Standing Aside to Look at Life and Oneself

 In the Kyeongyang Magazine early this year a retired priest gave his reflections on life and leisure. During his last years in the seminary, he realized  there was something missing in his emotional life. He attributed  this to the poverty of his family, not being able to finish school, and the difficulties of the war years. Without a better emotional life bringing a necessary balance into his life, he believed his personality would not improve.

While in the seminary he felt working with music would help him cultivate a more balanced emotional life, so he started with the guitar. He went to the  accordion and just before he retired, he  borrowed a saxophone, but when the owner asked for its return the interest in music disappeared.

In the beginning of his priestly life, he enjoyed tennis and fishing. For reasons of health, he volunteered to go to an island where he took up writing and poetry and continued this interest into his retirement years, when he published a book of poetry.

He  took up calligraphy and oriental painting. He was intent on doing everything possible to cultivate his emotional life. During his sabbatical year, he  even studied oriental painting.

Leisure allows one to step back and look at one's daily concerns. It is like the painter who steps back with a cup of tea in his hand to look with a mature eye at  what he has just finished painting.  Just as oriental painting has to have blank spaces if it is to have life, in our own lives, if we are to have fulfillment, we have to have this leisure--life's blank spaces.

When one steps back from his daily work, he can see it from a different perspective. He can see the 'I,' the ego, with a different eye for it is not uncommon that we deceive ourselves. When we become too attached to the work we can forget who we are and who we are working for. When we are conscious of  the bishop and the Christians and what they will think, we can lose our identity and develop a false self; we fail to practice virtue and walk the road to holiness.

There is a possibility of getting so involved in the work for God that we forget God: the work becomes our satisfaction, our glory. He reflects that  during the years as pastor, it was his ideas and plans that he wanted implemented; he wasn't interested in hearing what his pastoral council advised. Being a late learner, he realized at retirement that it was often when he didn't get  what he wanted  that God's will was done.

He tells us that having a little pressure in life is not all bad; it keeps us from being sloppy and falling apart. (This reminds me of a ditty from the seminary days: No stress, no strain, no unusual moods, stay loose but don't fall apart at the seams.) To show us what he means, he introduces us to  his blog that he has kept going for five years-- Spirituality from the Water Spring, www.catholicspirit.org.  This keeps him young at heart. His approach is a good example of the contemplative attitude toward life which is becoming harder to follow in this competitive and result-oriented society..

Making Young People Feel at Home in the Church

There is a great deal of talk  within the Church on the falling away of the young people as they get older. Symposiums in many dioceses are now trying to determine what can be done to keep them within the Church, some suggesting that there needs to be more attention given to improving the faith life of the young.
 
The Synod in the diocese of Incheon concluded that "Family education is the most important factor for the holistic growth of young people, especially for growth in the faith...Parents have a great responsibility for educating their children in the faith but usually leave this duty to priests, religious, and to religion teachers. Furthermore,  parents restrict their children's faith life and church activities during the preparation time for national entrance examinations."
 
This is the difficult reality the Church in Korea is faced with. Understanding the obstacles is necessary before we can begin to discuss the situation. The Peace Weekly, in a review of a symposium in the Suwon diocese, mentions  understanding the obstacles is a prerequisite before anything can be done. 

One of  the participants said, "The future of the Church is the young," but, unless the Church implements this understanding with concrete proposals and programs this slogan will remain only a slogan. We have done little in our parishes to make a viable culture where the young will feel comfortable and  thrive.

The diocesan bulletin made the same point with cases of problem children. There is the tendency to put them all in the category of children who have difficulty with puberty or to consider them all juvenile  delinquents--another example of a failure to understand.

The youth in the Church are just like  the other youth  in society they associate with daily. To create a more welcoming environment for our young people, the Church needs to create a culture that is not so radically different from what youth are generally exposed to in the society at large, provided that it does not deviate from the standards of good conduct. Coming to Church will then be something our youth can identify with.

