Blessed are they who Mourn

 In Matt.5:4, we read,  "Blessed are they who mourn,for they will be comforted."With these words, the Catholic Times introduces us to a program to help those faced with the death of a loved one. The death of a loved one is always painful but when the relationship is close, scars are difficult to heal.
 

In 2006, two Jesuits started the program to help not only those grieving for a spouse but children who have lost a parent. The two priests were  enabling others   who were faced with the same  sense of loss to join others  who were encountering the same difficulties. Receiving help from specialists in the field of death and grieving, the Jesuits put together an eight-week course for the two groups, each Jesuit being responsible for one of the groups.

Emotions are a gift from God, says one of the priests, and instead of repressing or distorting our feelings they need to be expressed, especially when caused by pain; expressing our feelings, he says, is healthy and good. For this reason, he would like to see the movement spread within the Church.

The life force of the groups is empathy. Because it is a meeting of those grieving, they understand each other, are able to speak freely about feelings they would have difficulty expressing even to their families. To have a priest present is also a help for those who are working through their grief. Having spent many years working with the bereaved, the priests can rely on their experience to make the appropriate response in any situation, if the participants request help.

In most cases the priest does little, only providing an opportunity for expressing shared griefs and the consolation that often results from healing those griefs. The group meetings are also a school for priests. Anything the priests want to say is often said by the participants before hand. They are both patient and doctor at the same time.

The first meeting of bereaved sons who have lost their parents occurred this year. Korean men do not find it easy to express their feelings, said one of the priests. They have not been formed in that way. Meeting together in a group has made it easier for them to deal with their feelings.

These groups, usually about 8 participants, are open to all to attend regardless of their beliefs, and last for eight weeks, after which the St. Paul sisters take over. The groups then become forums, talking about books that are selected.

During the month of November we are also given the opportunity to deal with our griefs, as the liturgy focuses on death and dying and about all those who have preceded us on our journey to God. The Buddhists, in a similar way, have the four annoyances: living, disease, old age and death. The four annoyances can also be seen as a way to a more mature understanding of life by the way we accept and respond to them.
           

Preparing Oneself for Death

Experience is the best teacher: a familiar cliche but also a fact.  Most of our teaching is lecturing  and cramming, using visual aids a great help, but to have the students experience what is being taught has the best chance for retention and bringing about change.

This method of teaching seems to have been more popular years ago, though we now have simulation teaching, which can be done with games, role-playing and other activities. One parish written up in the Peace Weekly had an activity suitable for the month of November, the end of the  liturgical year, and the month during which we think of death, and pray for those who have died.

One Incheon parish had a program to try to experience some of the aspects of death. A large casket was placed in front of the main altar and, while praying the office for the dead, people took turns getting into the casket and for 5 minutes having the lid closed over them. The thoughts and feelings expressed by the participants were mostly positive.

While some were taking their turn getting into the casket, those waiting their turn were writing their last will and testament. These would be offered up at the offertory of the Mass for the Dead that was celebrated at the end of the retreat.

During the  experience, there were many different thoughts that were expressed. One woman came to a realization that not to forgive a person with whom she had a grudge was foolish, for she would be returning to God, and she didn't want to bring the grudge along with her. The president of the Purgatorial Society told the participants that they came into the world without anything, and they leave without anything. He wanted the participants to see themselves as they were without making any excuses, and to appreciate God's love for each of them.

The pastor, after getting out of the casket, said that he felt a great peace while in the casket. He was conscious of the words of Jesus, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, though he should die, will come to life; and whoever is alive and believes in me will never die (John 11:24-35).

After the "death" experience, many said there was a new appreciation of God's love in their lives. And when they left the church to go home, they noticed that the trees along the road had become more beautiful.

What Is Important?

"Yet the solution of the pastoral problems that arise in the diocese must not be limited to organizational matters, however important these may be. There is a risk of putting the accent on the quest for efficiency, with a sort of “bureaucracy of pastoral work”, focusing on structures, organization and programs. These can become “self-referential” for the exclusive use of the members of these structures and will then have little impact on the life of Christians who have drifted away from regular practice. Evangelization, on the contrary, needs to start from the encounter with the Lord in a dialogue founded on prayer. It must then focus on the witness we must bear in order to help our contemporaries to recognize and rediscover signs of God’s presence." These are the words of Pope Benedict to the French bishops on their Ad Limina visit to the Vatican.

