Centering in on Personal Hurts Will Not Solve the Problems.

It is difficult to accept the truth that what we do will have consequences, especially when the consequences are not to our liking. Our thoughts, words, and actions willl have consequences that will affect both ourselves and others.

On the spirituality page of the Catholic Times, a columnist tells us about a man he was acquainted with who asked if he and his wife could have a talk with him. The day before they had a serious argument, and though they lived under the same roof they were far from being husband and wife. When they arrived, they didn't even look at each other.

The columnist sensed right from the beginning that both were trying hard to win him over to their side of the argument, to prove that the fault for their disagreement belonged to the other. If the columnist could only grasp this 'fact,' so each of them thought, then all would be settled.

Although with age, our memory is less reliable, both were able to state their grievances noting exactly the month, the day, and even the time of  day they had the argument, and what happened before and after the argument.

When couples are fighting or not talking to each other it is wise to seek out specialists to  help resolve their problems. However, knowing what to do with the head and not getting rid of   preconceived ideas will shortly return them to where they were. The  columnist  recommends they both go to the interviewer extraordinaire, our Lord, before they precede to the specialist. When they are able to change the thinking from their own hurt to the   hurt they have inflicted on the other the columnist feels the interview will be successful,

It  is always good to remember that our actions can have profound consequences that influence, for good or ill, not only ourselves but our children, those we associate with, and the society we live in.

Poverty Not Always Easily Seen

 A country pastor writes in the  Kyeongyang Catholic magazine about poverty and how he sees it, living a middle class lifestyle. Even  those  who are trying to live a life of poverty, when it comes to consumption, most of them would fit more accurately in the middle class.


Priests  rarely  come in contact with the very poor in parish life. There are those who need  help for the  basic necessities of life, but it is a small number. Members of the parish who partake of community life have to have at least the bare minimum of economic freedom for the leisure required for community. This means, for practical purposes, that priests can be unconcerned about the poverty that afflicts many in society. Kyeongyang  Magazine

He considers poverty under three headings: absolute poverty, relative poverty, and subjective poverty. Absolute poverty refers to those who need help to meet the daily needs of living and this help usually comes  from the government.  Relative poverty refers to those who have incomes lower than the average, and gives rise to the discord between those who have and those that do not--the working poor. The conflict between these two groups  enables the government to be less concerned about those in absolute poverty.  Subjective poverty refers to those who feel they need more.

The Church has  declared  a preferential option for the poor.

"All things considered, this is also required by “economic logic.” Through the systemic increase of social inequality, both within a single country and between the populations of different countries (i.e. the massive increase in relative poverty), not only does social cohesion suffer, thereby placing democracy at risk, but so too does the economy, through the progressive erosion of “social capital”: the network of relationships of trust, dependability, and respect for rules, all of which are indispensable for any form of civil coexistence (Charity in Truth #32).

 Korea  has a living standard that is the tenth in the world. According  to the statistics, we have over 3 million working poor. This does not include those who live by themselves, the handicapped or the young who have the responsibility for supporting their family. The working poor have difficulties because prices keep going up but their income does not keep pace, making it difficult to pay for rent, education, and food.

The priest ends the article by discussing the place of the Church in the fight against poverty. The Church does budget money for the poor and works with the St. Vincent de Paul society and other groups in the parish to help them, but he feels there is not enough being done.

The Church needs to set a good example in fostering labor with dignity. Care must be taken that we treat fairly the employees involved in parishes,  hospitals and schools and that we do not have relatives of Church leaders in jobs that militate against fairness in hiring. The Church has to examine itself continually to make sure she is living up to what she proclaims, if she wants to be listened to.

Lessons Learned From Matteo Ricci

This year, the 400 anniversary of the death of Matteo Ricci, Jesuit (1552-1610) has seen a number of events, seminars and  academic meetings on this  extraordinary missioner to China. He never entered Korea but influenced the life of early Korean Christians through his books. The importance of Ricci's contribution was discussed during the recent International Academic Meeting here in Korea, with excerpts from the talks appearing in the Catholic Times. A summary of the talks follows.

Ricci not only introduced  European knowledge to China but also introduced Chinese religion and philosophy to Europe. Ricci's method of evangelizing, according to one scholar,  can be briefly stated: He introduced European knowledge and Renaissance culture to the educated Chinese, respecting Chinese customs and rites and adapting  them, what we now call inculturation. He pursued the road of friendship with the educated and started a new way-- working from the top down. In 1773 the Jesuits  were disbanded by the Church partly because of the problems in  their accommodation in the Rites Controversy. The influence of Ricci, however, continued to have a  great impact  on the educated classes both in China and in Europe.

