Ecumenism and Week for Prayer for Christian Unity

 

Each year in most of the countries where Christianity is present we have the Unity Octave or Prayer for Christian Unity from January 18-25. This year's theme is taken from 1 Peter 2:9-10.  "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."

  This year the material was prepared by the Christians of Latvia based on the passage from St. Peter's first letter where we are asked to proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord. Themes for each day are listed below.

  Day 1: Let the stone be rolled away

Day 2: Called to be messengers of Joy

Day 3: The witness of fellowship

Day 4: A priestly people called to proclaim the Gospel

Day 5: The fellowship of the Apostles 

Day 6: Listen to this dream

Day 7: Hospitality for prayer

Day 8: Hearts burning for unity

  Week of prayer has a history of over a hundred years and since many different religious Christian groups met together to compose the  prayers, expectations of all the parties may not be satisfied. All know, however, that the objective is to bring about the wish of Jesus that we be one as he is one with the Father.

  "May they all be one. Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me" (John 17: 21).

  Korea is an example of ecumenism at the highest level that hopefully will be spread throughout the whole of Christianity. Emphasizing what  we hold in common, and praying  we may come to a common understanding of what separates us, and work to achieve unity the Spirit wants. 

  The editorial in the Catholic Times reminds the readers that Catholicism entered Korea 230 years ago and Protestantism 130 years ago. We need to reflect deeply  on the path we are called to walk as disciples of Jesus, and do all we can to heal the wounds we have inflicted on the mystical body of Christ.

Appearance: Supreme Value in Marketing

A series of articles in the Catholic Times exams the way sex is seen in the popular culture. Morality gives way to profit as the standard of judgement. News is often not  honest, and citizens  show little concern. Biotechnology without recourse to any ethical position is of little interest to the media.

All kinds of suggestive advertising come into the homes; there are no limits in contents or location. Smart phones are used mostly by those in their 20s and 30s  and what  is harmful is difficult to classify and passed over quickly.

A recent article was concerned with the way  advertising for clothes is made to the young students. Thinness is carried to a degree where it becomes harmful. One is not recognized if one is not pretty and thin. Appearance is the supreme judge of a person's value: corsets grafted into the  school dress and length of dresses.   

On the wall next to the entrance to a high school was an advertisement addressed to girls with a famous dance vocalist. Wearing her school uniform a girl student in the advertisement was drawing the  attention to her thinness of a man in his forties with dark classes, admiring her beauty. The advertisement was removed shortly for being suggestive.

There are persons  sensitive to what is happening, and the article mentions health teachers in one of the school systems. They notified the schools and made the problem of these kinds of advertising known. The result of this  kind of advertising is having a bad influence on students. A girl's figure becomes all important and  leads to all kinds of health problems: anorexia, indigestion, menstrual pain, underweight and TB and other problems.

With the attentions given by the public to the advertising, the clothing company did agree to change the advertising for the future. Companies of this type are not interested in the health of the students as much as appearance and consequently, the way they choose to market their clothes: 'Beauty is strength.'

Many are the teachers who feel that the protection of our school children is not provided for adequately.  "When we don't take a problem seriously it is not a problem, but needs to become a problem." When the young people become objects of sexual exploitation in  advertising, something needs to be done and more voices raised in protest, working  for a change.

Advice From an Old Korean Missioner on Unification

A Catholic Times' column by a professor of Chinese Studies on unification of the peninsular, has an interview with the local superior of the Maryknoll Society, Father Gerard E. Hammond. He begins his article by  mentioning a brief history of Maryknoll, established for mission to Asia. Mission work for the Society began in Korea early, and in 1927 the Pyongyang Province was made a prefecture and work continued until war and the Communist take-over of North Korea.
 
Father Hammond has been associated with the Eugene Bell Foundation whose president is Stephen Linton. Father has been working in North Korea with  Stephen Linton and his foundation combating those with Multi-drug -Resistant Tuberculosis. They have 12 centers in the North which they visit frequently with drugs, assisting and examining patients. They are one of the biggest groups in this work.

Recently, Fr. Hammond told one of the Korean priest leaders in promoting unification of the county that  medical aid to the North is one of the most important works that we can engage in at present. Germany is a good example of what was needed for unification.  East German citizens trusted West Germany, and they made the choice of joining them because of the good will towards the West.

