A Korean layman, Kim Gu-jong, 1898-1984, was written up in the Peace Weekly in its series of outstanding Christians. Kim Gu-jong was from the Taegu Diocese and went to the newly established diocese of Pyongyang as a missionary catechist. Seoul was not able to send priests so the work lagged behind the Protestants.
The article mentions how the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers were given the Pyongyang area as their first mission in Korea. Maryknoll was established in 1910 as the Catholic Missionary Society of the United States to work in Asia. China was the first mission and Korea the second. Bishop Walsh, Maryknoll's superior on a visit to Bishop Mutel in Korea showed an interest in beginning work in the country. Taegu had been making plans to give one-third of their resources to begin a new diocese in the Pyongan Province but Bishop Mutel gave the area to Maryknoll and this was finalized by Propaganda Fide in 1922; Maryknollers came the following year.
At the start of the new diocese, workers were necessary. When Maryknoll accepted the work there were 7 parishes, three major seminarians, and eight minor seminarians and a priest from the Seoul Diocese. Consequently, Maryknollers were attentive to recruiting salaried catechists for the work. Catechists taught in the parishes and mission stations, spread news within the diocese, determined the situation of the parishioners and related with the citizens.
They were the hope for evangelization and the advanced guard to prepare the field. Fr. Kim Song-hak was a priest who was working in Pyongyang when it was part of the Seoul Diocese and when the priests returned to Seoul he remained to advise the Maryknollers. He had worked in Taegu before it became an independent diocese and recruited Kim Ignatius for Pyongyang as a catechist.
One of the parishes was selected and this became the place where the Maryknollers would study the language and customs of the country. Kim Ignatius was a leader among the catechists and helped to form many of the other catechists. They began one of the first monthly magazines in the Church. Ignatius was present in most of the new works. Pyongyang compared to the other dioceses led in the number of catechists, at least one and up to 15 in a parish: women outnumbered the men.
On 1935 Oct.10th for three days they celebrated the 150th anniversary of the beginning of Christianity in Korea. Pyongyang the youngest diocese was selected to host the event. Five bishops and the Apostolic Delegate were present. 6000 Catholics attended. When this group arrived at the train station many thought that the Apostolic Delegate was the emperor of Rome. Many of the Catholics of the mission stations would see a priest twice a year and this event brought the 5 bishops with many priests to the diocese making it a noteworthy event.
In a period of ten years, the Catholic population of Pyongyang had a three-fold increase.The Catholics grew in confidence with the experience gained from the celebration. Two of the daily papers in their editorials expressed how the Church was breaking down walls between the classes and inaugurating a new culture. The other mentioned the social work and with their beliefs, Catholics were able to overcome the difficulties and the history of persecution of the past: a good example to the citizens.
Demange, Florian(1875~1938), the first bishop of the Taegu Diocese while riding in the same car as the ordinary of Pyongyang John Morris, praised a one-time parishioner of the Taegu diocese, Kim Ignatius for a job well done.
The Catholic Times on the world today, mentions the anxiety experienced as a reason for many mental problems. Jobs are hard to find, salaries are low, retirement worries, the deepening of the polarization between levels of society, the generation gap, all make for an increase in the number who find it difficult to cope.
Last April the Korean Institute for Health and Social Affairs reported that 34.4 % of the citizens see society as unstable and 60 % of the young feel insecure. This is one of the reasons we have the large number of suicides, depression, and mental difficulties.
According to the National Health Insurance Corporation in 2015 there was an increase of 16% from 2010 in the number of those seeking help for depression at hospitals. From 2008 there has been an increase of those asking for counseling because of depression and other mental problems.
Korea for 12 straight years has led the developed nations in the number of suicides: about 30 to 40 daily. The head of one of the counseling services explains that for many no matter how hard they work there is no way to exit the tunnel they are in. This causes the senses to be on edge and sharp and is often followed by depression and occasionally suicide.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you." These words of Jesus have always been consoling to many Christians and helped many with despondency and mental difficulties to regain health. However, says the article, to trust only in prayers and religious activities can be poison. Those who have studied the situation make it clear what is needed is the working together of professional help and the spiritual life.
A professor of spirituality is quoted as saying: "prayer can be an escape and a distortion of religion and a distancing one from healing: there is the need for counseling along with the religious practices."
The article goes on to mention the need for centers and parishes to become concerned in helping those who are in need of counseling. We have a movement within the Church that is encouraging this tendency but also the Church needs to nurture resilience among the Christians: the ability to recover from failures, adversity, trials and the like. Those that have this resiliency will after the difficulties bounce back even to greater growth.
In conclusion, the article shows how important a positive outlook on life is in overcoming difficulties. The Church needs to remember this in its teachings, sermons, retreats and dealings with the Christians. It has been shown that the positive outlook enables resiliency and the strength to overcome the trials in life.
