Church Always Reforming

"To live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often." These words of Blessed Cardinal Newman are heard often;  a priest historian writing  in the Kyeongyang magazine introduces us to  St. Bridget of Sweden who pointed out a similar message to the Christians of her time: change and reform.

The priest wants Korean Catholics to become more familiar with St. Bridget. He tells us that the pope who canonized her only 18 years after her death asked, when first hearing about the Saint, can anything good come from the North (referring to Sweden).  She is not only the patron of Sweden but also one of Europe's patron saints.

Bridget was born in 1302 and married at 14. She had eight children, one of them also becoming a canonized Saint. A Saint begetting a Saint: Catharine of Sweden. After 28 years of marriage and the death of her husband, she devoted the rest of her life to the spiritual life, founding a community. She traveled within the world of that time to all the pilgrimage sites and saw the world of Catholicism first hand, using what she saw and the revelations of the Lord to speak about the conditions of the Church.

Europe of the 14th century had been devastated by many tragedies: earthquakes, contagious  diseases, hunger  and war. The Black Death killed 80 percent of those with the disease. It was a great tragedy for Europe and the Church. Part of the Church of that time became very worldly. There were those who overcame this temptation but many were the object of criticism. Many intellectuals of that time were clerics in search of pleasure and comfort; the problem was that the Church accepted the situation, which had a great deal to do with money, excommunications for non-religious reasons, and selling of religious offices--all these abuses were the object of criticism. Abuses among the clerics and the lay people were wide spread.

It was during the life of Bridget that the Church went through a period of 70 years, known as the Avignon Captivity, in which the papacy was in France. This was not only a period where the papacy moved but a period where the leadership in the Church was more concerned with their own comfort and well-being than with spirituality and the poor. It was not able to function as Church. St. Bridget began the work of  changing the secular concerns of the popes to taking more care of the needs of the Church, a work that was continued by St. Catherine of Siena.

She scolded the priests and bishops for their way of life. A prime example was the bishop of Milan, Giovanni Visconti, but it was all the popes, bishops and priests who were not  leading the life as a  follower of Jesus that met with her words of disapproval.

Our writer returns to the days in which he studied Church History and remembers vividly the constant refrain: "Church always reforming". It is not the comfortable life.  This is not becoming conformed to the world but the way of Jesus. When we are not conformed to the ways of Jesus, it is a problem of great consequence.  Every day has to be a renewal  of our life. He quotes the words of a famous Chinese saying: "if you want  renewal, then everyday must be renewed, day after day renewed and again renewed."

To Live is to Pray

Prayer is considered by some as useless and yet by others as the most important activity of the day. Writing in Bible in Life a priest recalls his impressions of a discussion he had with a priest friend who spent a great deal of time in its practice. An experience of meeting with Jesus.

Hearing his friend talk about prayer made him envious. He was talking about meeting Jesus in prayer. It was a personal encounter with Jesus. It was, we would say, like meeting Jesus in a dream. However, not everybody has that kind of experience. It is the kind of gift given to those who prepare for it.

The writer asks himself why is he not adept in the practice of prayer. A requisite is  to know what prayer is, and he uses Henri Nouwen's words to explain prayer. "To live is to pray. To love is to pray and loving  is  serving." Another theologian explained, "Prayer is not like an emergency fund which you draw from in need. Prayer is the soul's place of rest, the soul's house. All living things have a place of repose. Birds have nests; foxes have dens; bees have hives. Prayer is our place of rest. The soul without this place of rest, wanders."

Prayer is like water to a fish, and air to us. Without prayer, we are living without a most important ingredient for life. Many of us believe that prayer is difficult when it is not. When we invite God to be with us, we have a prayer. When we have love within us, we are praying. When we meditate on the Gospel, and it moves into our life that is prayer. And when we want good things for others and the world, that is prayer.

In prayer, there is also great joy. It is being together with the beloved. Isn't that what heaven is? It is being enraptured with God's love. When the antenna and frequency are correct, we experience God with the whole body. Those without the taste for prayer will find it more like hell.  One has to know what prayer is, have a taste for it and enjoy it.

He concludes the article by telling us there is no royal road to prayer. Without effort, prayer comes rarely. We should go to those who are 'elders in prayer' for help. There are no persons with this gift from birth, he says; it's something acquired and he recommends that we make the effort to achieve prayer by starting with a period of 10 minutes a day.

Facing Problems Head On

We often  hear as parting words: 'don't over do it.'  Writing for the Seoul Diocesan bulletin a novelist introduces his article with these words that his doctor uses with him. He is being treated for cancer and reflects on his situation. His response to the doctor was: "Are you telling me to lay down and live the role of a sick person. If I do that I will be dead; if I do the opposite I will be living."

