God's Gift - Noel.

Taken from Fr. Roman Theisen's People I love.

She opened my office door hesitantly. "Are you busy, Father Tai?" "Not at all,"I replied. I liked this woman. she and her husband were devout Catholics whom I had baptized two years before. She sat down. " I have a problem," she began. "I didn't know I was pregnant and took quite a lot of cough medicine that my doctor tells me will cause my baby to be born mentally and physically disabled. He wants me to have an abortion." she looked at me in anguish.

I sympathized with her. I'd heard the same story from other women. As always, I explained our Catholic belief that God, the Creator, gives life and that this God-given gift of life is so beautiful and precious that once given no one but God may take it away.

"but my doctor said,..." she explained at length the reasons her physician urged her to have an abortion. I explained how precious and sacred the life of even one human person is, simply because every person is destined to know and to give glory to God, and to share God's own glory for all eternity even though that person may be deformed, old or disabled mentally and ... But if it were my child, I'd trust God and have the baby. Her face brightened. "I'm so glad you said that," she said. "My husband told me you'd know what to do."

From that day on every time I saw Marcella and Paul at Sunday Mass I besieged Heaven with prayers that Marcella's baby would be born strong and healthy. Then one morning I went to open the Church for early Mass and found Paul waiting for me. His face was beaming, "Yesterday afternoon my wife gave me a strong, healthy son." I congratulated him and sent a fervent "Thank you" up to the Good Lord in Heaven, whom I am sure was smiling upon us. They named the baby Noel, because they said, " He was God's Christmas gift to us."

I was invited to Noel's First birthday Party, the baby's "Tol", which Koreans traditionally celebrate with great solemnity and joy. Paul presented me with a painting which he himself made from the photograph he'd taken after Noel's baptism, of me holding little Noel in my arms. As Marcella and Paul gave me little Noel to hold again, he looked up at me with clear eyes and smiled. How precious and wonderful God's gift of Life! How good God is to His People!

The More They Stay the Same

Quote from James Scarth Gale written in the late 1920s , a Protestant Scholar-missionary as recorded in Korea's Place in the Sun by Bruce Cumings.



We weep over old Korea, a victim, not so much of political agencies, as of the social and intellectual revolution that has come from the west.

We have unwittingly brought about the destruction of East Asia, in which Korea is involved. To her the west evidently does as it pleases, why should she not? The west has no barriers between the sexes, why should she have? In everything that she has seen of the west, religion counts as nothing: why should she bother about it? Labor-unionism, communism, socialism, Bolshevism, and anarchism express the real mind of the western nations; why should she not take them up and be the same? Why should she sing in falsetto when the west sings with the whole throat wide open... . Why not go whirling off for joy-rides, boys and girls? Why not be divorced at pleasure? why not be up-to-date as the west is up to date? This wild dream... well expresses the mind of the advanced youth of the city of Seoul in these days of confusion.

Let us glance once more at the Korea that is gone, " the land of the superior man," as China long ago called her; land of the scholar, land of the book and writing-brush, land of the beautiful vase and polished mirror; land of rarest, choicest fabrics; land of poems and painted pictures; land of the filial son, the devoted wife, the loyal courier; land of the hermit, the deeply religious seer whose final goal was God.



Cumings at the end adds: It is a statement in 3 parts: an old up right gentleman lamenting a lost past; a testament of his love of Korea, where he lived for forty years; and a sign that he had his finger on the pulse of Seoul.

MORE THAN WITNESSES

More Than Witnesses is a book edited by Jim Stentzel

How a Small Group of Missionaries aided Korea's Democratic Revolution



On April 9, 1975, eight innocent persons, condemned in the case of the "People's Revolutionary Party Incident," were executed under the iron-fisted rule of the then-president Park Chung-hee. A belated retrial for the PRP Incident was held and the wrong was righted. During these difficult times a group who called themselves the Monday Night Group had a great deal to do with the help that was given to the families and the individuals hurting during this difficult
period in recent Korean History. This group was also instrumental in getting news of the repression in Korea out to the other countries. The book tells the story of many of those in this Monday Night Group. Two of the members George E Ogle and James Sinnott were deported.
(Taken from the forward and introduction to the book)



Below is a poem written by Fr. Jim Sinnott, on a visit by the families of those executed, to Fr. Sinnott on his recent 80th birthday.