When North Korea has a trust in the government of the South, we will have the citizens' peaceful transition to a one Korea, says Fr. Hammond. When North Koreans are having problems and difficulties, we should not neglect them. We  need to monitor what is being done, ensuring the aid is going to the needy. That is the reason the Eugene Bell Foundation has established the 12 centers.
 
Persons that were  members of the elite in North Korean society were  purged from positions in government by Kim Jong-un for selling medical supplies on the market for personal gain, given from the South and  international  organizations. Which showed medical help  given by 'angels' was acknowledged and punishment was duly given to those who stole from the sick of the country.

Fr. Hammond is 80 years old and has his grave site  selected, and  wants to be considered a Korean. He will continue working to help the North Koreans and  prays and hopes for the day of unification.

Choose Karios Over Chronos

One of the gods of Greek mythology is Kairos, god of opportunity. An article in the Kyeongyang magazine by  a layman, working with families, in the Seoul Pastoral Office explains why the statue of god has a head of hair in the front and bald at the back.

Mop of hair at the front allows one to grasp opportunity, but once it passes you, the bald head is all you have and a missed opportunity; the chance has passed. "So then, as often as we have the  chance, we should do good to everyone, and especially to those who belong to our family in the faith" (Gal. 6:10).

In sports, we know how important it is to take advantage of the opportunities that one is given. Likewise, in life we don't know when we will hear the whistle, so it is necessary to seize every opportunity,  there is no guarantee of a tomorrow. We know speed of time on earth continues to increase as we get older. Chronos is the Greek word for lineal time: quantity of time. Kairos is the quality of time, a subjective understanding of time.

He uses the example of the last  4 minutes of a soccer game where the score is 1:0. For the winning team, the 4 minutes are extremely long while the losing team too short. Kairos time is meaningful and quality time, and you are the master and in control.God's clock has no hands because it is Kairos and full of love and he wants us to live with this kind of time. 

Sad, it is, to spend so much time without meaning, a great tragedy. When surveys ask what do people want: money is the answer, but one thing money can't buy is time. Consequently, the greatest gift we can give another is our time. 

Tragic, how busy we are, and can't find time to be with family. There is so much to share, and we miss the opportunity to spend quality time with those  we have bonds of charity. We miss so much without this contact with family and members of our different communities, and yet we know what Jesus asks of us:  "Now I give you a new commandment love on another. As I have loved you so you must love one another" (John 13:34).

Throwing the First Stone

"Look here, do you want to play for a while?  I will make it cheap, there are two you can choose from." A journalist on news gathering for the paper writes about his visit to a red-light district and the greeting he received from the pimp.
 
"I am just passing through, are you open for business even during the day?" He asks, refusing the invitation. He was offered the girls who were in their twenties, sitting in the porch of their place of work, scantily clad and with plenty of make-up, staring vacantly at the journalist.

Price for satisfying the desire of the man is about 66 dollars but over half of the money is shared with the owner of the establishment and the pimp. The money they receive often goes to pay off debts they have incurred for clothes and cosmetics. Buying a woman for sex is just another of our distorted consumer values.    

In the Catholic Times' article on the issue, the journalist  gives  us an  example of why the situation goes from bad to worse. He found a  woman who left  and began a new life. She was in her middle 30s,   brought up Catholic. At age 8, her father died, and her mother put the children in the care of the grandparents and left the family.

 The family was in debt; she didn't have much schooling, and without education, she found getting a job impossible. She did get a part-time job which was not enough to take care of her needs and help her family. Room Salon was her only hope; and told she could earn more than 2,500 dollars a month.

Reality was different. She received money in advance for living expenses and a place to stay; these became her shackles. She was forced to have cosmetic surgery on her whole body, paying off this debt she ended up in the red-light district of the city. Even when sick, on certain days she would have  over ten clients. If the debt was not paid she would be beaten by the owner and reviled. Her body weakened, and her mental faculties were a mess. With counseling, and overcoming  difficulties, and  with the help of the police  she left, but her situation was serious. 

