Catholic laity needs to be motivated to take their rightful place in the mission of the Church. Many articles in the Catholic press appear reminding us that one of the negative aspects of our Church culture is the powerful place of clergy in administration which makes it difficult for laity to find the will and desire to participate in roles of leadership.
In this recent issue of the Catholic Times, a committee whose work is to help the elderly in the church has a lay leader, and been working in the Seoul Diocese for the last ten years, responsible for the pastoral work among the elderly. The journalist who wrote the article mentions how necessary it is for qualified lay persons to get involved in all the different areas of church life.
14 members and a priest helper are on the committee responsible for the study and working among the elderly. The committee head has the qualifications for the work being a college professor, in the public welfare department at a university. Laity needs to find their place in the works of the church.
Society is aging, and the church members are aging quicker. The article mentions two issues that need to be addressed. One is to have words necessary to speak to the elderly about their situation of age, weakness and approaching death, that makes sense to those with a religious understanding of life. This requires them to go to the tradition and teaching documents of the Church.
Secondly, to make the pastoral workers understand the problems of aging and
how to deal with the aging. We are still at the beginning and need to find ways to mobilize those working in parishes to become interested in the problem.
The church has not come to terms yet with aging of members and lack of new births. Within ten years, we will experience negative effects of this change in society, and we need to start preparing, says the committee head.
A person with varied accomplishments, a factotum, is no longer admired as in the past. Our society demands we work together to achieve our goals and find those with specialties we need. We no longer live in a lone ranger type society; this also goes for the pastoral work and mission of the Church.
In Bible Life magazine, a priest reaching his forties writes about his struggle with disease, pain and death. At birth the amniotic sac broke, and he was delivered as a lump of bluish blood; the doctor gave up hope, and his mother was in a frenzy. His aunt gave his bottom two strong blows, and he responded with a weak cry: a story that continues within the family. Whether this was the reason, he doesn't know, but he was afflicted by all kinds of allergies and diseases. On his mother's side, the lungs were weak, and he spent a great deal of time in hospitals as a baby with asthmatic problems.
During seminary days, he was often in the hospital with pneumonia or in bed being treated by his classmate with rice gruel. Weak bones, he was disposed to many breaks in arms and legs. In the military twice during training he was sent home because of sickness.
After ordination, he can honestly say he gave consolation to many who were sick, and they weren't empty words. He took pride with his experience of sickness to help others and felt pretty good about what he could do. During a physical exam, they discovered a polyp in the stomach. No real problem, he was told, with the endoscope, they would easily remove it. During the procedure from the esophagus to the stomach, the lining of the upper GI tract was perforated. He was immediately taken to emergency room where they performed surgery, everything continued to go wrong and during one week, he underwent three different operations.
They told him he would have to wait for the perforation to heal, and would take three months. They made a hole on the right side of the stomach and fitted him with tubes to feed him. An assistant to the chaplain came to feed him three times by tubes and give him painkillers five times during the day. He was hoping God would take him.
His body temperature dropped suddenly; blood poisoning was the reason, and he was taken to St. Mary's hospital in Pusan. He was an army chaplain coming to the diocesan hospital which caused some commotion. The doctor on duty seeing the holes in the stomach and the tubes was astounded. Losing consciousness the priest was transferred to the hospice ward of the hospital.
With nutrient given by injection and continuous care he began to mend. Since he was in his own diocese, many came to see him. In the beginning, he welcomed them but the visits began to get on his nerves. He got a call from the soldier working as his office man, who apologized for not visiting: he said he could appreciate his pain and feeling. However, the patient was not happy to hear these words, and very brusquely told him so: "What do you know about how I feel?"
In conclusion, when his office man came to see him, he learned that during the priest's ordeal, he had an operation for cancer of the stomach, the stomach was removed entirely. When he heard what the office man went through he felt so embarrassed he embraced him. He was a much humbler man from his experience. He dropped the case against the doctor who operated on him, thinking of how the doctor must have felt, and he will never again tell a person he knows what they are going through but only close his eyes and bow his head, and try to share some of the pain of those he visits.
A father of three children, a member of the Seoul Diocesan pastoral office in family matters, writes in the Kyeongyang magazine about family happiness. May is family month, and he gives us his thoughts on the subject.
Speak with your eyes is his first recommendation. Our eyes are the passage way from one heart to another heart. If we don't look our family members in the eye, we are not communicating heart to heart. Make sure to remove strength from our eyes when we look at a family member: we look at them with a soft and attentive gaze.
Embarrassed, we don't turn our eyes away to the nose or other parts of the face but look directly into the eyes. We have to become used to looking directly and warmly into the eyes of the family member and begin talking and showing our love.
He mentions not to be stingy in hugging. We have the five senses of
hearing, tasting, smelling, sight and touch; the most sensitive of
the five is touch. It is the sense that easily conveys love.