He tried to follow the doctor's advice: lying down, sleeping, reading, watching TV but found that he became more listless and depressed. He felt more like an invalid. So he decided to keep on moving as long as he could.

In front of his apartment, he walked the corridor which was about 100 steps. In the beginning, he had no desire to do this, but he came to a point where he could walk 10,000 steps. Any free moment he would go to the corridor and walk. In the beginning, it was with great difficulty, accompanied by dizziness and weakness but things changed;  he even left the apartment and started climbing a nearby mountain, resting often,

He tells us the story of a wise man  who was asked how does one escape from the cold and heat. Go to a place without cold and heat was his answer. Where in the world can I find such a place? the person asked. Why are you so uncomprehending? the wise man retorted. When you're cold you find a place that will make you colder, and when warm go to a place that will make you warmer.
 
When we go to a place that is warm to escape the cold, we are temporarily avoiding the cold. We are not getting rid of the cold. This is true also when we have pain and worries. We try to get rid of them by drink or by other means, but find that we are not able to do so. As the wise man said, to get rid of the pain and worries, or anything that is bothering us, we must face them head on.


A person wanting to learn archery was told first to learn how not to blink. A famous Korean general was known to have said that in order to live you have to die--words similar to the words used by our Lord.

He finishes the article with the words of the angels to the shepherds. "You have nothing to fear! I come to proclaim good news to you--tidings of great joy to be shared by the whole people." Even though it is more than we can bear, let us stand up, the writer says. Although difficult, if possible let us crawl. If we can walk let us walk; if we can run let us run--like the shepherds to the crib of our Lord.

Growth in Spirituality

Growth in Spirituality is an important subject, and the two Catholic papers give us many articles in this area for us to ponder. One of the topics in the Catholic Times' page on spirituality discusses a 'blue print' we  have been given from creation. What does it mean to be a human being? What does God want us to be?

The foundations of God's master plan are the development of the intellectual, physical and spiritual dimensions of our humanity. These are the areas of growth; not to be done alone but in a dynamic relationship with  society and in history.

The writer distinguishes three different aspects of our life forms:outer appearance, the mental  form and  the core form. The body presents us with the outer appearance, the intellect with the current form and the spirit with the core form.

The example he gives is dancing. The dancing would be the outer appearance, the joy that comes from the dancing the current form, and  the sense of fulfillment is the core form. Or when singing: the singing of the words of a song is the outer appearance. The relishing of the words and music is the current form, and  the oneness that I have with what I am doing is the core form.  How much are we conscious of the core form? We are usually conscious only of the first two forms.

Our efforts in life usually are directed to changing  our physical, intellectual and spiritual forms. It is in the failure to do this that we fail to understand the meaning of life and live with an emptiness and inflict pain on our self and on others. The writer even mentions a few individuals who made this clear in their teachings on happiness; even the hedonist would agree, since it is something embedded in the laws of nature.

When we  live not only in the physical and  mental dimensions but in the spiritual dimension, we maintain a relationship with what we have received from God. And those with a consciousness of God and an understanding that these inclinations come from God will desire to be united to the will of God. By "giving thanks and being at one with the God who made us," he says, "will make us more merciful and willing to help others, and when necessary, to be reconciled with our situation whatever it may be, and to work to the limits of our capabilities."

Getting to a Point Where She Could Forgive

A woman well-known in Korean society writes in Bible and Life of an experience she had recently on meeting the person who had been her supervisor in the tax office where she worked after high school. As soon as he saw her, he turned to those who with him and said, so all could hear: "You all know who this woman is. I helped make her what she is."

The writer reminisces on the short time she worked in the tax office and her boss, who had little authority but wielded it with her harshly and whenever he desired.  She flunked the exam for college, and besides the tax office job had an evening job at a tea room as a classical music disk jockey. She would leave work at the tax office and go on to her disk jockey job and often, because of the importunate requests at the tax office, would be late. Her boss at the tax office had ridiculed her for thinking that she, a high school graduate, knew anything about classical music. And she would have to be always ready to prepare the morning coffee, and the way he would get her attention was by a 'Ya'.

Although it was her boss's superior who hired the three girls in the office, he spoke as if he was the one responsible for her success, which annoyed her greatly. Even after she left the job, whenever she thought of him she would get angry, and now he had the gall to say he made her what she had become.

In the brief meeting with him, he said he knew she would make something of herself and recalled  that he urged her to use the  money she earned to go on to college. She found his words self-serving and didn't want to hear any more. His hand shake was as if they were old friends; this added to the annoyance and she found a way to excuse herself and left.

When she reached home, she went to her diary and looked over some of the entries to recall more clearly those days at the tax office. One of the girls working with her quit because of his treatment. She recorded that she was also thinking of quitting but in another entry, she wrote that all these trials would make her stronger.

