Religious men and women leaders conducted a seminar commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation held on Oct. 31, the day Martin Luther attached his grievances on the church door.
The Catholic Times in an editorial and article reported on the seminar's theme: "Where are you?" (Gen. 3.9). Agreed was the need to examine the years since the Reformation and determine what we have learned about communication and the way we come to decisions.
Briefly, the outline of the discussion was about the communication structures in the church. God's people can go to the Lord without getting lost when we have the proper communication structures within the church.
Five hundred years later what we can learn from the Reformation is that the Church's journey to the Kingdom of God, the community of faith, can not neglect for a moment the continual work of reflection and renewal. History shows us how we have been made God's community and we continue on this journey when we constantly renew ourselves, in line with the words of Jesus: Stay awake.
Difficult to see the Christian community today making efforts for reflection and renewal. We seem to pay more attention to external matters: number of believers, church buildings, money offerings, events and the like. We are lost in external matters and forget what is important. We repeat the history of division brought about by the lack of communication that was present in the past and continues in the present. We don't know how to go about renewing ourselves.
We Christians, the children of God, have a duty to be awake, pray and witness to the life of the Gospel, together. The influence of the world can easily shake the faith of the community and bring confusion and difficulty. That is why we have to be awake, examine and reflect on the calling we have received.
Clergy, religious and laity are all members of the Church and we need structures that allow an easy access to meeting and discussing the mission we have all received. Not only meeting to consult but also participate in the decision making.
Kyeongyang magazine has an article on the keys for family dialogue by a layperson involved in diocesan pastoral work. He has worked on programs for families for many years but reminds the readers that monks can't cut their own hair. Looking over his own conduct in the family many are his faults as a father and husband. During a family fight his wife often lets him hear:"A developer of family programs is that all that I can expect from you?"
Knowing the way and walking the way are two different realities. However, knowing what to do makes the doing a lot easier. Working on family relationships a question he often receives: What is the secret in family dialogue? He has listed them for the readers; gathered from his experience even though he's still a learner.
1) Talking begins with the eyes and not the mouth.
2) Speak with warmth in the voice. When the words expressed are kind, the ones returned will be warm and kind. When the words heard are not, responding with warmth and kindness that is love.
3) Keep the words you speak and the ones you hear at a ratio of 50 to 50. Like in Ping Pong give and take should be the same. Monopolizing the conversation is bad but so is not speaking. In the family, others know what is in the heart in the degree it's made known.
4) The reason for dialogue is to understand and to sympathize with what is spoken. We express our love with our words. Speaking is not to make everything come out the way the speaker wants.
5) Putting oneself in the other person's shoes. But no matter how much we try we will never understand the other completely. Like the words of the song: "I don't know even myself how can I know you."
6) Speak from the heart. Speak frankly, plainly, gently and with few words. More important than speaking frankly and plainly is to speak gently. More than the truth spoken is the respect one has for the person speaking.
7) Don't compare to others. For Catholics to compare with Jesus and the Blessed Mother is an attack on the family. Speak only what is seen without comparisons.
8) Better to speak about what is desired than what is not: positive instead of negative.
9) Speaking with a smile.
10) Listen to all that the family member wants to say and not prevent them from speaking fully.
11) Physical contact with the person your speaking is a help in being understood.
12) Honest agreement shown in response to what you hear that comes from the heart.
13) Better than asking questions with a yes or no answer, ask open questions: What do you think about this etc.?
14) When speaking agitated that is the end of dialogue.
15) Speak about dreams of the family members.
He concludes the article by reminding the readers this is for those reading the article. Expecting this to be the response of the family members, better to forget all that was said.
A religious sister working in a diocesan pastoral center for the prevention of suicides writes in the View from the Ark of the Catholic Times that we need others to live a full life. She mentions last month in a city of Korea a man 47 years old with a chronic kidney problem was found dead in his house and the police say he had been dead for a week and are still investigating.
In the same city on the same day in another house, an 81-year-old man, dead for a week, was found. Five years before he was operated on and never really recovered. He lived alone and the police are investigating the reason for death and talking to the acquaintances of the bereaved.
This is not a rare occurrence. According to government statistics in 2011, 639 died alone, without any known relatives. In 2016, 1032 died alone, twice the previous figure. Loneliness and dying alone was seen as a problem of the poor, sick and old persons, but that is no longer the case. Nowadays, the divorced, unemployed, and those facing financial ruin are found dying alone.