An article written for priests does not use the words of the pope but says we are too often sidetracked by accidentals and fail to face situations with Gospel values.  And accountability is often easily passed over. We do not make effort to critique our work with an honest appraisal in order to do it better the next time.
 
An example of being caught up in accidentals was given in the article:  a parish event was recently held after a great deal of time and expense went into its preparation, in anticipation for a traditional game Koreans play around New Year's day. They have had the event for many years but there was never a review of the event: an examination or evaluation of the results. What did the Christians think about the money raised and the way it was raised? Was the event worth the money and effort? Was the community better for it?

The temptation is not wanting to face the issue squarely because we may hear what we don't want to hear. The priest writing the article does not want the persons responsible for the preparation and execution of  the event doing the evaluation, for their participation in the event will make it difficult for them to be impartial evaluators.

The example he gives is rather insignificant but in many of our pastoral works, the Gospel values and God-given common sense is far from realized in what we do. We fear to know the truth in many cases and prefer to do what we have always done in the way it was always done.

Jesus spoke a great deal about God's kingdom and worked for its realization. It's not a localized space nor something we can see, but God's love, truth, justice and peace: a movement that begins in us and spreads to all of society. This was the nature of the work that brought Jesus to the cross.

This is the work Christians are called to do, but we get bogged down with the accidentals, the structures, programs, buildings and their upkeep, and forget what our  main concern should be: bringing people closer to Jesus

Practical Theology for the Parish

The Peace Weekly gives us  an account of  a practical theology forum, sponsored by a Korean Catholic research institute, made up of youths, religious and clergy. The article starts with the need  according to the participants to change the patriarchal clericalism  of parish life to more of a networking culture.

Two of the participants, both from Europe, pointed out that new ideas are difficult to introduce into the present parochial system, which needs to be more open, to listen to others, to emphasize the scriptures, and to get involved in society.

Another foreign priest, an authority in ecological theology, said 80 percent of  Catholics live in the Southern Hemisphere and cultural differences have to be kept in mind, also emphasizing that 99 percent are laity and that clerical members have to remember this fact.

In attendance at the forum were theologians from some ten foreign countries discussing prospects for peace in Asia, a new understanding of Church, globalization, present labor issues, spirituality, and justice and peace issues. 

A Korean seminary professor mentioned that Korea has not been equal to the task of developing small Christian communities with the help of the rest of the world.  For the movement to be rooted, he said, it's necessary--if we want to see real change--that those with middle class income not be the  ones that continue as leaders in the movement.

He lists a number of steps necessary for achieving the common good:  to have the teaching of the social gospel affect the way we deal with our society; to change our vision from the Church to society, and to have  a Gospel spirituality.

A Japanese bishop  spoke of the disputes that are bound to occur between nations when they rely on their military power. This reliance on armaments to solve problems has to change, he said, to a culture that sees the importance of wisdom in settling these disputes

If we could do without the military, he said, we would be able to solve the problems of education and the environment, and be open to working toward the welfare of all countries. True peace will come with the spread of movements against armaments and violence, and it is our work to have this spread throughout the world. 

Knowing You are Crazy and Yet...

A sister working at an immigration center in the diocese heard someone calling, "Sister." She turned around and a woman whose face she remembered abruptly gave her a hug. The sister hadn't seen her for some time and asked: "How is it that you are here at the center?" "I have gone crazy," she answered. "What is that all about? sister responded.

The sister recounts the full story in a recent issue of the Bible & Life  magazine. The woman, Duit, a Vietnamese immigrant, now a Korean citizen and married with a child, had just returned from the court house where she had petitioned for a divorce. Her husband also was there, standing at a distance, shoulders dropping, averting his eyes from what was going on. A woman relation, very much upset, stood by his side.

The husband was envied, said the sister, for his kindness by many of the women who came to the immigration center to learn Korean. He had bought a house for the wife's family and took  care of the expenses of schooling for her brother. Sister could not understand what was going on, and was determined to find out.

