Endurance is not Always the Only Possibility

People in service to others are often searching for better ways to help those they are called to serve. One priest who was in parish work decided not only to help others, but to find help for the demons that were bothering him. He decided to go to graduate school to study psychology of spirituality.

The priest would be in prayer and abruptly be overcome with depression. Other times crushed by feelings of overwhelming tension, the spiritual life was one big burden. Spiritual life should mean peace and joy; this was not the case for this priest. He was lost in the swamp of depression. He wanted out.

Problems of his parishioners were not all solved with prayer. What he picked up in the seminary was not sufficient to handle the many difficulties he encountered in himself and in others. He felt unprepared for the work and blamed himself for the failure.

In order to rid himself of his problems he did much searching, asked others for help, tried many recommendations, but did not find what he wanted. He was given many ambiguous words, equivocal methods, all to no avail. And was even blamed for not praying enough. He used repression to control his mind, and to endure even became a principle in his life. Depression and obsessions were overtaking him, and just before being overcome he began the study of spirituality.

In the study of psychology he realized that he was ignorant of things of the mind. He studied about God in the seminary, was familiar with matters of the body, but about the mind he was ignorant. He learned that if we treat the body recklessly, we invite disease, and if we treat the mind recklessly, we also have problems.


The priest wants other priests to join him in the study. The incidents of depression in our culture are very high. The Pope has mentioned we have to take an interest in these matters since problems are so wide spread. As Catholics it is not just a simple matter of more prayer, but having a trust in the goodness and love of God and trying to uncover the reasons for the way we feel, and make the very depression a means to grow out of being overcome by its power.

Words Spoken With Sincerity Changes a Life

Children with a good home, loving parents, and the daily necessities should develop into mature and successful members of society. In most cases true enough but there are examples to show it is not always always true.


A priest writing in the Catholic Times mentions meeting a young girl in her twenties years ago; she was a friend of a young man that the writer knew. He was extremely impressed with her maturity and behavior. She was cheerful, had a sunny disposition and was very talented in the use of language. He thought to himself this girl was nurtured by a wonderful family to be so self possessed and act the way she did.


On one occasion the young man visiting with the girl excused himself, and the girl and the priest remained to talk. Her story astounded him. Her mother and father divorced when she was very young. She was separated from her mother and the friction with the stepmother was deep and serious, accompanied with a deep grudge against her father. It was a rough childhood and she managed it all by herself.


She told the priest she does not have any belief. What has kept her going are a few words of someone who loved her. " I will always be at your side." These were the words of her grandmother. She went on to say: "Father, if it weren't for these words coming from my grandmother's heart I would not be here. When I was a child I did not make much of these words, but when faced with great disappointments and failures, these words of my grandmother sounded in my heart clearly, and enabled me to keep going."


Words spoken with with sincerity, writes the priest, are able to change a life. This is another reason for us to be conscious of what we say and when we say it. Each one we meet is an eternal responsibility and the way we treat that person can have repercussions that continue over a life time for good or bad.

Mistakes(?) in Building Communities

Up until a few years ago riding on the subway, it was not infrequent to have someone enter the car, give the passengers a leaflet with the address of the church he represented, and before he left for the next car present us with some passionate words of what Jesus can do in our lives. This was not the Catholic way, but one could admire the person's zeal in trying to make Jesus known to a car full of people who were not interested. This type of evangelizing, at least in the subway cars, has disappeared. A sign that something has changed in the society at large.

Evangelizing that was 'in your face', confrontational does not have the popularity it did a few years ago. Catholic leaders did prepare congregations for street preaching and visiting houses to distribute leaflets, but the response was such that the evangelizers did not desire to continue. It did more to alienate the religious and the non-religious than to attract.

An important value for a missioner is to introduce Jesus to others, however, we also see the results of evangelizing that does not see a change in the life of those who are baptized. Without changes in life that should come with repentance, little happens in the life of the newly baptized. People are baptized but not converted.

In the early years of work in Korea the diocesan priests did not show as much interest in evangelizing as the missioners. They seemed to spend more time working building community; foreign missioners would be very active in trying to attract people to the church.

There are various schools of thinking on the matter. One school believes that more effort should be made in forming community before we attempt to evangelize others; the other school believes new members renew the community and bring gifts that will strengthen the community. Both of these positions working together would seem the ideal. Probably we have been more interested in getting individuals --numbers-- than making disciples, and forget that one is evangelized to become a member of a community-- the mystical body of Christ. The community should be the leaven , the salt, the light of society and if this does not happen then something is wrong with our evangelizing.

Lowering the Walls between Dioceses

Not all parishes and mission stations in Korea are self supporting and independent of outside help. You have mega parishes , but also the small communities that work to supplement their income coming from collections , Mass stipends and free will offerings-- reality in many small country parishes and mission stations in rural Korea.

Many Maryknollers stationed in rural areas benefited by help given them by wealthier parishes. These poorer communities would visit city parishes to sell their farm goods: pumpkins, sweet potatoes, turnips, peppers and the like. They would make the rounds of parishes that would welcome them. The rectory and church of the mission station where I am in residence was built by parishioners selling farm goods and sea laver in city parishes.

On occasions you have city pastors going to country parishes of another diocese to work and realizing for the first time how high the walls are that divide the dioceses from one another. One pastor, with many years experience in Seoul, wrote about his experience of working in a poor country parish, and concluded that the concern for the poorer areas of the country should be a concern of the wealthier parishes.

