Spirituality According to St. Francis de Sales

How is your spirit? Asks a nun in the first sentence of the  book review on  Spirituality Speaks to Women,  in the  Catholic Times.  Diet for the spirit is the first step, she says. We have to get rid of the waste and gradually fill it with the good. When we starve  the body we don't automatically  get rid of  the fat and waste; the same  with the spirit by only suppressing our negative feelings, reproving and  condemning they don't just disappear. 

The nun strives to show how love  is shown in our daily life. The book  attempts to understand the internal life and the awakening to this life of the spirit.  Awakening  is the strength of spirituality. Accepting correctly the  strength of spirituality and putting it into practice, we rid ourselves of worries and  uneasiness and begin using time well, better our relations with others,  and improve our prayer life. She works with the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales.


To live daily with joy and happiness it is necessary to look at our internal life. It seems like a big order and fills one with anxiety. But she says that working on spiritually does not mean asceticism, becoming a saint, and transcendent experiences, but rather taking concern for our inner life.


The  sister tells us not to confuse feelings with the spirit.  Many can't keep feelings separated from personality. There are persons that are rough in their  manner who once known are virtuous and those who are gentle but once known  are not so good.
 
 How do we distinguish between spirit and  feelings? When we are moved by our feelings  and act on them; it may seem that we feel relieved, but  the spirit is uncomfortable. When we do what the spirit wants it may at first seem difficult,  but at the end we are at peace. This will take energetic effort  on our part.

When despondent and  anxious the sister wants us to ask ourselves why? Not to judge or give blame but rather  to acknowledge what is bothering us. It is this light that comes from reflection that  tells us  in what  direction  we are to go and the sign of growth in the spiritual life.

Epics and the Culture of Life

Epics appeared late in the maturation of culture, allowing us to appreciate the progressive  unfolding  of humanity in  narrative, poetry, and  myths, which gradually developed into the literature of the country.

Writing in the Peace Weekly a professor, in the Culture of Life Research Institute, reflects on epics and what they can tell us about humanity, about the meaning of life, our relationship with nature and, ultimately, about human desires. Reading the classics, the professor says, opens us to another way of seeing our world, and coming to a new understanding of  the conditions and meaning of life. The tragedies of life make us think deeply of their meaning. We ask ourselves, what are our tragedies and how can we best face them.

The legend of Tangun, for example, familiar to all Koreans, tells us about a particular image of humanity and its character by recounting the tale of Hwanin (God of Heaven) and his love for the earth and humanity. Hwanung, the son of Hwanin, wanted to live on the earth to provide humans with great happiness. When he learned that in a cave lived a bear and a tiger praying to become human, Hwanung gave them garlic and some mug wort. They were to eat this food and stay out of the sunlight for 100 days. The tiger gave up but the bear remained and was transformed into a woman. The woman prayed to be blessed with a child. Moved by  her prayer Hwanug took her for his wife, and she gave birth to a handsome son named Tangun--the beginning of the Korean people.
 
This legend tells us much about how we see ourselves. The temptation to get out in the sunlight was too great for the tiger and he failed the test of endurance. It is when we are suffering the greatest ordeal that we show our humanity. Truth, even when not acknowledged, makes itself known. 
 
Human life here on earth is temporary, but our life narrative does not disappear. With the passage of time this narrative continually changes, but remaining ever new, and the value of life and its mystery becoming clearer. We are the writers of this epic. We are the ones searching for this exalted life: the epic of our one, beautiful, and sacred life.

Catholic Applications for Smart Phones

The Catholic Times and the Seoul  Internet Catholic Good news site has  cooperated in a questionnaire of Catholic net citizens and  the use of the internet in their religious life. The first questionnaire had to do with the understanding of applications by the  net citizens.

Over half of the population are using smart phones. 90 percent of the Catholic users of the internet find that the  applications  assist them in their religious life. A survey of 310 Catholics was made: 43 percent were using Catholic applications 2-3 times a day; 32 percent were using the applications less than once a day, 14 percent were using them 4-5 times a day, 5 percent 6-7 times a day and 6 percent over eight times a day. The numbers who use  these Catholic  applications are not insignificant.
 
One-third of the respondents said not being hindered by time or place in  using the religious information was helpful.  They are able to access  the Scriptures, hymnals, the daily liturgy, lives of the saints, etc.; this has proven very beneficial. Content is easily accessible.