Summer Solstice, June 2009

Write it down
Before it goes away:
Eleven people sitting round a table
Out on a lawn under a tree
Here where I live now,
Remembering the things we did,
Attempts against some things
Happening here in South Korea
More than thirty years ago:
Men falsely accused, jailed unfairly –
One of them, eight years imprisoned,
Sitting next to me and
The widow of another
Sitting at my other side.

We are gathered here today
Because I’ve just turned eighty,
A thing impossible to dream of
In one’s early years,
As impossible as the events
That happened here in South Korea
More than thirty years ago,
Events that knit us into one,
An inseparable fabric
Labeled by security police
The “In hyek dang”
The Peoples’ Revolutionary Party,
That phony dictator’s concoction,
That lie that changed our lives
And made widows of these women
As well as years-long prisoners
Of twenty other men.
Eight men were hanged
One early morning, an evil solstice
More than thirty years ago, nine April,
When for us the sun stood still,
A day declared “Black day
In the history of jurisprudence”
By the lawyers of the world;

A day etched in the memory of my guests today,
Gathered round this table
On the lawn outside my house
For an eightieth birthday celebration,
An occasion no young person
Of my generation gives much thought to,
Anymore than one would plan
To be involved with
Murderous judicial decisions,
Torture of the chosen victims
Who were innocent of any crime,
As an apologetic nation
Finally admitted -
Thirty years too late.

And so we gather at this table
And reminisce
About the ways we tried to fight
Those terrible decisions
And we sing again the songs we sang
As we paraded on the streets,
Breaking the “peaceful order” laws
Of those dark times of martial law;
Eleven men and women sitting at a table,
On this day, this summer solstice,
Remembering, together,
Before we also go away.

James Sinnott, MM

A Jesuit Bartender

Over the years I have heard of priests serving as bartenders and was not surprised to hear we have a Jesuit who is doing just that in a cafe in our diocese. This priest gave an account of this in an article that I would like to summarize.

He was taking his studies for the priesthood in Australia where his own Jesuit Superior was serving at the tables at the house in which he was staying. Another experience at that time, the abbot at the Trappist Monastery in which he was staying was also setting up the tables and serving. Seeing this kept the dream that he had of doing that after ordination to the priesthood.

Our Lord shared many meals with others and after these meals something good always happened. The Jesuit wanted to welcome others as God welcomes us and the place that he could do this was a cafe. He mentioned our Lord was considered a wine drinker; to be noticed as such meant that he spent a great deal of time in table fellowship. Jesus was always welcoming and this was the example that motivated him to start his cafe. He called it: Window on life. This translation of the name may not have the nuance of the original, hopefully it will have the meaning.

Those who come to the cafe know that he is a priest which means it does not take long to get into a serious conversation about things that are important. He can talk about joy and sadness of life, frustrations, desires, and also the anger. When he shares their joy he is doubly joyful when they talk about their problems they can be lighten by the very sharing.

The life of a priest is serving . He serves the Eucharist to those that attend Mass and goes to the sick to serve them with the Eucharist.

There are many times when the Catholics who come find it difficult to have a priest serving them and they help out in bringing food and drink to those present. He tells them that they should allow themselves to be served this is also virtue.

There are many ways of trying to do mission. To bring the love of Christ to all is the heart of mission and running a cafe is a way to do this in a very unique way. May the work be blessed.

The Demonstrating Students

A post taken from Fr. Roman Theisen's People I Love.