One Scholar described the mission work of Ricci as based on friendship. According to this scholar, his death at the rather young age of 57 was precisely because of this ability to make friends; his openness to them meant that he had a steady stream of visits from the learned which brought a great deal of fatigue into his life. The scholar believes this was the reason for his early death.  Valignano was Ricci 's mentor and was  considered the father of the missions in China but our scholar thinks  Ricci deserves  the title.

Another scholar points out that Ricci did not follow the usual missionary example in the 16th century, where missioners followed  the sword, but  he fashioned a peaceful accommodation to the culture that was very successful; it was the dialogue approach to mission.

One of the participants  mentioned  the mission life of Giulio Aleni, a talented and learned missioner whose life of  Ricci became his textbook.  He was a second generation Jesuit in China, who  followed the way of accommodation and even complemented  some of Ricci's methods.

Credit was also given to Alesandro Valignano, a Renaissance man and humanist, who was directly under the Jesuit Superior General  in Rome. It was Valignano's approach to mission that Ricci espoused in China. His approach, one scholar said, was a foretaste of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council 400 years later. Based on the theology of St. Paul, his understanding of mission moved him away from stressing the authority of the Church and persuaded him to place, instead, more emphasis  on the people they were dealing with, which was quite a change from the thinking of the previous generations.
 
When Valignano became aware that many missioners in Japan weren't even able to give a sermon to their own Christians, he required  two years of language study; not surprisingly he  noticed a big difference in what the missioners could  do.

    
It is from these early missioners that we have received a wealth of information. Today,  missioners follow in their pioneering footsteps and are thankful  for making working in another culture  much easier.  

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Trip to North Korea with the Eugene Bell Foundation

 Father Hammond , Maryknoll Local Superior, e-mails an account of his recent trip to North Korea. Besides his duties here in the South, which are  many and varied, he  is always ready to make the exhausting trip to the North with the Eugene Bell Foundation. His first person account follows:

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public Health invited a delegation of 5 members of the Eugene Bell Foundation to visit North Korea from September 7-14. This was my 45^th trip to North Korea in 15 years.

The purpose of the trip was to visit 5 Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Care Centers in North and South Pyongan Provinces, and a Pediatric ward, also in Pyongyang and one in Nampo.

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The following was the schedule.

Schedule of “Eugene Bell” Technical Mission

7-14 September 2010

Date	AM	Activity	PM	Activity	Stay
09/07/10 Tue			15:50 19:00	Arrival Briefing with MoPH	Potonggang Hotel
09/08/10 Wed	10:00	Departure for Shinuiju By Train	14:00	Sonchon MDR TB carecenter, N. Pyongan	Apnokgang Hotel
09/09/10 Thu	15:00	Departure for PY By Train	19:30	Arrive PY Station	Potonggang Hotel
09/10/10 Fri	10:30	Songsan MDR TB carecenter, S. Pyongan	15:30	Pediatric ward, S. Pyongan TB Hospital	Potonggang Hotel
09/11/10 Sat	09:30	Kangso MDR TB carecenter, Nampo			Potonggang Hotel
09/12/10 Sun	13:00	Mass at Polish Embassy	14:00	Ryongsong MDR TB carecenter, PY	Potonggang Hotel
09/13/10 Mon	10:30	Sadong MDR TB carecenter, PY	16:00	Debriefing with MoPH	Potonggang Hotel
09/14/10 Thu	09:00	Departure for Beijing

l  MoPH: Ministry of Public Health         PY: Pyong Yang

After the Mass on Pentecost Sunday, May 23, in the library of the Swiss International Aid Agency in Pyongyang, I met  the Polish Ambassador to the DPRK. He invited me to offer Mass at the Polish Embassy the next time I would be in Pyongyang, so I contacted him on Sunday, September 12, that I would be in Pyongyang. The Ambassador made all the arrangements for a 1 PM Mass at the Polish Embassy. A Mass booklet and hymns were printed for those attending the Mass.

Over 52 people attended the Sunday Mass, including 8 children. An altar, with candles and flowers, was prepared, and I brought the vestments. After Mass all were invited for brunch in the Embassy garden. It was a grace-filled time to be with those that needed spiritual help and to be speaking to such an alert and enthusiastic group of worshippers. They represented over a dozen different nationalities. Everyone seemed reluctant to leave after the Mass so I remained at the Embassy till 6 PM.