Studies made outside Korea have shown that Catholics don't do well in comparison to other religious groups in communicating and empathy. The Church in Korea needs to be aware of this and work to change. One priest mentions if one goes to a Protestant church there is always a warm welcome but at a Catholic Church,you find a coldness. He attributes this to the large numbers and forgetting the healing properties we should have as a community.
As a community of faith, we need to study how we can be more resilient, more positive, live and transmit this attitude to those in our communities.
In the Kyeongyang magazine a member of the Committee for Families of a diocese, writes on couples fighting. He tells the readers the only way not to fight is not to get married.
Two people living together will naturally have differences of opinion, actions, and values because of the many different temperaments. Fortunately, this is the case because when the bond is irreparably broken, friction disappears, you are living by yourself.
"We have never fought" often this kind of expression comes from a couple where one is not comfortable in expressing their feelings. Outside the home, they are seen as a devoted couple but in the home treat each other coldly and may be seen as a show-window couple: often known my the mass media.
In these marriages, on the surface, all seems well but the hidden conflict is like a time bomb that is set to blow. Suddenly we have one leaving the home, divorcing and even suicide. Often this is part of the living condition and fighting is a help in finding solutions. Not the lack of fighting but the wise resolving of the problems by confronting them. " A soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse one crushes the spirit" (Proverbs 15:4).
He mentions a couple going to a marriage counselor for help and asked to give an example of how they fight for 3 minutes. The counselor seeing the way they fight predicts pretty accurately whether the marriage will last or not if they continue. The article introduces us to John Gottman who is able to predict with 97% accuracy the outcome of a marriage if they continue as in the past.
He is not interested in what they are fighting about but in the way they fight. Are they aiming at the others weak points, scars from the past and humiliating the others very being? A sign that they are running towards complete collapse.
On the other hand when the emotions are under control, and they don't work on the others scars and weak points and have not lost their sense of humor, no matter how passionate they are the results will be good. Like children after fighting they can become closer than they were.
He gives us a ratio of relating positively 20 times more than negatively with your spouse. In simple language, if it is: praise--blame--praise--blame in a one and one ratio the relationship will not last. The reason is that negativity is much more powerful. [people remember longer and give more weight to negative information than positive--the negativity effect]. John Gottman advises in small things: "I am sorry, thanks, I love you" and other similar words of encouragement. One can believe this is not necessary since these feelings are present, but that is a mistake for there is a need to express one's feelings.
In most cases, it is not hating the other but misunderstandings because of the inability to communicate our thoughts and feelings. As St. Don Bosco is quoted saying: "Loving is not enough love must be felt."
The place of the layperson in the life of the Catholic community of Korea has and continues to be strong. Korea is unique in that it was not missioners who brought the Faith but they evangelized themselves. Some 18th-century scholars brought back some books from China and began spreading the knowledge of Jesus and his church.
They expended great effort in getting priests to enter the country and even when they succeeded they were indispensable in carrying on the work as catechists and teachers in the mission stations. They have been and are the strong cross beam of the community. However writing in a Catholic Times column a seminary president expresses some sadness at what a small segment of the lay-community is doing.
In comparison to other countries the Catholicism in Korea has been mainly united and harmonious not like many other countries which make the discord harder to accept.
Our columnist describes this aberration as a personal piety and a secular spirituality: separating their daily life from their religious beliefs. The light from the Gospel should be shining on our daily lives but in many cases, one's personal viewpoint of life in the world colours the way they see the Gospel.
This situation is not only a Korean problem but is seen in other cultures and nations, When the teachings of religion lose their influence in society many religious social scientists call this secularization. When these teachings lose their distinctive character religion becomes a commodity in the market. We have the marketization of religion. Religion is just one of the many products on the market and you select the brand that appeals to you.
There is a big divide between this reality and what Jesus came to give us. Jesus came to overcome the divisions and discords in society and unite us. Not only fellow citizens but includes even our enemies, the poor, hungry, thirsty, sick, naked, and prisoners; he identified them with himself (Matt.25). If we want to be his followers we have to keep this in mind.
Lay people are the ones who have been called to go into the world. They are given the task to keep this mission in their varied callings. Even willing to accept a loss to themselves in being spokespersons for the poor and weak of society. They are to be heralds of God's love. They are the salt of the earth and the carriers of the Gospel.
In theology we allow for criticism; our faith life is choosing correctly and living accordingly. We need to ask ourselves who is Jesus repeatedly. He was murdered and we have to ask ourselves the reason. A priest writing for a bulletin for priests begins his article with these thoughts.
When he was a parish priest many years ago he was asked by a woman named Martha, in her forties, if he would baptize her granddaughter, and then hesitatingly said she gets a headache every time she hears his sermons and can't concentrate on what he says. The priest asked her what does she think when she sees the cross on the back wall. Why did Jesus die on the cross?
Many of the Catholics give him fruits, meat and liquor and he is very happy to receive them but he did not become a priest to sit in his easy chair and enjoy presents, but to be his disciple. It would be wonderful to stay in the rectory and not be concerned with what is going on in the world but that is not the reason he is a priest.