Koreans often say they want to return to the mother's bosom since that is the place they felt fully embraced. He reminds us the cry of the baby after birth is for loss of that embrace the child felt within the womb: embracing the baby the crying stops. Another name for the embrace is longing. One hug is worth a hundred words.
Never fight in front of the children. Children are taken up in their own world: they are at the center and the sun is rising for them everyday. When parents fight they consider it their fault: "I am no longer lovable; I am of no value; my life will only be full of sadness; I am afraid of the world. My mother and father are fighting like this here and now."
If the children come into the room when the parents are fighting they should stop immediately, no matter what, and tell them they must be surprised to see the parent's fighting, but they are not the reason for the fight. When they have resolved the problem, they should make it clear to the children they have reconciled and show it by a kiss. It is not easy to be parents.
Refrain from giving
admonitions. The reason for dialog is not to solve problems but to
understand and be sympathetic. When this is absent no matter how much one tries, matters only get worse. Most of the time when you have
understanding and sympathy problems are solved. Many of
us are like frogs and see only what is next to us. We are not moved as
much by words as we are by a person that cares for us.
In the family, there is no need for a prosecutor who determines who is right and who is wrong, but rather a family lawyer who adjudicates on what is best for the family. In Korea, the word for a family member is one who eats together: this should be the case at least once a day.
He finishes the article
by telling the readers that the problem is not a lack of knowledge on what to do, but
rather we find all kinds of reasons for not doing what we know we should. Knowing what to do is not what is important but doing it. "Love
one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12).
Inclusion and not the exclusion of finances, begins an article in the
Peace Weekly on the visit of Dr. Eutimio Tiliacos, Secretary General of
the Centesimus Annus-Pro Pontifice Institution. He is active giving
talks to business people, and those working in finances to overcome
poverty and presenting the Church's teaching on the subject.
While
in Korea he attended talks with those working in finance, explaining the
Church's understanding of the issues in its teachings. He was in a
discussion with the bishop's Justice and Peace Committee, and explains
the subject as not exclusion of finances but embracing it for the common
good.
He asked those on the committee if they met and
talked to those in industry and finance. No answer came from the group,
Secretary General stopped for a moment in his talk. Both within and
outside the Church we have to see the situation as it is. Catholic
teaching is obviously on the side of the poor. An important principle
and teaching and must be upheld he says, however, one wonders at times
if this is not understood as exclusion of those who are wealthy without reason.
The reason we select the poor is not
that their situation is something good but because their dignity has
been degraded, and they have lost their enthusiasm for life. We want to
return their dignity, meaning and hope for life. Help them get out of
poverty and to live a life of dignity.
Consequently, we
can't stop talking to the wealthy and employers and urging them to have
concern for the poor and workers. We must meet them and talk to them.
Both the poor and workers are God's people but so are the rich and
employers. They like the poor, and workers are objects of God's
salvation.
Is it not the impression that being on the
side of the poor and the workers the Church is against the wealthy and
employers? But is it not the wealthy and employers who help the Church
continue its work?
In Pope Francis' Apostolic
Exhortation on Joy of Love he mentions that what the world needs most
in pastoral care for families is dialogue, discernment and
integration. Is this concern only needed in families?
The
columnist finishes his article with the need to meet with the wealthy
and employers to discuss the problems of poverty and workers. He admits that he had a one sided understanding of our
'preferential option for the poor' and forgot that God's salvation is
for all.
In a diocesan bulletin, the writer tells us a warm story of a recently young married couple. The wife went visiting the home of a neighbor, while in the room, she saw a pearl ring on the dressing table and overcome with its beauty, and the temptation to possess so strong, she took the ring.
Next day seeing the ring missing from the dressing table, the neighbor, knew immediately it must have been the young woman, and quickly went to her house. Screaming she told the women to give her the ring. She denied that she took the ring. Her neighbor told her no one was in that room except for her family: "You are lying," she rebuked her.
The neighbor notified the police of the theft. In the meantime, the husband coming home from work heard of what happened. "My wife is not that kind of person. Why are you falsely accusing my wife? I believe my wife, Please leave." Hearing the words of the husband, the police and neighbor had no choice but to leave the house. The husband attempted to placate his wife.
That night after his wife went to sleep, he found the ring in the bathroom table draw, and immediately went to the neighbor with the ring. He knelt down before the woman and asked for forgiveness. "My wife was not able to overcome the temptation to possess the ring and committed a great fault. My wife and I are one in mind and body, so I will take the punishment that you want. Seeing the great love the husband had for his wife, she sent him back to the house without a word.
Unbeknown to the husband the wife followed her husband and saw what he did and overcome, started to cry uncontrollably. The next day the wife at the break of day went over to the woman's house and with great sorrow asked for forgiveness.