The Ambassador hopes that when I return in the last two weeks of October that I will be able to offer Sunday Mass on October 24 for the diplomatic community and UN personnel. Clearly, a deep spiritual hunger had brought these people together under such difficult circumstances, and I felt blessed to be able to minister to them even for such a short time. God willing, I will be able to do this again soon as we are tentatively scheduled to return for another visit in late October.

The Legacy of St. Francis

Today the feast day of St. Francis is a good time to reflect on his life, and what he left as  a legacy.

In the October issue of the  Kyeongyang magazine, a priest who studied ecology and represents an ecological spiritual research group, brings to our attention the criticism of many: the  failure of Christianity in not doing a better job of taking care of creation.

He mentions the historian Prof. Lynn White, who gives a great deal blame to Chrisitiantiy for the ecological  problems in the West.  We  have taken the words of Genesis (1:28) as the rationale to conquer and subdue creation, White says, as if God's grace was only there for us.  He  criticizes Christianity for being the most  human-centered  of all religions and believes that St. Francis would be a good antidote to this way of thinking, which is also the belief of the priest. He  does not accept all the criticism of the professor but, along with White, thinks that Christianity has now the responsibility of undoing the harm that was done.

St. Francis was one of the saints who made all of creation his brothers and sisters. He is the patron of all those who are working in the field of ecology. We all are familiar with his canticle to the sun in which all of creation are members of the family of God. The human body is similar: When we prick one of our fingers doesn't the whole body feel the pain?

The problem comes when we think the rational life is the standard by which all of creation should be judged. With this thinking, how are we to think of those who have mental difficulties and of those who are not functioning well in their old age? Are they not also to be respected and given their human rights? Isn't all of creation to be respected?

Scripture makes this known to us in many passages. Pope Benedict tells us in his Peace Day message that if we want peace, we need to be concerned with creation. In the documents of the II Vatican Council, we are told of the need to take care of creation. St Francis knew how to do this.

He cared and respected the water he used, the creatures he found along the paths he traveled--everything in the world he considered family. He believed not only that we have to love creation but acknowledge the mutual relationship between creation and God. We have to rid ourselves of the man-made obstacles that keep the natural world separate from the supernatural. When we embrace God's creation, we are embracing God.

He concludes the article with an examination of the ecological  spirituality of Francis. 


Sorrow:  For the way we have exploited creation in  searching for the comfortable life.


Poverty: A willingness to accept a more uncomfortable lifestyle  and be less of a burden on the environment.

Humility:Remembering that non-rational creation is also  family, and living a life of  thanks instead of greed; trust instead of exploitation.
 

Mercy:  Acknowledging  the blessings of creation are for all  humans and all organisms; understanding that indiscriminate development destroys part of who we are; and recovering a sensitivity to the hurt that our environment suffers.

Addiction to Advertising All Too Possible

A priest,  in  public relations in his diocese, writes for the Kyeongyang magazine this month on the business of advertising: its influence  on society and the moral implications for a business that profoundly affects all of us. It is an ever present reality in our lives and from the time we get up to the time we go to bed, we are exposed to its influence. There is little that we can do to eliminate it from our lives, and he goes on to explain why.
 
Advertising is information about products and services that most of us use daily, communicated, he reminds us, in the most persuasive manner possible to convince us to acquire these products and services. It has been called an aspect of art, speech in service to the public, a sign of  healthy capitalism, a necessary evil, and the stuff that makes the commercial world go around. It has been part of our reality from the time the printed world came on the scene, both in the East and in the West.
 
To find how much influence advertising has on our actions, a small city in Europe attempted an experiment. Specialists in advertising gathered together to plan an imaginary shopping mall. After studying the most successful strategies that have been used to interest the public in buying a product or service, they went ahead and advertised in local media, announcing the many good and inexpensive items that were available at the "new shopping mall." 
   
The result, the priest says, was a great success. On the day of the opening, over half the population of the city came to a very large field without any buildings, just a placard identifying the place as the location of the shopping mall. The citizens knew they had been fooled. The reaction was varied. Some were angry and considered themselves conned; others were thankful for being made to see how powerful advertising is.  It was an example that makes clear how easily influenced we are by advertising.
 
The priest goes on to tell us the four principal concerns that are most often brought to mind when any advertising is being planned: Attention, Interest, Desire and Action (AIDA as it is known in the industry). The attempt to get the public's attention so that they will delve into the content of the advertisement enough to arouse their interest, spark desire and motivate them to a buying action requires an attention stopper. Here is where many of the moral concerns come to light: using sex, violence, and fraudulent claims to grab the consumer's attention.
 