He asked Martha if she ever read any of the books of the Bible or any of the documents from the Second Vatican Council. "Father, I am in my forties when am I going to have time to read those books?" "Pope John XXIII when he called the Second Vatican Council to bring change to the Church was in his eighties." Martha with a sad expression on her face left.
Some years later the priest mentions that he was pastor of a parish in which Martha's niece was assigned as a religious sister. Both Martha and her husband had since died. The niece told him that
Martha came from a wealthy family and her husband was a president of a bank which made her world very small and difficult to see beyond the walls she had built.
Martha was a good and devout Catholic he told the niece. However, in the Church today we have many Catholics who are disparaging priests for what they teach. Korean Catholicism has been basically a very unified and harmonious community of faith but the priest laments that we have laypeople who are breaking this harmony and sadder still is that we have a few clerics who are joining them. He finishes the article with the words from Matthew 10:36. "A person's enemies will include members of his own family."
Writing in the View from the Ark of the Catholic Times, the columnist, a university professor, wants us to examine why Google the technology company would put humility and sincerity high on their list of qualifications for employment.
This has always been considered important in the history of thought but why would a modern-day very successful advanced company put it as a qualification for employment over so many other important qualities? He laments that in the past in Korea, humility and sincerity were important qualities to inculcate in our students but in recent years has disappeared.
For Google, this talk is not about virtue for virtue's sake but a necessary quality for their employees to succeed. In interviews, they take for granted the qualifications they need for the job, but if a humble attitude is not perceived they will not be employed is what the columnist understands from what he has heard.
Humility in this perspective comes with knowledge and the faculty of being able to work with those who are less able than oneself, and to have the ability and capacity to learn from them. Without this capacity, they will not be able to communicate and work with others from the different parts of the world.
This is not brought up because Google is a giant in the competitive market but to show how important they consider the ability to work together with others and the need for us in our education programs and formation in the family and school to bring it back as important.
Are we cultivating humble talent for the future? We are not. The quality of our education is not bad we are doing what is considered correct and what needs to be done but forgetting the qualities of humility and sincerity.
This was always considered in the Church's teaching and we have been exposed to it over and over again, in the example of Christ. Difficult, however, to internalize the message. We tend to forget the place right under the light is darkest.
Trite as this sounds to our ears we have to reconsider our understanding of the matter. Since we have an international company such as Google who are looking for these qualities should we not evaluate our search for specifications for employment that we have stressed? We have ignored humility and sincerity.
These qualities are not merely a grace of character but enable one to learn and grow with another. We have forgotten this truth, he concludes and allowed competition be the vantage point from which we judge. Let us change the competitive viewpoint to one in excelling in humility and sincerity.
Throw a stone unwittingly and you may kill a frog. A proverb that reminds us that words, like stones, uttered carelessly can cause harm. A columnist in the Catholic Times gives us some thoughts on Korean unification.
In Korean, he mentions the often repeated words in meetings with others: "Let us have a meal together some day." Refugees from North Korea in the South take these words literally. They are not merely polite words of greeting but really mean what they say. Consequently, they ask themselves: "When will they notify me? Why haven't they mentioned it yet? Are they making fun of me?" In their imaginations, these kinds of thoughts keep returning. For a South Korean, it is merely a habit from courtesy, while for a North Korean a reason for anger and shame.
Another Korean proverb: With the right words we can pay back a debt of a thousand 'nyang'. With the right words, we are able to solve many problems and even the ones that seem impossible.
When drinking with friends we often propose a toast but the words we use in Korean, he mentions, are considered coming from a decadent society and makes the North Korean refugees feel uncomfortable. On one occasion sitting with a refugee from the North hearing the words it brought tears to his eyes. When asked why the tears: he answered he realizes he is a free person. The negativity of the words of the toast that the refugee was familiar with and the brainwashing that accompanied it, all disappeared like magic, because of the situation and the friend that was beside him.
Different is not another word for wrong. When the cultures are different one-way efforts are not going to bring results. Both parties with sincerity need to approach each other in their daily lives with actions that understand the differences, and the misunderstandings and work to change.
Unification is not a topic we find easy to talk about and it becomes something we push off to the future but we have 30 thousand refugees from North Korea who are not to be pushed off to the future; the discord and divisions of our brothers and sisters and family should be acknowledged.
Because we use the same language does not mean we are the same. We need to accept that they have a different culture and when we speak, to be careful of their sensibilities. He concludes with a need for prayer for the refugees and small efforts in bringing about a feeling of oneness among us which will be a work for the eventual unification of the country.
A Korean layman, Kim Gu-jong, 1898-1984, was written up in the Peace Weekly in its series of outstanding Christians. Kim Gu-jong was from the Taegu Diocese and went to the newly established diocese of Pyongyang as a missionary catechist. Seoul was not able to send priests so the work lagged behind the Protestants. 