On the other hand, some of the difficulties are the lack of a variety of applications; the operating system of the different mobile phones  does not allow them to access some of the applications.

Korea has one of the fastest internet connection speeds and one of the highest percentages of users in the world. It is an electronic paradise. Net-citizens are in a very internet friendly environment which means that the future continues to be bright in the use of the internet, There are many parish programs to get elderly Catholics familiar with the use of the smart phones  which will mean we will continue to see an increase in the use of Catholic orientated applications.

Facing the Challenges of Life

"Don't forget the challenge God has given us" is the headline of the column on spirituality in the Korean Times. The columnist  reminds us that wars are far from being a challenge in maintaining national sovereignty but are contemptible killings in a brutal fight for victory.  In no way is this how we should be living up to God's goodness.
 
The word 'challenge,' in a Korean dictionary, means: to face head-on in combat, also used  as a figure of speech when facing any difficulty, or to better some record. We use the word often when referring to adventures like climbing mount Everest,  but most importantly, the columnist says, the word 'challenge' should be part of our searching for the meaning of life.

In our daily lives, we are continually being challenged. Many find the challenge beyond their strength and choose to avoid it. Challenges usually contain both danger and adventure and  should be faced squarely. Challenges are part of life and are given to us by God. 

However, we tend to forget this reality and think that challenges originate from our earthly circumstances; we do not see them as lifting us up to a higher and superior way of living. We should be sensitive to this reality, and not see challenges only as a way of bettering our material life.

At the end of life everything can become a challenge to us, and a responsibility. Challenges, whether coming early or late in life, have formed or are forming who we are. A boxer strives to be the best he can be: a champion. We are striving for the virtuous life, a life of freedom and responsibility. Without this freedom and sense of responsibility, we  are not living the beautiful life, the life of virtue.

The  beauty of life can be experienced daily by accepting and overcoming the challenges that come to us daily. If we look back and only see the zealousness of our life, our successes in avoiding the challenges of life, considering them our consolation, then we will not be able to say it was a life well-lived. A life without challenges amounts to a life that is lived too shallowly.  What are the challenges that we face today?  What efforts do we make to live the life of a free person? Are we pridefully fooling ourselves into thinking we are champions? The challenges that allow us to transcend the concerns of our ordinary life and to live the life of faith are only given to humans. We should face these challenges courageously until the day we die.

Marriage and Children

A priest responsible for family matters in his diocese uses the opinion page of the Catholic Times to reflect more deeply on this subject.  He begins with the fact that many couples  have opted  out of having children, are pooling their resources, cutting  down on spending, and looking for whatever else will more easily give them a leisurely lifestyle.  This is not, he says, the only reason women are avoiding children; another is that the traditional idea of family is changing. The higher divorce rate, the greater number of single parents, and other signs of an unconventional lifestyle are signs that the traditional idea of family is fading. The pursuit  of personal happiness and a better quality of life have become for many the foundation of a new value system. These are some of the reasons he cites for the decrease in the birthrate, even though the government is making  efforts to change the situation.

How is the Church to deal with this reality? he asks.  When a young couple comes before a priest for marriage instructions, expressing their desire to live without children, what is he to say? The couple will most likely defend their position by saying: " Times are difficult; a good education is expensive; the raising of children requires a lot of time and energy, and therefore deciding not to have children is a wise decision." This position of course cannot be accepted by the priest, and the couple will be told that they cannot be married in the Church.

Church law makes clear that entering into marriage with a prior understanding (outside of medical reasons) that there will be no children is contrary to the Catholic understanding of marriage. Why is it that the Church speaks this way about marriage? Because married couple are pro-creators with God; they have been called to participate  in the continuing work of creation. The very make-up of the person shows this to be the blueprint of creation: husband and wife, body and soul, complement and are interrelated with each other. The oneness of the union points to an important meaning of life: by means of the oneness, their sharing of their gift of life, this gift of life is passed on to the next generation.

Married couples have the freedom, of course, to refuse to cooperate with this gift-giving. But by doing so they are refusing  to be cooperators with God in his creation, refusing to be his children, working for his kingdom.

Raising children is not easy, everyone would concede. It often demands that one go against cherished desires and personal goals to set examples to our children that we may feel unqualified to give, such as the meaning of love's fulfillment in one's own family.  However, if we always seek to avoid the difficulties of life, we will not arrive at any meaningful truths. Jesus at Gethsemane made his prayer to do God's will; we are called, he says, to do the same. 