There was another entry about a boy she met, at a tea room, that she grew to know well and was even invited to his home to meet his mother. When the mother asked her what university she attended and she answered that she was not attending any, the mother's face showed her disappointment. Since the son was a student at an elite university and in the law department, she easily understood the feelings of the mother: a tea room disk jockey interested in her son must have been 'a punch in the stomach.'

However, on more reflection, she analyzed the Korean word for forgiveness and the English word to forgive. In English, it is made up of the word for and give. It is to give completely. It is not something that is 'earned' by what is done by the one who is forgiven but something you give, regardless of what is done or not done; the one who can give is the one who forgives.

These two people--her former supervisor in the tax office and the mother of the boy who invited her to his home--didn't do anything to destroy her future or anything that made it hard for her to forgive; she knew that.  They did something that we all have experienced, and she considered it 'no big deal.'  They helped her, she said, to take the ordinary  slings and arrows that come our way in stride, and made her stronger because of  them. "I have no reason to hate them but to thank them for what they have done for me," was how she summed up the situation. So the next morning  she took out the card that her old boss had given her when they parted recently, and sent him a text message thanking him for what he had done for her. And, she said, she meant it.

Antidote to Bullying

Bullying is a topic that continues to get a great deal of attention in the press. Middle and high schools have been the focus. The public became concerned because of the violence, harassment, and suicides.  

The problems are not limited to the individuals involved but now includes the whole of society. There are a number of evaluations and prescription for a cure and they deal with coming to grips with problems in the family and society.

The Catholic papers had an interviews with the principal of a Catholic high school in Incheon. He begins by saying, "As a forest gives off a special aroma so also does the St. Andrew Kim high school give off God's aroma: there are no bullying incidents at the school." This was the principal's answer to the question about whether there was bullying at the school.

The principal, when asked about the events in society that have prompted many to poke at the 'hornet's nest', said he found it very depressing. The reason for this, he feels, is that in the past parents educated from their innate sense of what was necessary but today it's being done differently because of the global competition winning is everything.

Education begins in the family, he noted, and than expands to the schools where you can find reasons for violence. The students themselves who are requesting education have within them the seeds of violence.  At the school we consider all the students as our brothers and our children. We have over seventy teachers on the staff, 90 percent of them Catholic, so we are able to function with the Catholic idea of education.  Physical punishment is strictly forbidden but necessary discipline is permitted.

One of the Catholic educators said: "In Catholic schools, students should be given Jesus' value system and helped to live according to these values."

The principal concludes that the foundation of education should be our common humanity and that schools should be able with favorable surroundings to develop the students' strong points. He stresses that religion is like the stomach of a person. If this is sick the whole person is uncomfortable. If religion does not do what it is meant to do in a school setting, violence in some form, he believes, will not be absent.

Understanding Iconography

"Icons are relics of the past, you say? They are rather unchanging treasures in the spiritual warehouses of the 2nd millennium."  These are the words of a Korean priest the Chosun Daily profiles in a recent article.  He spent over four years in a Russian seminary learning the steps to teach iconography and the Byzantine liturgy.  He is the only specialist in the art of iconography now in Korea.

In English, the word 'icon' means an image. For the Orthodox Christian, painting and viewing icons is a spiritual, meditative act, used as aids in meditation, the study of theology, and deepening one's prayer life.  Since the first days of the Church the world  has become complicated. What the saints saw in those early years--the simplicity and self-restraint--is still alive in the icons.
 

The priest began working on creating a center for the study of icons and icon painting in 2003, but it was only last year that it was recognized by the diocese. There have been 150 who have finished the three-year course and have begun their work as icon painters.

He sees the close connection of the icons with the Byzantine liturgy. The liturgy begins with an icon of the nativity. On the altar, the holy of holies, after the consecration the King's door is opened with the images of the Gospel writers, saints and the Blessed Mother,  and through the door,  the priest approaches the congregation for communion. This symbolizes the New Testament times and when they leave the church, they gaze on the icon of the last judgement.

He reminds us that icons are not the exclusive possession of the Orthodox; in the 11th century East and West were united. Icons are part of our tradition and also our way of reading the Scriptures,

To paint one icon takes about 6 month, he explains. You prepare the wooden block, add layers of  glue to the block, cover it with cloth, put the mortar in place, make the coloring with powdered stone and egg yolks mixed with white wine, prepare  the frame, gold leaf where appropriate, and take the final steps to protect the surface of the icon. Great patience is required, a patience that many find too difficult, so over half of  his students leave before finishing the course. It's a long process and demands a great deal on the part of the artist.  It's not just  reproducing an image; every icon is an individual work, made  with prayer: a spiritual attitude in which you become enraptured with the icon.