You Only Live Once

New words continue to be coined and used. Korea imports a lot of new words from the west and a columnist  in the Peace Weekly introduces us to the word YOLO, an acronym  used by the young: "You Only Live Once."

The situation being what it is in Korea these days,very similar to other parts of the world, worrying about the future is considered counter productive and the need to find happiness here and now. It can be used as motivation for reckless behavior but also for personal development.

'We only live once so makes the most of it ' vs  "Many little  pickles makes a mickle" (many little things add up to a lot)-- The light even shines in a mouse hole-- The writer asks her readers were do they stand? Do they limit themselves to the happiness of  each day or prepare for the future by accepting the difficulties of the present?

YOLO is popular in Korea and has become the life style of many young people. Last year in September YOLO was added to the Oxford Dictionary as a new word.  Rarely used by the older generation it has great appeal to the young. The way the price of commodities are increasing, young people don't have the dreams of their elders and  easily accept YOLO  thinking. Living for the day with their interests, personal development and present happiness.   

In the Seoul diocese  on April 7th, 500 young people with the Cardinal took time to make the Stations of the Cross for over two hours. The cardinal invited the young people to prepare to walk the pilgrimage road that lays ahead. "You will be facing many unimaginable situations in life but you never should doubt the mercy of God that is always there." And added: "Our Blessed Mother will always be accompanying you on the journey."

YOLO is the word that was in the background and is always there to tempt the young people in a life style not suited for a follower of Jesus. The situation in which they live has taken their dreams away.

No matter the situation one should not give in to anger, frustration and helplessness but a need to have hope and love. When one believes someone is accompanying them on the road that they are taking, they will gain strength.

Third Anniversay of the Sewol Disaster

Easter 2017 was the third anniversary of the sinking of the Sewol Ferry and the connection brought many thoughts to mind. The raising of the ship has alleviated some pain associated with the tragedy. Efforts continue in finding the meaning to society from the sinking.

Editorials in the Catholic Weeklies and magazine articles return to the sinking and the meaning it has for Korean society. Sections of society, however, find the continuing talk about the tragedy repulsive and want it to stop: enough is enough. Contemplating the same event we have differences of opinion and yet it is necessary to determine for Catholics how much is based on who we are as Christians.

One editorial mentions the words of Pope Francis that the Church needs to speak out when we have injustices in society.We are moving from one way of living to another; labor pains accompany us as Christians and we need to decide what our responses will be. 

Countless rumors are associated with the sinking and many questions remain which the families of the victims  and many in society want answered. Lack of transparency and suspicion that a coverup has been at work has angered many in society.

The families of the victims and those who have not yet recovered the bodies of their loved ones are only searching for the truth and do not want revenge. Those who want to see vengeance are asked to turn it over to God.

The Ferry  sank in the muddy waters filled with greed and corruption. The weak are still the food for the strong and the strong have their way in society. No need to ask who are at fault for we are all in some way involved in the disaster. Material goods and their acquisition at any price is this not the reason for the catastrophe? This is not the way society should go.
Have we changed the direction of our lives after the tragedy?

A member of the bereaved families asked:  "Why has God given us this agony in losing our loved ones?"  Silence is not always an answer to agony. We are caught in the trap of our own greed and are distant from God, and fail to understand how we are all involved.

That is why those who have died should continue to remain in our thinking. Remembrance is Resurrection.
Resurrection is a new experience a new meeting with the one who died and rose again from the dead and who remains with us.

During this Easter Season we pray for the victims of the tragedy the families and those who are still looking for the bodies of their loved ones and we pray that the anger and questions that followed from the tragedy will in the near future be laid to rest.

Gift of Time: Its Master and not Slave

A college professor in a diocesan bulletin writes about a eureka moment. His digital watch stopped and was in a watch repair shop thinking it was the battery that was a problem and wanted it replaced. The store was filled with customers so while waiting, paged thru a magazine on the counter with examples of watches.

One of the watches that caught his attention had no second or minute hand. A  strange type of watch with only an hour hand. At first, he thought it was a stop watch, but no it was clearly a wrist watch.

Now he was open to creativity in the making of watches but what good was a watch with only an hour hand? It didn't make much sense to him. How does one measure time with only the hour hand?