The neighbor took the woman's hand warmly and said: " I envy you." The husband's actions moved both his wife and the neighbor's wife to see beyond what was done to new possibilities.
In the year of mercy we hear many of these stories and are moved, but at the same time we know it is far from the reality in which we live. Mercy does not cancel out justice but shows us justice even more clearly.
A priest writing in the diocesan bulletin recalls the time he was with seminarians in their military reserve force training, required after discharged from the military. They were on the shooting range when one of the seminarians raised his hand and told the officer in charge: "I don't want to use the gun." The officer asked jokingly: "Did you have a bad dream last night?" "I was discharged as a soldier in the military chaplaincy," replied the seminarian, which got a laugh from the group.
Should it be a surprise for a soldier who was in the military chaplaincy to refuse a gun which is aimed at another human being to kill? Would it be strange for a Christian to refuse the use of a gun?
Recently, the conservative press with the doings in North Korea as they are, with the nuclear and rocket experimenting, there is movement to return tit for tat and expand the armament race. Seeing the response of Russia and China there has been a recent hesitancy on part of the conservative press.
The liberal press sees the power struggle between China and the United States as the problem and the build up of armaments. Talk about an anti-ballistic missile system will just increase the armament race and distance Korea from China. Lack of trust is a reason for the struggle in East Asia.
After presenting the conservative and liberal press response he gives us the thinking of the bishops of Korea in an appeal by the president of the Korean Conference of Bishops.
The bishop was not happy with the returning to use of amplifying speakers for propaganda to the North and the withdrawal from the Kaesong Industrial Complex.(This was a joint venture in North Korea which was a source of income for the North) He also mentions the military maneuvers with the Americans that have brought more tension to the peninsular.
The writer mentions in more detail what the military maneuvers entail, They were joint maneuvers with 20,000 American military and 30,000 Korea military lasting for almost 2 months with nuclear powered submarines, aircraft carriers,destroyers,and fighter aircraft. The only ones who will feel pleased are the militarists of Japan and the defense industry. China and Russia are not pleased and it makes for tension on the peninsular. Korea is one of the biggest importers of munitions and most of it from the defense industry of the United States.
The bishops would like both North and South to follow their previous declarations and agreements made together and to continue in that spirit. Kaesong Industrial Project was a sign of working together and wants the closing to be reconsidered. They hope the six countries concerned will meet together for talks that will deal with the problems of the build up of armaments on the peninsular.
" He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks...." These words of Isaiah are the hope of the bishops and the Church of Korea.
On the opinion page of the Catholic Times, a columnist gives us his thoughts on the Korean movie, Dong Ju: Portrait of a Poet, a black-and-white movie about Yun Dong Ju.
During the Japanese colonial period, while studying in Japan, Dong Ju suffered much at the hands of the police for his thinking. He was imprisoned and died in 1945. Each scene of the movie was for the columnist a verse from a poem.
At that time in history, the connection between life and thinking was stronger and deeper, he writes. The nation, world peace, justice, morality were considered noble truths but wonders if the will that existed to give one's life for these truths, still exists. In these postmodern times, these noble ideals both in Korea and the rest of the world are forgotten and considered like a throwback to the rustic black-and-white movies of the past.
However, the movie Dong Ju moved him, and left him with nostalgia for the past. The movie showed him the depth and extent of shame in the life of Dong Ju.
Below are some verses where shame was depicted in his poems translated literally:
I would wish to look up at heaven without a jot of shame up until the moment I die. I suffer even when the wind moves between the leaves. ( Prologue)
Life is difficult and writing poetry is so easy.
I feel shame. (Poetry is easy to write)
I cry as I hug the wall, the sky shamefully blue. (The Way)
The poet felt he stood before God naked: the reason for his shame. A person who thinks is one who wants to be different, but there is always a gap between what a person shows to others and who they are. Within this gap lies cowardice, weakness, self-deception, rationalization, darkness: the generic name is sin.
We prefer to call sin by another name and look up to heaven without shame. How many times, called before a tribunal for suspicion of wrong doing, do we hear the words: "I look up to heaven without a jot of shame' and misunderstand the meaning of the poet.
The faces of these persons outwardly seem to be at peace but internally not clean and transparent but a soul muddy and shameless. We should be like the poet upset with shame: a sign of a mature person and hope for the world.
Pope Francis was asked who is Jorge Bergoglio. He answered after some thought: a sinner. To feel shame is a grace from God. Another Korean poet thundered out: "In a world that doesn't have shame, to know shame is not shame." Shame teaches. "Blessed are the sorrowing; they shall be consoled" (Matt. 5:4). Columnist concludes with hope this Year of Mercy will help us understand shame is a grace from God.