He finishes the article with the instructions from the Pontifical Council for Social Communication:

 Truth in advertising

Even today, some advertising is simply and deliberately untrue. Generally speaking, though, the problem of truth in advertising is somewhat more subtle: it is not that advertising says what is overtly false, but that it can distort the truth by implying things that are not so or withholding relevant facts (#15)

  Human dignity

          There is an "imperative requirement" that advertising respect the human person, his interior freedom, his right and his duty to make a responsible choice; all of these would be violated if man's lower inclinations  were to be exploited, or his capacity to reflect and decide compromised. (#16)

          Social responsibility...

          Advertising that fosters a lavish lifestyle, which wastes resources and despoils the environment, offends against important ecological concerns.   Advertising that reduces human progress to acquiring material goods expresses a false vision of the human person that is harmful to individuals and society alike.

       When people fail to practice a rigorous respect for moral, cultural and spiritual requirements--based on the dignity of the person and on the proper identity of each community, beginning with the family and religious  societies-- then even material abundance and the conveniences that technology makes available will prove unsatisfying and in the end contemptible. (#17)

Consequently, there is the obligation on the part of all of us to discern the often corrupting influence of advertising from its legitimate uses, and have the courage and wisdom not to be overcome by it.

Where do we find Lazarus today?

The Korean Catholic press is showing an  interest in the Social Gospel that many feel should have been stressed more in the catechumenate. The teaching on spirituality may have been overly stressed so that the social aspects of the Gospel were not appreciated as much as the private devotional aspects. Effort is now being made to see the whole of the Gospel, looking beyond the personal and individual spirituality to the community and the world.

A newsletter for priests ran an article that asked a question many young people ask concerning the teaching of the Church on the morality of acquiring as much wealth as possible. What should we think of persons who through their own efforts and ability have large and beautiful houses, expensive cars, and have the material comforts that most of us do not have? Is there any degree of wealth accumulation that we can say is too much? Is it merely jealousy on the part of those without these benefits, a discrimination by the not-wealthy against the wealthy?

The writer claims the Church is also helping to propagate acceptance of this inequality by having parishes that are wealthy and can afford to have many and varied programs while having parishes that, for lack of funds, even have to cut back on snacks for students. It's an unjust situation that the writer feels should be corrected.

The Catholic Kyeongyang magazine last year reported how Bolivia has been trying to correct a long-standing injustice in that country. A member of the  Bishop's committee of Korea  described how the president of Bolivia  took land, 150 times the size of Yoido, away from five cattle farmers and gave it to those who were working in slave-like conditions for the cattle farmers; now the land was theirs. But much of the inequality  that is sanctioned by the government is still in place: The wealth of 100 Bolivian families is five times the wealth of 2 million of their poor. Most of the rich and powerful,  those responsible for the injustice in that country, the writer surmises, are undoubtedly Catholics going to Mass in their best attire, in their expensive automobiles, and asking for salvation.

This may seem like a parody of the reality, but it is the situation in many parts of the world. The Church has a very elaborate  teaching on the issues of social justice, but it is not always easy to speak on issues of this type when the government of a country is solidly in the hands of the perpetrators of the injustice. There are two extremes with which the Church has to contend when dealing with  injustice: Those who want to correct the problem as soon as possible, which brings up the question of possible violence--although violence is not an  option for a Christian, preparing the ground for change appears to many to foster violence, the feared consequences, some believed, of Liberation Theology--and, at the other extreme, those who want to change the unjust conditions with prayer, good works and alms.


This past week we heard many sermons on Lazarus the beggar. The rich are thought not to need others, while Lazarus needed  the crumbs from the rich man's table.  It is rather clear from the different parables that the rich have the temptation to go it alone,  they may even forget God, while the poor cannot so easily forget they are dependent on others. Acknowledging our dependence on others can lead to a healthy spirituality which will, hopefully, sensitize us to the plight of the poor and motivate us to change the conditions leading to poverty, or at least to lesson the burden until conditions can be changed.

Some countries, according to a recent news report, are doing this already by asking for a tax that will be earmarked for the poor. And here in our country, yesterday's newspaper reported that the government has earmarked 28 percent of the budget, the highest in history, for welfare.  We are, as a nation, becoming more conscious of those who do not partake of the good life. It's a healthy sign for the future.