If adults were to look at what the young people see by putting themselves in their position, not expecting them to automatically accept the established adult culture, adults might be more accepting of youth culture. Youth culture can be divided into two categories: school culture and popular culture. In school culture, demands are made on the students, which are accepted at times, compromised with and opposed at other times. Knowing that students will often respond negatively with the school controlling culture, adults should not be surprised at their response outside of the school milieu.

A participant in one symposium pointed out that we are living in a materialistic society that emphasizes its sexual aspects. Even though we are an economically developed country, we have no sex education programs in the schools or in our churches; our young people are getting their sex knowledge from pornographic videos, magazines, books and the internet, among other sources. Consequently, we have one of the worse records in sexual conduct among the young.

The Church should be a place where young people are helped in making decisions involving sex. A step in the right direction would be to have seminaries offering courses in sexual education, the Church providing training for those who teach in Sunday school programs, and setting up centers where the young can go for consultation. The Church should take the lead in order to counteract the free-for-all sexual culture that we have made.

Society Makes Parenting Difficult

A columnist on the opinion page of the Catholic Times reflects on the news that about 12 percent of the  grammar,  middle, and high school students  need therapeutic help for their emotional health. 

The pressures to do well at school and the lack of conversation between parents and children is seen as the problem. This condition seems to be more prevalent with the middle school children than with high school students.

Children complain that parents get angry without much provocation and don't spend enough time with them, so they have no one to confide in and express their concerns, which makes their life more stressful than it should be. There is little to alleviate this pressure, and the impulses they have are often  expressed in strange ways. Last year in Korea, more than 200 children killed themselves, a sign that not all is well in the family.

The columnist recommends that parents deal with children the way priests deal with penitents in the confessional.  Even when he hears the confession of a murderer, he does not reproach the penitent; he listens  and gives the penance. In this way, when we leave the confessional we leave with a light heart, and that is the feeling the child should have-- Our Lord with the lost sheep has given us an example to follow.

The atmosphere in which children have to study and the constant competition makes it difficult for them  to have the proper disposition. Even after graduating from college, they do not have a bright future but the possibilities of  low-paying jobs and unemployment. Better than saying: "Just a little more patience. Do your best," it would be better to say: "It's been difficult, hasn't it? You have really had it rough."

When the child is faced with hopelessness, there will obviously be problems. To avoid this,  parents need to find out what is bothering the child by being attentive to changes in behavior, especially to unexplained mood swings, and always be ready to talk and offer help and encouragement.

The columnist has had opportunities to deal with children who have run away from home and is always surprised to learn that the parents had no inkling of what the child was thinking and feeling. When they find out, they take it very hard often shedding tears of remorse. The excuse of many parents is that they did not think the child was open to talking or did not think they needed to be concerned. If we are seriously interested in keeping children from running away, parents should be more aware of what their child is thinking, feeling and doing, and above all show them affection.

She concludes that it is natural for parents to have great expectations for their children but when this becomes all important the child will feel pressure. More important is to pray that they grow as  loving children of God.

Family Atmosphere In Parishes Far From Korea

Before coming to Korea, I worked briefly for the society in mission promotion, and one of the tasks was to visit parishes. I can recall visiting one town with a population of only 10,000 and yet it had six or seven parishes, one being the territorial parish, the others were ethnic parishes. This situation is changing today because of the lack of priests and acceptance of multiculturalism.

Change from ethnic to territorial parishes is an ongoing process in the United States; it was because of these ethnic parishes that entrance into American life was made much easier for many Catholics, and served to keep them in the Church.  It gave many a home away from home and friends to help them make the transition to life in the United States.

The life of the ethnic parishes was less trying on the immigrants because they were associating with others with a common background and culture. Here in Korea practically all the parishes, obviously, are ethnic parishes that  happen to be territorial parishes because we have so few Catholic immigrants. When this is the case the spirit of a parish is much more like a family and the demands on the parish staff would be much greater than when you have many different nationalities forming a community. Most of the parishes even today would have two Religious Sisters working in the community.