" I was a woman of the street, and this road which I chose, destroyed my life." She fought bitterly to change her life and the image she had of herself. With counseling, and training, she received certification and a job. She was one of the lucky ones, says the journalist. Government programs  do not offer the money, and the return to the past is common.

She dreams of a society where the past does not  prevent one  from living in the present when changes are made. She finds her religion a great help in making the transition and the words of Jesus to those who wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery. The Journalist finishes the article with a hope that those who read the article will be ready to help those in similar circumstances. We are all members of God's family.

"Comfort Women" Justice Postponed

Recently the agreement between Korea and  Japan on the 'comfort women' issue  is not appreciated by many in Korea. Comfort women was the euphemism used  for women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Army before and during the Second World War.

Both Catholic papers had editorials  and a number of long articles on the issue; all very much against the statement that was  published by the press. Simply stated: Japanese prime minister would apologize and show sorrow,  a foundation would be establish to help those who were victims of the atrocities, over 8 million dollars would be conveyed, the issue will finally and irreversibly be settled and they will reach   a mutual agreement concerning the statue in front of the embassy. (A statue of a young Korean woman that sits in a chair opposite the Japanese Embassy in Seoul symbolizing all the Korea women sex slaves of the Japanese soldiers)

Peace and Justice Committee of the Bishops' Conference made clear that the agreement reduces the infringement of basic human rights and a war crime into a diplomatic issue between two countries and  needs to be renegotiated. The agreement  placed economics and diplomacy ahead of dealing with infringement of  basic human rights and seeking the truth. Organized crime was  overlooked, and again trampling on the dignity of the victims who are still living.

The committee sees the agreement ignoring Japanese legal responsibility, and failure to recognize it as a crime of the country. The agreement was between two country's diplomatic agencies without any communication with the victims and not passed as a resolution and agreement of the two parliaments. Japan has maintained it has apologized  and paid compensation but it  never has taken responsibility as a country for the  wrongdoing. 

Those in agreement and those opposed have many other issues that enter the thinking, which are not on the table but will determine a persons views on the settlement of the comfort women's issue.

Words used: “final and irrevocable”, leave little room  to pursue other historical disputes is a bone of contention among those opposed to the agreement. We continue to have demonstrations and division on this issue but ignoring the living  victims of the crime perpetrated, and failing to understanding  their feelings will guarantee the continual division and loathing at what was done.

Nature Expands Our Imagination

Material development with all the good it has brought us may be distancing us from nature. Books, computers, smart phones and man made instruments can blind us to the world of nature, and we don't know fully the results of this alienation from the natural, and what it will do to the mental and spiritual makeup of the individual.

Imagination expands a child's vision, and openness to the  world. By means of imagination the child begins to ask questions. Can I exist in  this world in a different way? How would I feel? What can I find and create? Within community, imagination helps  a person grow to maturity and enables one to give their special gifts to society. During the years of growing up we are continuing  to develop our imagination.

Peace Weekly spirituality columnist recommends the dream world of the child be encouraged, and the need to  draw out the child to express colors, sounds and touches experienced. Concern is not with interpreting the dreams but to exam and deal with  the feelings that are aroused and help them to speak about their dreams.

Studies show that 80% of the dreams children have are about animals which show their relationship with nature in the wild. Not only concern for material and personal matters is important  but life is filled with  interesting and inviting opportunities, and children are acquainted with this. Children do not grow up with only what they experience in the home.

The world of the imagination is what helps the child to mature. They should be encouraged to experience  internal reality to the degree they experience their external  reality. William Blake says: "But to the eyes of man of imagination, nature is imagination itself."

We are a part of nature. Children don't just examine nature but all their senses are in mutual interaction with nature. They don't only see a bird on the chimney top but their arms move and body feels lighter. They hear the sound of the wind, and the bird's song; trees are to be climbed, water is drumming; they want to run into the water. They see themselves one with the animals. Rain brings to the child a sense of loss, the sun warmth and hope,  storms bring fear to the child. Imagination, Body, Emotions and Nature are influencing the child complicatedly and charmingly, interacting with the child. Children need to experience the four of these,  when one of them is ignored, the other three are in some way damaged.

"I think we have exploited nature too much," Pope Francis said, "Thanks be to God that today there are voices, so many people who are speaking out about it." We need to find again a harmony with nature and deepen it daily.