We Need A Secular St. Francis

The pitch of discontent within society among some of our Catholic intellectuals is strident and unforgiving. It is rather surprising to see it expressed so clearly in an article in this week's Catholic Times, although one line at the bottom of the article tells us what is written does not necessarily receive the approval of the paper.

The writer tells us there is too much extravagance, vanity, following the latest fashions and technological advances in Korea. In the older days leaders in society did not always live well, but now life is good. Some of these leaders in society are giving a bad example to the ordinary citizens who see this extravagant life style and misunderstand it to be a sign of success.

The problem for the writer is that no one in our society is speaking out. No one is telling it the way it is: telling us what a well lived live should be-- life of virtue, living according to conscience, honesty, morality; there is only silence. We can teach morality to our middle and high school students, but when all of society works within an atmosphere that says to succeed you need English, win at whatever you do , take all the means and methods necessary to succeed-- the resulting society is going to to be sick.


Adhering to noble values is not as important as enjoyment. Places of entertainment, immersing ourselves in amusement, decadent Internet sites, media that goes along with this trend in society is giving the wrong message. The writer sees this trend in our society to be very detrimental to the mental health of our cities and doing much harm to the emotional life of our youth.

Koreans love brand name goods: truer of the city than the country folk , truer of the rich than the commoners. One needs the right brand of clothes, shoes and handbags to be treated as persons. You would think that those with a good education, good positions in society, and
with character would know better, but they are in the forefront of the movement, he stresses.

Korea is a leader in making of these fake brand goods and does it exceptionally well. Japanese tourists to Korea are great buyers of these fake goods. We are tarnishing the image of our country with this reputation.

Korea has pregnant mothers who travel to the States to give birth to American citizens; children wont need to serve in the Korean military; can go to college in the States and some future day allow the parents to emigrate to the States. The writer hopes that our Catholics will start speaking out in what they see going on in Korea.

It is time for a secular St. Francis to take to the stage and start a revolution with a message that down deep we know to be true. We have many St. Francises in the Church and they speak out, but their voices do not count for much in the society that we have made. Example of society is too all pervasive so we follow the crowd not seeing where we are headed. It will have to be a secular St. Francis with a whole different vocabulary.

Desire to Know the Future not Helpful

With more clients than usual, Korean fortune tellers at this time of the New Year have a brisk business. People want to know what the future is going to be. Using the four pillars is probably the most popular. You give your year, month, day and hour of birth, and from those numbers you will be told what to expect.

Saju, or four pillars, studies a person's life and predicts fortunes based on the four pillars. Energies of earth, sun, moon and stars at the time of birth are thought to affect the person. These energies are translated into something one can read. The book consulted by many fortune tellers is called "Tojeong bigyeol", the secrets of Tojeong.

There are institutional religions, but also many beliefs accepted by Koreans holding on to their institutional religion. One of the more popular "folk religions" would be fortune telling, and all that goes along with that world. It is the world of 'karma' finding out what your destiny will be. Even those who go to the fortune tellers out of curiosity or as a fun thing find it can be upsetting.

The person may be told it will be a great year but be careful of cars. During the year a person has a small accident with no one hurt, and the first thought that comes to mind is what the fortune teller said. Doing something out of curiosity and for a laugh believing it will not affect one is difficult.

Those who go to the fortune tellers are not only the simple folks, but those who are well educated and even some of the devout Catholics. Technological advances allows one to go to the Internet for ways to read the future--no one has to know, doesn't take much time and is cheap.

Past president Noh Mu Hyun left us a suicide note that expressed his feeling about life.
"Don't be sad. Isn't life and death just a part of nature. No reason to be sorry. Do not blame anyone. It is fate." Noh Mu Hyun was baptized but never became a practicing Catholic.

Fate for a Christian is something we determine with God's help. We have the image of a loving God, respecting our freedom, who by grace is calling us to himself. Life is a gift of God; we are not moved by the whims of fate but what we have made of our lives with the graces accepted. St. Augustine says (City of God): "If anyone calls the influence or power of God by the name of Fate, let him keep his opinion, but mend his speech." " The glory of God is man fully alive; moreover man's life is the vision of God: if God's revelation through creation has already obtained life for all the beings that dwell on earth, how much more will the Word's manifestation of the Father obtain life for those who see God." "(St. Irenaeus )

Celebrating Full Moon Day with 'Yut'

Today is the first full moon of the new year and a time to play. Our small community went to the parish for Mass and Yut competitions between different sections of the parish. Lunar year started on the 14th of Feb. but today is the 15th of the first lunar month and the full moon, a time to celebrate.

Yut was usually played from New Year to the day of the first full moon. It is not as popular as years past, but still you find many in their back yards with the neighbors, dancing, drinking, eating and enjoying the prospects of a pleasant year.

The game of Yut is a board game with four sticks that are flat on one side and round on the other.The sticks are thrown up into the air and the points are determined by the way the sticks fall. You have 4 sticks but the possibility of 5 points. One stick with the flat part up--1 point,(pig)--two sticks with the flat part up-- 2 points, (dog)-- three with the flat part up --3 points, (sheep)-- and Yut would have all 4 flat parts up --for 4 points,(cow)-- and the 4 rounded parts up gives you-- 5 points, (horse). Each team has 4 tokens that signify 4 horses and the aim of the game is to have all four of the horses pass the 29 stations and reach goal out. If one gets a throw with 4 or 5 points, he has another throw. On the board there are possibilities of making your opponent return to the beginners line again. Other interesting facets to the game makes it a great pastime for as many as want to play.

The community returned home from the competition with first prize. One of the joys of watching the game is to see how the players throw the sticks. How much is luck and how much is skill I don't know, but throwing the sticks certainly is a good indication of personality and one's individuality: sounds are uttered, the body is twisted, you have small dance steps celebrating the lay of the sticks if it is what the board and your team mates want.

The game has a long history and was even exported to Japan. Looking up some of the history you can go as deep as you want into what it signifies. There is the Ying and Yang , the 5 primary substances, the constellations, 29 stations, and even remnants of Taoism are present.

A good question to ask those who study the ways of the mind and culture: "Why does our world no longer have time for games of this type?" It may be that the answer lies with the kind of games the world has become addicted to playing: where winning is all important. Yut, instead, reminds us that we all can be winners when winning is measured not by someone losing but by how much of oneself is shared in any collective endeavor among as many others as possible. Winning then becomes incidental to the sharing, and so can be cheered and shared by all.

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.