LISA

Another incident from the People I Love by Father Roman Theisen.


Was I hearing correctly? Or was I overly tired and imagining what I thought I heard? It was late at night, about 10:30. We'd conducted regular Thursday evening catechumen classes and had several interviews . I'd locked the church and returned to the priest's house to find this beautiful high school girl waiting for me. Lisa was growing up in a tragically unhappy family. Her father was a notorious womanizer, bringing his girl friends home to flaunt before his wife and family. Lisa's mother, faced with a hopeless situation, was given to hysterics, hovering on the verge of a nervous breakdown. As always, the children, of whom Lisa was eldest, suffered.


But what was Lisa telling me now? "No one loves me," she was saying. "If you love me you'll take me to bed with you tonight and make love to me. Nobody will know." That wouldn't be true love," I tried to explain. " That would be selfish love. I'd be taking advantage of you when you're feeling rejected. It's because I do love you, and love you truly, that I am going to send you right home. You may not understand now, but sometime you'll realize I really love you for yourself, and not for my own selfish pleasure." Lisa slammed the door as she left. "No one in the whole world loves me, " she shouted back angrily.


Three days later her mother told me Lisa had disappeared from home. Then a month later she came to see me. "I just want to find out how my mother's doing," she said. "Don't tell her I came to see you." Lisa had taken a "hostess" job in a bar next to one of the U.S. Army camps. From time to time she came to see me. She allowed me to tell her mother only that she was alive and well.


Then one day Lisa came with a Polish boy from Hamtramck, Michigan. He'd met her in the bar and they wanted to get married. Before they left I persuaded them to call Lisa's mother, and there was a tearful reconciliation between mother and daughter. I eventually witnessed their marriage, and Lisa followed her soldier husband to the US. Back in the US Lisa's husband reenlisted in the Army and as a reenlistment bonus was allowed to pick his new duty post. He chose to return to Korea. They came to see me when they arrived back.


Some months later the phone rang. It was Lisa's husband. Congratulate me, Father Roman, he said, "I have a son! Lisa asked me to see if you can baptize him next Sunday afternoon?" I agreed and asked what name they were giving their baby. "Lisa give me no choice," he laughed. "She says you're the only person in the world she's sure really loves her, and the closest to a father she ever had. She insists we name our baby Roman"

SEEING OURSELVES AS WE ARE

One of the priests of the diocese recounted one of his experiences while studying for the priesthood in Rome. He was watching TV with a number of students from Africa and South America. The TV news was showing members of a National Assembly fighting one another . They were dressed in suits; one of the members was lying on the floor writhing in pain and another was at the chairperson's podium playing the part of superman. "Where in the world would this be happening these days?" the priest blurted out sarcastically. Then down below as a subtitle came the words " Corea del Sud" (Korea)

The same priest mentioned while on a pilgrimage with his classmates from East Europe he was watching TV when a Korean came on the show speaking flawless German. The Korean was hosting the program and the priest felt proud to see one of his countrymen in fluent German in that position but as the show progressed he again felt deep shame. The Korean was hosting the show visiting Korea in search of his mother. Korea was the number one country in the world exporting children to the world. ( This is no longer true. The Koreans are adopting more of the children and the percentage is much lower than it was)

The conclusion of this introspection was that we do not see ourselves as we are. Most of the time we choose to ignore reality for something easier to accept. This obviously is not only true of the Koreans but all of us. Things that embarass us are easy to pass over. We have heard numerous times that we should not be concerned about the speck in the other person's eye but begin to deal with the log in our own eye. It is only then that we probably will see everything much more clearly.

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.