Last year in Seoul 162 died alone and 137 of them were men and 36% of them were in their 50s. The social network has broken down. Farming areas of the country still have a place for the aged and the welfare of the old is still a big concern. However, when the young or middle-aged are unemployed, living alone, poor and where contact with others is limited, we have the dying alone situation occurring.
The situation is not limited only to those living alone. According to the OECD (Better Life Index), Koreans in comparison to other countries in the support they have in community is the next to last of the 38 countries in the OECD. To the question: When in difficulty do you have persons to go to? 75.8 % percent answered Yes. The average for the OECD was 88%. Two years early in Korea, it was 77% who answered yes.
One in four respondents said they had no one to ask for help and are not receiving any social or psychological support.
Many who feel the crisis of life and think about suicide do not want to burden their families with their pain and suffering.One can sympathize with their feelings but often their choice gives the family more pain.
Pope Francis in his visit to Korea in 2014 said in a meeting of religious leaders: "Life is a road we can't walk alone. We need each other we need to live in relationships with others."
She closes with the hope that even though we are a burden to others, in need of help, we should ask for help. Our society benefits and coldness and loneliness will be greatly diminished.
According to the Church's liturgical calendar, we are now in the month of the Holy Souls, the last month of the liturgical calendar and late fall. A seminary professor reminisces for the readers in a diocesan bulletin on his visit to the cemetery for Mass and the thoughts that came to him walking as on a picnic viewing the grave sites. He thought of his own death and considered it 'practicing for death'.
Many ancient philosophers believed that it was proof of a true philosopher to spend time during life 'practicing for death'. From the time of Socrates and Plato in the Greek era to Marcus Aurelius and Seneca in the Roman era, reflecting on 'Practicing for Death' was the preeminent example of a philosophy of life.
For the ancient sages, the meditation on death was the 'ars moriendi' ( the art of dying) which was the way to prepare to live: 'ars vivendi' (art of living). This was the way to put our minds and souls in order to enjoy the gift of life, true happiness and to learn the way of correct living.
In the book Phaedo by Plato he talks about the death of his teacher Socrates: true philosophers spend their entire lives preparing for death and dying, so also with Socrates who welcomed death when the time came.
It is the practice of meditating on death that one has the correct perception of what life is all about and this was also the teaching of the wise in Christianity.
Imitation of Christ, a book that was familiar to many from the middle ages to the present has some wise words on death. "Very soon your life here will end; consider, then, what may be in store for you elsewhere. Today we live; tomorrow we die and are quickly forgotten. Oh, the dullness and hardness of a heart which looks only to the present instead of preparing for that which is to come! Therefore, in every deed and every thought, act as though you were to die this very day. If you had a good conscience you would not fear death very much. It is better to avoid sin than to fear death. If you are not prepared today, how will you be prepared tomorrow? Tomorrow is an uncertain day; how do you know you will have a tomorrow?" (1st Book chap. 23)
Living life sincerely, fully and happily is preparing for death and being thankful for the gift of life. Thankful for what I was able to do and offer up all my failings and with empty hands to trust in the mercy of God with a transparency of soul.
The writer finishes the article with a mention of the Cantata #82
Ich Habe Genug, composed by J.S. Bach for the Feast of the Purification
of the Blessed Mother:
"It is enough.
I have held the Savior, the hope of all peoples,
In the warm embrace of my arms.
It is enough."
On Oct. 26, 1909, at 9:30 am shots rang out at Harbin station in China. Ahn Jung-geun a member of the Korean freedom for peace and the fatherland army in Siberia and Manchuria, assassinated Ito Hirobumi of Japan. An article in the Catholic Times reviews the ways Korea views the history of the Japanese war of aggression in Asia.
Japanese occupation of Korea took over half the land away from Koreans occasioning the ruin of Korean farming and causing the exodus of 400,000 Koreans to migrate to Hawaii, Siberia and Manchuria. A Korean historian expressed this as: "when a Japanese house comes, five Korean houses leave." Japan dragged the young people into the war of aggression, into the cold mines and darkness.
In the Chinese Nanking Massacre Memorial, they show the killing of one person every 12 seconds in a dripping water exhibit. Young girls were forced into sexual slavery and if they refused would be killed cruelly. From December 13, 1937, the Holocaust killed 300,000 people in six weeks.