"Americans go home! Down with the Yankee imperialism!" young women shouted as they waved placards and paraded back and forth. A student demonstration was going on at the front of the Sacred Heart College for Women. This College was in the new Parish of Yoi Kok 2 Dong where I was assigned. The Religious of the Sacred Heart who ran this College loaned me their College Chapel for Saturday afternoon and Sunday Masses until we could build a Parish Church.

It was Saturday afternoon and I was on my way to say the children's Mass when I ran into a student demonstration blocking my way to the College grounds. I was tempted to turn around and go home rather than confront the crowd and push my way through the shouting students.

But I needn't have worried. As I neared the gate the students respectfully lowered their placards and stopped their clamor, stepped back to make a path for me , and bowed as I walked by. Several called out "We're sorry. We apologize." When I was safely inside they raised their placards and resumed shouting "Americans go home!"

They had made it clear that however much they were against certain policies of the American Government they held no animosity towards individual Americans.

The New Way of Family Life in Korea.

The traditional family structure in Korea has weakened and in many cases broken down in the past few decades. We are seeing nuclear families and a great deal of divorce in our Korean Society. Part of this is the secularization and globalization that is taking place throughout the world. The good is that there is much more of an equality in family relations and an improvement in the status of women but it is doing havoc with many families.

In the small community in which I am in residence there are only 6 children who are part of our

Sunday School program, all of which are from broken families. The sons married and with the failure of the marriage, divorced, and sent the children to the homestead to live with the grandparents. The fathers do remarry but find it difficult, in most cases, to bring the children to the new marriage. Many of the mothers do not seem interested in the children, for they also want to remarry; without the children it is much easier. In most cases it is understood that the children stay with the father. This is the predicament that many of the families have to face. If the grandparents are healthy this difficulty, at times, can be surmounted but in most cases the children suffer a great deal and it is easily seen in their faces.

Just as in the west both the parents usually have to work. The traditional Korean family where all would be living under the same roof is disappearing. The norm is the sons leave the homestead and move to the city to find work and start a family. This seems to be the choice of all concerned. The farming families continue working without the sons and this lack is made up with modern day farming machinery.

There is also the case of grandmothers who live alone. They prefer at times to live away from the sons , for the freedom that it gives; they do not want to be a burden but poverty, at times, is also part of the picture. These woman have a difficult time for they have to do all the work and take care of the upkeep of the house but it is apparently easier on them then to live in the restricted atmosphere of family.

It doesn't take long for a society to change the way things are done and part of the reason for this is what they see and hear both in Korea and from the the rest of the world.

The Couple Who Married... with a Picture

One of the stories by Fr, Roman Theisen taken from the People I love.

"Could we arrange a marriage in the Church? None of us are Catholic." The speaker was a man about 40 years old. His question made me smile. Just a short time before, as member of a commission appointed by the Korean Bishops to draw up a directory for pastoral work in Korea, I had persuaded the the Bishops to allow non-Catholic marriages in the Churches of Korea, provided neither party had a divorce or any impediment of natural law.

"You see, Father," the man explained:"my parents were too poor to have a marriage ceremony with a picture. They just registered their marriage according to civil law. Then they had to support me and my six brothers and sisters. They always felt bad they had no picture of their wedding to show us as we grew up. Now my father's 60th birthday is coming up and we want to chip in and pay for a marriage ceremony for them. If its not too expensive, a real marriage... with a picture."

I assured them it wouldn't be too expensive. There were three wedding dresses at the Church and if one fit his mother they wouldn't even have to rent a wedding gown.

The Lord blessed the Wedding Day with a bright sun, and the bride was radiant with happiness, walking down the aisle to meet her groom of 40 years. Young women of the choir sang and the grandchildren played in the aisle as the couple promised to love and cherish each other. After the ceremony I stood with them before the altar as the local photographer took a picture.

Bride and groom smiled happily as they left the Church, surrounded by their seven children and numerous grandchildren. They were really married now... with a picture!