This week's Peace Weekly reports on a parish that is celebrating their 18th year as a parish, with 22 different events within a period of five days. There will be a scripture memory tournament, a music concert, fun and games for the children, athletic contests and many other events.

One of the events was called the Sincerity Game, with the priest and sister taking questions from the Christians on any subject. Both the sister and priest were presented with a Bible at the start of the session by one of the parishioners (intent on getting a few laughs) and both had to promise to speak the truth. The session lasted for almost two hours with  all kinds of questions; from start to finish the hall was filled with laughter. Some of the questions asked what life was like being a priest and sister, and there were also questions that suggested some dissatisfaction with the way the parish was run. But there was no question that all had a good time and experienced the event as harmonious and peaceful.

The Korean Catholics are familiar only with this type of community. When they emigrate to another country, they want to maintain this camaraderie which they would not ordinarily find in the territorial parishes. The bishops would like them to join the parishes already established but this would be asking a great deal of the Catholics. At present, the priests from Korea are taking care of these ethnic parishes, and as long as Korea is blessed with an abundance of priests, there should not be any problems.

A Celibate Married Couple

The Peace Weekly TV station is preparing a drama of a married couple that were martyred at the beginning of the 19th century. They were not your usual husband and wife for they promised before marriage that they would live as brother and sister. They had both wanted to make that commitment to God so Fr. Chu Mun-mo, the Chinese priest who was the first to begin pastoral work in Korea, arranged to marry them. 

It is not difficult to imagine the difficulties encountered by such an arrangement on the part of  this couple: Lee Sun-yee, Nugalda  and Yu Chung-cheol, John, two strong-willed individuals that chose this commitment in their life of faith, a way of life that was not accepted by society. Both came from wealthy and educated families, but Nugalda had to oppose the wishes of her parents to go through with the marriage. It was an act of a very liberated woman, at a time when you would not expect it from such a new Christian.

A woman's freedom is limited in Confucianism; gender equality is not a value and many married women are treated more like slaves than companions, with few rights. When women in this society opted for a virginal lifestyle, it was a step that meant a great deal more than one would assume.
 
Nugalda and John lived in the Honam district of Korea. They have always been venerated by Catholics, and their shrine has many visitors. The process for beatification of  124 has been sent to Rome, and our two martyrs are on the list. However, they are not the only couple that  decided to live as brother and sister. There is also Kwon Therese and Cho Peter.  At the request of Therese, on their wedding day, Peter was asked if they could live as  brother and sister.  Peter acquiesced  and although he was not practicing, from the time of his marriage  his whole life changed: he helped priests to enter  Korea, have them stay at his house, and became a zealous worker in the community.

Marriages during the early days of the Church in Korea were only allowed between Catholics. They  were very strict in following this teaching, and when  not followed the parents would be denied the sacraments. This was why you would have families go through much trouble to find a Catholic mate for their children and this continued up until about 50 years ago when dispensations became common.

Plays and musicals have been made about the life of Nugalda and John, and also an opera. We now have the TV drama, "The Celibate Couple," which will be shown this coming month on Peace TV.

In the society we are living in today this kind of "spiritual marriage" goes contrary to our present values. That the Church is thinking of making a drama on a subject of this kind is counter-cultural. Today we have an appreciation of sex that was far from the understanding of the society in which the Church took root. The efforts of this loving couple  to honor their promise did not come easy, judging from what we know of their life, including the letters they sent home.

It's good to remember that Intimacy is not another word for sex, but a possibility for husband and wife even without the physical. This is something for us all to ponder, living as we do in a culture that speaks quite differently.

Difficulty in Being an Evangelist for Happiness

On the  Catholic Times opinion page this week, a columnist refers to the words of a song, "I am not laughing, no, not laughing," which reminded her of the recent suicide of the author and TV celebrity, the "Happiness Evangelist," well-known for her books and lectures on how to achieve happiness, and for hosting a popular TV program on the same theme.