The Nanking Memorial shows in detail the times of tension and chaos. Of the many 'comfort women' serving the military in the area, 36 were Koreans, forced into sexual slavery. The atrocities of the war of aggression remain in the memory of many Asians. Nanking is called the great massacre and leaves one shuddering thinking about what transpired at that time.
Patriot Ahn at the age of thirty was moved by the cruelty shown by Japanese imperialism trampling the peace of the East which he could not ignore. Both as a Korean citizen and as a Christian he couldn't close his eyes to what was happening in Asia. "God, in Christ, redeems not only the individual person but also the social relations existing between men" (Compendium of the Social Gospel #52).
While in the Lushun prison after the assassination, he asked the Parish Foreign Missionary priest Fr. Joseph Wilhelm to hear his confession. Bishop Mutel was the eighth bishop of Seoul and refused the request of Ahn considering him a terrorist but Fr. Wilhelm disobeyed and went to the prison and heard Ahn's confession.
Japanese authorities refused to return the body to the family and the bishop supported the decision. The change in people's opinion and the way the assassination is viewed now in the church and society is far different from what it was 100 years ago.
Real friends are beginning to disappear is the topic of an article in the Kyeongyang magazine by a university psychology professor. He begins with the story of a student who was in the States studying for a doctorate at a time when a telephone call to Korea was expensive. Receiving his degree he was fortunate to find a teaching position at a small rural college but the loneliness was overwhelming. He missed Korea, acquaintances, and food. On the spur of the moment, he traveled for about an hour to buy a container of kimchi which he devoured with tears flowing freely.
In our present world, this situation may be hard to understand. SNS and the internet allow instant communication and all kinds of friends. The very definition of friend changes. Friends were not easily made; a lot of time was expended and according to the French: like a good wine the longer the friendship the better.
Thanks to SNS contacting friends is easy but at the same time making friends is no longer what it was. The ending of friendship is easily done on both ends. To keep the friendships going requires a lot of time the more friends the more time and a feeling the friendships are superficial.
Worse, is the time spent with those friends online the less time spent in the real world with those you are relating with offline. In the real world when a topic of discussion ends we have a period of silence until another topic is introduced with the smartphone this dynamic is not so readily experienced.
The writer mentions being in a restaurant when a family of three entered. They selected a table and the mother and daughter were busy with their smartphones and the father with his newspaper. Mother and daughter ate with the smartphones in their hands. After finishing the meal the father mentioned it was time to go but the daughter did not hear and continued sending a text message. The only words emitted during the meal was the ordering and the father reminding the family the meal was over. A family meal with the smartphone.
This scene is not so infrequent as we would like to believe. Lovers both sitting down at a table with their smartphones in their hands: personal interaction, place of contact in the here and now, has moved to another location.
Benefits from the smartphone are many. However, they will never replace the human contact with another person that we all need. Frequently we need to put the smartphone down and look straight into the warm eyes of another. It is there that we will be feeling the warmth of another person's heart and mind.
A college professor in an article in a diocesan bulletin asks the readers if they are familiar with a word that has only one vowel sound different from another word that means tedious, bored and weariness. The word he introduces to the readers is a new word that those in their twenties use meaning tired of relationships made on SNS. (권태기 and 관태기)
Relating on the social network the number of friends increase but intimacy is reduced. Of course, there are different symptoms and degrees of response. College students are concerned with many things: studies, working to increase specifications for future work and part-time work. Making friends on SNS is too time consuming.
Strange as it may seem many of those using the social network are faced with more anxiety, feel lonely and empty. Facebook or Twitter would impact some one way, Instagram in another way, the feelings are not always positive. Those they meet on the social network continue to increase but the superficiality of the encounter becomes boring, the heart to heart exchange between intimate friends is missing.
Humans are social animals is a phrase that begins to have less meaning. More time is spent eating alone, going to the movies alone, traveling alone for it is restful. Society is giving them less joy and a lot of weariness.
A flower stays in one place and spreads its roots underground and conveys its beauty but it doesn't do this alone but helped by the wind, rain and the sun's warmth.
Young people may have been too anxious to relate with as many as possible and temporarily reached a surfeit. All that may be necessary is a rest from the busy world of SNS and a return to the normal world for a time.
Korea is traditionally a collectivist society but this is changing especially among the young. Korea has one of the fastest growing single person household increases, helping the trend towards individualism. Still far from the west but the young are quickly closing the gap.