Beside the picture of the watch, he saw an explanation of the watch and began to nod his head in approval of what he read. The reason for the watch was to get a general idea of time: seeing the position of the hour hand you would guess about the minutes.The watch was a movement against becoming a slave to time instead of its master.

Those who live needing to know the exact minute and second of their day should possess this watch. Those obsessed with exactitude need this kind of watch. They will be blessed with an abundance of leisure time. The watch does not measure time but imagines time. The habit we have grown to accept is to measure how much time we have before the end of some work, at what hour and minute we have to meet someone, often shackles us.

With this watch, we use the imagination to have a rough idea of when a certain person will come. We can meet at sunset or when the western sky is in color. This is not wasting time but a way of finding time that we have lost because of the way we have planned our days.

We have become the slaves of time, fear to lose it, and spend time wasting it. We have just so much time on this earth and spend too much of it with technological gimmicks and forget what is important.

Resurrected Life

Spring is always the endurance of winter and the flowering of the Resurrection. Life is the overcoming of adversity, reminding us of the Resurrection. Winter quickly disappeared and we have the fragrance of the spring flowers, preparing for the feast of the Resurrection.

Spring is heaven on earth. Flowers blending with all the other flowers give us great beauty and so it is with life that harmonizes with all of nature. No one is without problems yet in the spring regardless of age or sex we are bathed in the warmth of the sun and ready to bloom like the flowers.

These are the words of a poet writing in his column for the Catholic Peace Weekly. Life is in reality, a daily living of the Resurrection. Time quickly passes for all, each new day is a new beginning. Jesus is the key to the joy in our hearts. What blessedness it would be if our whole life would be like a day filled with Resurrection. Grace makes all life springlike. Grace  makes all the adversity bearable, and gives joy and motivates us to a life of obedience.

If Resurrection is life after death then facing death and overcoming it is a resurrection. Those with this experience know what resurrection means to them. He mentions in his own life when young he worked as a construction worker and fell four floors onto a tile foundation, nearly dying. He could have died but lived. He could have been paralyzed but he walked out of the hospital without difficulty.

He was baptized while in the hospital on Easter Sunday. There is no need, he says, to relate all the problems he had, only that he escaped death and was born again. He experienced great joy in the return to life.

From that moment forward he looked at life differently. It was no longer only one world but two worlds: no longer fearful of death. He saw everything thru the lens of a resurrected life. He was thankful for life and poetry began to gush out of him. Living the resurrected life he was filled with hope, courage, and joy, he was experiencing the joy of the resurrection.

"Joy of heaven comes from the heart of a child/ The true meaning of life/ Deeper are the words that come from the poet's pen/ Certain expression were impossible to make/ The heart of a child is a poet's heart/ // Exaggerated metaphors give light/  Words of God hidden in the heart of a poet// I see the mystery of the heavens meeting the earth/ The combining of a child's and a poet's heart/ With the fragrance of heart and soul/ The presence of the gracious God/"

It is a great grace to experience the resurrection while living. He has trust in God's grace that no matter what adversity will come, it will be a poem. God's love has been made clear in the Resurrection and has made this poet's journey one of love.

God's Providence

God's will is a phrase that we often hear on the lips of Christians. At times not knowing what to say we utter these words. However, when we think everything is God's will without many qualifiers, we are in danger of making God a monster.

The third anniversary of the Sewol tragedy will be remembered on April 16th: the Feast of Easter. We pray that the families of those that lost members in the tragedy will find some consolation in our belief of the Resurrection. We hear that the tragedy was the will of God, that the division of Korea into North and South, that the colonization of Korea by the Japanese was the will of God. Is this true?

A seminary rector spends time in an article in With Bible magazine explaining to the readers that everything that happens is not the will of God. If it were why would we daily in prayer say: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." No, not everything we see is the will of God.

Can we say the two World Wars we experienced was God's will? Cain killing Abel and Adam and Eve disobeying God were all God's will! We are in these cases horribly misunderstanding the Providence of God.

When we sin this is not the will of God. The will of God is that all be saved, that we all understand the truth, love one another, search for the good, justice, freedom and peace.

The Story of Joseph in the Bible is a good example of how God works to bring God out of evil in his Providence. His brothers sold him to the merchants instead of killing him with the help of Reuben and Judas. His life in Egypt was far from easy but after many trials, he did rise to a high position in government and was able to help his brothers during the famine in their homeland. God drew good from the evil. Even the sin of Adam and Eve were seen as a happy fault. For those who love God, all things work together for the good.