The words of the priest may seem extremely callous and  insensitive to young people contemplating marriage. Though they are not the kind of words that would please everyone, would it be better to remain silent when we are faced with misunderstandings on such important issues, despite being rightly upset by these misunderstandings? It would be rather easy to remain silent, and many would, considering the cultural pressures to do so.  But can we say, it is the Christian way?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

What Does It Mean to Be Fully Human

If ten people  fight against 1000 people, who would  win?  To answer this apparently simple question, we have to raise several other questions: how are they equipped or armed, what do they value in life, where are their geographical positions relative to each other, how adequate is their access to supplies, and what is the state of their morale, among other considerations.  Those during the European middle ages would probably respond that the victors would be those whom God helps. This was an answer obviously given without much thought by the people at that time and we are told that  even great things happened. A journalist for the Catholic Times explores the issue.  

In Roman times, disputes would be settled, he says, by bringing the case to court and judging its merits by referring to the appropriate laws. During the middle ages, instead, the case would be settled by "ordeal." They left it up to God to judge.  God, it was believed, would help the innocent person survive a proposed ordeal that both parties to the dispute had to endure.  Whether the ordeal selected was putting a hand into boiling water or placing hot stones in the hand, or any other tormenting incident, the innocence of the participants would be determined by how long the pain could be endured, the belief being that God would provide the innocent one with sufficient endurance to outlast that of the guilty one. Even when the ordeal selected was dueling with swords, it was believed that God would be on the side of the innocent dueler, and he would survive the fight. 

Humanists of the Renaissance considered their ancestors to have lived in the dark ages, "trial by ordeal" being one example of this so-called darkened understanding. Is it just as easy for us today to make that statement? the columnist wonders. Are we living in a more humane way than they did in the middle ages of Europe? 

He goes on to ask if it is more humane to teach our children, and ourselves, not to waste one minute or second of the time allotted to us. Is getting good marks and entering a first-rate school more important than having friends and more time for family commitments? Or is it more important to win in some competitive encounter? On TV and on the internet, we are presented with continual sensory stimulation, seduced into believing that the victor is the one enjoying the so-called spoils of victory, while the loser in this competitive battle is left with nothing, or very little. Is this "heartlessness of the victor," as he puts it, what we are to accept as our modern understanding of what it means to be fully human?

This modern approach he labels as either machine-like or animal-like; so where is a person to stand? We are able to  stand firm, he says, within a faith community. Jesus said he has overcome the world, and where he reigns there is where we are able to stand up straight. The columnist makes clear that he doesn't want to return to the middle ages. We have seen that both in the middle ages and in the present we have lost a great deal of what makes us human; we have seen the problems. Our work now is to work to rid ourselves of these problems, and become truly human.

A recently published novel, Independence's Righteous Army, a retelling of the independence movement in Korea, focuses on the participation of the Church in the movement, and its official position of maintaining the separation of church and state. This position prompted the Church, which was administered at that time by foreign missioners, to see things  differently than most Catholics of the country, including Patriot Thomas Ahn, who was a victim of this misunderstanding, receiving no official sympathy from the Catholic Church for his acts against the Japanese.

Patriot Ahn died in 1910 at the hands of the Japanese, but his spirit continued to inspire Catholics in a small parish of Korean nationals, in the Gando district of China. Lee Yeong-ho (Barnaba), the author of the historical novel, reveals the ongoing efforts of this group of Catholics to free themselves from Japanese occupation.

During the Japanese occupation, there were many who moved to China and became involved in the liberation movement established in Gando. This movement, Ulmindan (righteous army), not only was an aid to understanding modern church history, but continues to shed light on the complex history of that time.

The novel begins with the kidnapping of Fr. Choi Mun-sik, pastor of the Paltogu parish, by the Manchukyuo Imperial Army. Though the scene-elements surrounding the facts have been fictionalized, the facts are all in place, making this novel close to a non-fiction account of the events, according to the book review in the Catholic Times. As an added bonus, the author has made reading the book easy, for those who have difficulty with church terminology, by explaining many of the terms used. 

Lee Barnaba has made it known that he wants to  help in recruiting and help in the formation of  priests for this area of China, an area that is close to the Korean peninsular. Priests who are sent there should therefore have a knowledge of Korean. In the future, he feels it will be a beachhead for the evangelization of northeast Asia. To do this successfully, he feels it will be necessary to have a correct understanding of our history. The book is his attempt to accomplish that objective.