After her suicide, the first response of many of her fans was stunned disbelief and then confusion.  How could someone who seemed so cheerful and had so much energy kill herself?  "Where in this world can we find happiness if this is the result of a life dedicated to finding happiness ?" was the typical response of many. This was the pessimistic response that came pouring out from many quarters. Some said, "if  the  evangelist for happiness killed herself why not me?" Who has an answer to this extreme opinion? Faith is the answer of the columnist.

This evangelist for happiness often mentioned in her talks that the word suicide in Korean when taking the two syllables in order means to kill the self, but when inverted it  means 'let's live.' She often remarked on this double meaning. Whether you are unattractive, poor or uneducated, that is no sin. There is only one sin, she would say, repeating it often, and that is not to live fully; she stressed the importance of the will in achieving this fulfilled life.

There are many people who are smiling on the outside but crying on the inside. The writer calls this masked depression. The evangelist for happiness was not afflicted with depression but had many physical complaints and was being treated by doctors, but the pain was so great that she had difficulty living the life she preached.
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The columnist refers to a questionnaire in which 70 percent of workers from 20 to 30 years of age  said they have felt masked depression. That most people feel mildly depressed (getting the blues) at times in their life is no surprise; how indicative this is of  depression is not known, but not being able to live fully is certainly a problem for many A familiar quote from St. Irenaeus notes that "The Glory of God is man fully alive." It's our calling as Christians.

She concludes by asking, is it necessary to be a Christian and know the gospel to find happiness?  No, she says, it is not necessary because happiness is an emotion. This emotion, however,  is of no help when sickness, loneliness, old age and death come into our lives. It's here that our faith life presents us with  the necessary answers. Faith fills the emptiness in our lives.

Usually in life when you select something you say no to something else. However, when  you say yes to faith you are also saying yes to life.

Catholic Church of Korea's Understanding of Beauty

The Korean Catholic Church has been concerned in recent years about the way it has dealt with the art in its possession. The Church has not shown the interest that the art specialist would like to see. Dr. Hong Gemma, in her doctoral thesis, "The Church's Progress in Sacred Art," has some revealing things to say on the subject; a  review of the thesis appeared in the recent Peace Weekly.

Over the past two thousand years, the Church has inherited a great patrimony and should  continue to contribute to the religious, cultural, and artistic desires of our modern age. However, in Korea, according to Doctor Hong, the record of the Catholic Church's sensitivity toward art and artists has not been good.

Our understanding of art has been limited, she says, to using it to decorate our churches, to help us in the liturgy and to pray; it remains only a material tool to be used when needed by the Church, and does not express the values of the Church. This passive notion of art can be seen when we look at the interiors of our churches and see a monotonous display of  repetitious art, much of it imported from the West as a result of the foreign missionaries working in Korea.

Surveys have revealed that Catholic preference in art follows traditional lines; abstract and non-conceptual  expressions are not readily accepted. There is a need now, Dr. Hong believes, to discover and use the works of new artists, as well as doing away with the distinction between  sacred and secular art. The notion of inculturation in art should not mean going back into history but finding out where we are now with our  Korean sensitivities toward the beautiful, and not copy from the West or be limited by the past.

We have built many churches in recent years, but it is not easy to find anything  that is representative of Korea in architecture or in sacred art.  Money is not allotted for the artistic aspects of our buildings;  plans are not carefully thought out  and lack sufficient consultation.  Dependence on donations from Catholics results in a smorgasbord of styles and a lack of  artistic harmony within the churches. She suspects that most Christians are not interested in sacred art which means less money for the upkeep and preservation of art within the Church.

But some of the blame, she feels, must go to the priests and parishioners who do not appreciate the place of art in the liturgy. When a new priest comes to a parish, and the art within the church does not meet his approval  the art is removed, defaced or is ignored, causing discontent with the artists. If this situation is to change, she sees the need to educate priests in art appreciation, for in Korea all depends on the priest: the planning, the building and the selection of the works of art come under his authority. Because priests have this very important decision-making power, she recommends that learning the skills of artistic appreciation begin early in their education, for it is not something that comes automatically.