God's goodness is always in his providence ruling over the world: drawing good out of evil without taking away our free wills.The will of God was not to have the tragedy of the Sewol, it was to have all the passengers rescued. However, the tragedy happened because of the failures of the humans involved. 

We now need to discover the reasons for the tragedy, humbly admit the failings and work for a  society where these types of human errors and sins, no longer bring about such evil.

Economy of Communion

We are all dreamers. Chiara Lubich, the founder of the Focolare Movement, had a dream where humanity would share like the first Christians. "All the believers continued together in close fellowship, sharing their belongings with one another" (Acts 2: 44). In WithBible magazine a principal of a Catholic Middle and High School writes about the EoC, Economy of Communion.

In 1991 in Brazil Chiara began the movement, an alternative to the present economic system: free competition which often doesn't distinguish between methods and means to achieve capital. Profit is the goal which generates more competition. In the process, we have the gap between the poor and the rich. This extends to areas of a country, between countries and between members of society.

Chiara Lubich took the ideas of St. Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Centesimus Annus and gave them life with the Economy of Communion. "The obligation to earn one's bread by the sweat of one's brow also presumes the right to do so. A society in which this right is systematically denied, in which economic policies do not allow workers to reach satisfactory levels of employment, cannot be justified from an ethical point of view, nor can that society attain social peace. Just as the person fully realizes himself in the free gift of self, so too ownership morally justifies itself in the creation, at the proper time and in the proper way, of opportunities for work and human growth for all"  (#43).

Neoliberalism is the financial system by which most of the world has produced much wealth and benefited the lives of many but in the process a dehumanization of those who are not prepared for the cutthroat competition required.

With this kind of talk, many only see Communism as the alternative and consequently the opposition to social movements of this type. There are other alternatives and Economy of Communion is one of them. A very Christian alternative which the Church has promoted with its teaching.

811 such communities exist in the world today. Europe has the most with South America, Africa, North America and Asia in that order. We have a number of these places of work in Korea.

This year in Feb. they celebrated the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the EoC at the Vatican with 800 members from all over the world, 33 from Korea. The pope in addressing those present said three things that were listed in the article.

Money must not become an icon but must be shared with the poor. Secondly, those who become victims of capitalism are not only to be helped but the structural evil that continues to hurt them needs to be changed. With the profit, good can be done in helping society.

The Social Gospel of the Church becomes alive in movements like EoC and the problems that arise from neoliberalism are overcome. The Church in its work of evangelization is not only interested in the soul but also the body, consequently, concern for the financial and social areas of life. God made us in his image and this image needs to be protected.

Discovering A New Pastoral Paradigm

South Korea is a small country with an excellent transportation system with easy access to all parts of the country. Internet communication network is one of the fastest and connects with most of the homes: ideal to spread information. Obviously, this is both a plus and a minus for not all the information is for the good.

Moreover, Korea is still a very culturally homogeneous country which makes the evangelization work of the bishops' easier than in other countries. An editorial in the Catholic Times is asking the bishops to look for a new approach to the pastoral work of the Church. The reason mentioned is that we have opposite realities facing the church.

In the many studies and questionnaires of the pastoral research institutes made over the years, they have determined that the biggest problem is the secularization and privatization of a person's religious beliefs. Much of the teaching of the Church is not accepted by the faithful. What follows is that we have a distancing from the community of faith with the majority living on the peripheries.

The editorial goes on to say in contrast we do have a small group that is living a deeper spirituality with a greater understanding of the Christian tradition and a maturer faith life. They are freed from the secularization of society and not following the crowd.

Those who are secularized and those who are not, are the two opposing groups within the church. The minority are those with the essential teaching of the church and the other group which is the larger are on the peripheries with a pluralistic understanding of their religious belief not in harmony with the traditional teaching which polarizes the community of faith. This group will increase.

We have three possibilities opened to the Korean community of faith. Satisfaction with the loyalty of the minority, accepting the situation and continue as in the past. Secondly, concern for the majority on the periphery with programs addressed for them, helping them to enter the community of faith from the peripheries. Or thirdly, uncover the reasons for the division within the Church and work to present the teaching in a way that we don't have the division we have presently.