He recalls the day he received a telephone call from a priest from another diocese telling him that some members of his pastoral council were planning to visit. On their arrival he was surprised to see the visiting priest had attended the same seminary. The pastor of the country parish was more surprised, however, hearing that the visitors would have a second collection once a month and deliver it personally to the poorer parishes in the country.

The smallest diocese in Korea has about 46,000 Catholics and 73 priests in 36 parishes. About half the diocese makes their living from farming and the other half makes a living offering services to the farmers. It is dioceses of this type that need help to develop.

One of the signs of our Catholicism is unity. The country pastor dreams of the day when this would be more visible in church life. It is important to have concern for one's own diocese, but this still can be done with more efforts in equality of Catholic growth throughout the country. The Church's social principles of 'solidarity' and 'common good' could be applied in this area of Catholic Life.

Work of Love Delayed for 20 Years.

After 20 years the doors of bronze a sculptor made for the Myong Dong Cathedral in Seoul finally found their designated place, and this year in recognition of his work the artist received a prize at the 15th art award ceremony of the Catholic Church.


Choi Eui-Soon (John Vianney) received the commission to make the doors back in 1985, he finished in 1987 and for the last 20 years the doors remained in the storehouse of the Cathedral. Because of the door's weight and the condition of the building, they postponed putting the doors in place until repair work on the building was finished last year.


Cathedral doors were to express in bronze relief the beginning history of the Catholic Church of Korea. For one year Prof. Choi traveled around Korea to the different pilgrimage sites, and spent time reading Catholicism's history in Korea so the representation would be true to history.


Depictions on the doors are the first Chinese priest saying Mass, the representation of his first catechist receiving communion, a Paris foreign missioner taking care of orphans, persecution of the Catholics, and the clay pots that the Catholics sold to make a living during the years of persecution. It does give one a feel for the years of persecution and what it must have meant to the first Christians.


In 1953 Prof. Choi entered Seoul School of art and sculpture after experiencing the cruelty and shock of war. His dean said he would make a good religious and recommended he enter the Catholic Church. He started to receive instructions was baptized and continued to relate his art to his religion. He hopes all those who come to the Cathedral and see the doors will want to imitate the faith of these early Catholics.

A Legacy Left By A Man For Others

On the 16th of February we remembered the first anniversary of the death of Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan. An example of love for country that was bigger than the materialistic and opportunistic values of his time. He had a vision of what should be when many preferred the status quo and were fearful of making waves. Cardinal Kim was an attractive personality to many of the citizens not only Catholics. Love one another, forgive and give thanks were his last words remembered by many during the past year.

Editorial in Catholic paper laments the present situation because of political infighting that prevents the government from taking on serious problems facing Korea. They are occupied with materialism opportunism, pragmatism and local interests that blind them to the larger interests facing the country.

Using the fable monkey's dilemma the editorial compares the problems facing society with the poor monkey who has his fist in a jar of food. The empty hand goes in easily but with food gripped tightly the monkey can't get fist out from the jar's mouth. Monkey either chooses food and loses his freedom or drops the food and lives to begin another day. Government has their hands in the jar and are not able to see that while concerned with those smaller matters they are missing matters of greater importance.

Cardinal Kim gave us a good example of being a Cardinal for all. His coat of arms carried the words "For you and all." His strong position on siding with the poor and the alienated was not missed by many even though the oppression of the times made it easy to forget them.

When one realizes things are not going the way they should and like the monkey one realizes results are not what were desired, it is time to change course and begin again. Party interests , personal grudges, should not be the overwhelming concern of those in government but the serious interests of the people they were elected to serve.

"Good, Bad And the Ugly" All Can Be Graced

A Lenten meditation on the value of pain and suffering was the topic of a recent newsletter. An incident in the book by Jean Vanier
(Canadian Catholic philosopher, humanitarian and the founder of L'Arche) where a young girl had difficulty relating with her mother introduced the meditation. Daughter would always end up confronting her mother in anger, and the mother couldn't understand why mother and daughter had to relate with anger so she recommended therapy.They discovered that the girl had a great deal of pent up anger against her mother.


When the girl was 3 years old her brother was born and the poverty of the mother made her give the children to her sister. In the eyes of the girl the mother abandoned her, and hidden for 20 years was this unresolved resentment towards her mother. When she was able to face this bitterness, and understood her mother she was able to forgive and the relationship with the mother changed.


There are many who have a 'hole' inside of them that doesn't allow them to accept life as is. This affects everything they do. Unbeknown to the person there are scars below the surface that still ache, and they are not able to function properly in society until they are acknowledged and healed.


Another incident was about a young man who after graduating from school got a job in a construction company. All was well, he looked forward to a bright future until a car accident crippled him, and prevented him from continuing in the work. He was greatly depressed lost his desire to live, but during his time of recuperation his acquanitance with those more handicapped than himself turned his own life around to a point where he decided to work with the handicapped--satisfaction from his new life changed even his appearance.


St. Augustine tells us God brings good out of evil: "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist." During this season of Lent let us remember the words of Jeremiah: "I will turn their mourning into joy, I will console and gladden them after their sorrows." Jesus did not pray that the disciple not suffer, but they be delivered from the evil that could come from suffering.


Lent is a time to realize some of the greatest positive changes come into our lives from failures and disappointments we experience, and not the successes. A great danger is to have these failures and disappointments permeate the present moment to such a degree that one continues to live in the past. Strange tho it sounds we can be thankful for the 'good the bad and the ugly' in our lives, for in God's providence they can be stepping stones to a life that we never expected, a life even more satisfying than the one we were hoping for. Lent is a time to see the possibilities of grace. The temptations are always there, but the trust we should have in God should be stronger than the temptations --the lesson of today's Gospel.