."
Searching for pleasure is a temptation for those with a religious belief and a challenge. Will it be this emotion for pleasure that needs repeated changes or will we realize we are weak and repent? This is the way of living as a Christian.