She discovered that while learning Korean at the center, Duit had found a job in a factory, where she met a Vietnamese man and fell in love. More surprising to her was that the man had a family in Vietnam. Since Duit was now a Korean citizen, sister felt there was a possibility that Duit was being used by the man, and tried to dissuade her from proceeding with the divorce. She replied that she was present when the man had called his wife in Vietnam, asking for a divorce. Hearing this additional news, sister was even more convinced that both had lost their senses. As Duit had said, it felt as if she had gone crazy, believing what the man was saying and nothing else made any difference. In her desire to follow her feelings, the hurt she was inflicting on the husband was enormous. The consequences of this behavior, sister was convinced, would be far from smooth.

Sister called the husband shortly after and was told the wife had left the house and had put everything in the hands of a lawyer. The husband said he would now concentrate on being a good father for their child. He was calm about all that had happened and never mentioned what he had done for the family or complained. Sister felt bad for what happened to the husband; his hope that his wife would return made it all the harder to accept. Sister was also concerned on the influence this would have on the other women of the center. 

Seeing what happened to Duit, who knew what she was doing was crazy, divorcing a husband who seemed ideal in so many ways, leaving her husband and child for a perilous future, was beyond her understanding, the sister said. She was consoled, however, by the thought that many of these foreign-born women, though mistreated by their husbands, often work through the difficulties in their married life to become good wives and mothers.

Non-Relational Society

The number of people in Japan who are dying alone, cremated without funeral rites, is so staggering, according to a recent article in View from the Ark in the Catholic Times, that it was a topic of one of their TV programs. And businesses have formed to take the place of family at death. Other enterprises will dispose of personal belongings when directed to do so by the dying person, who gives the  details in a notebook the company provides. 

What is happening in Japanese society, says the columnist, is a blueprint for what will happen in Korean society. We are well on our way toward making a relation-free society, the columnist says. A society in which our next-door neighbor can die and no one knows. A society in which one meets another on the road without any sign of recognition.

Relationship is a word that no longer seems to have the importance it once did. Two brief examples were given in the article. The columnist tells us how memories of the past, left in a box, were discarded without a thought by a man whose mother left behind a picture of her son as a baby on the back of his mother. In another case piles of newspapers were outside the front door of a house and nobody seemed to give the sight a second look. When  someone did enter the house, the TV was on, bread was in the toaster, and in the air the smell of death.

Koreans, about 30-40 years ago, at the  beginning of the economic boom, left the relational society of the country for the anonymity of big city life. They left the extended family for the nuclear family, leaving the elders behind. The result was that  people lived alone, died alone and lonely, the natural results of the change in the mores of society. The internet, of course, has made the solitary life easier. But the increase of  irregular workers and the increase of the young opting for the single life will mean we will have more people dying alone and in loneliness.
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The individualism from the West has inundated our society; the digital culture has taken over and the young people who have not experienced  the relational society of the past will very quickly forget what community life is all about. Young people have forgotten the traditional customs concerning marriage and look upon whether to marry or not as a purely personal choice.

The columnist asks what kind of society do we want? Many answer that they want to have intimate relationships with others and to enjoy freedom, but this is not easy to achieve. In the  non-relational society, you are lonely but have freedom. In a relational society, you have intimacy but sacrifice is necessary. What is a fact is that we are moving from a relational society into a non-relational society. This is not something we need fear even though it is becoming our reality. The last moment of death, after all, is something we all have to undergo alone--it is a personal encounter.

All religions, seeing death as an important stage in life and by its nature private, give us positive teachings on how to deal with our last days. For a Christian, death is not the end, but a going on to God  and the resurrection. Effort is made to do away with the fear that can accompany death. Dying alone does not fit well with  the teachings of the Church.

For a Christian, it is our duty to decrease, as much as possible, the numbers of those  who are dying alone. After death, paradise is important but Jesus told us that we are in his kingdom while here on earth. Reciting prayers for the dead is a wonderful gesture. But more important is spending time with those living alone and being with them in their last hours.

Death Penalty

In Korea the Church continues to encourage Catholics to work for the eradication of capital punishment. Several organizations met recently, putting aside their religious beliefs and ideologies, to discuss the inhumanity of capital punishment and the  justification for its abrogation.

Ending the death penalty is equivalent to promoting the dignity and protection of life. The Church has continually worked toward this end and, along with many others, raised its voice against the practice. Recently, 175 members of the 17th National Assembly were ready to vote for the abrogation but time and problems prevented the success of the attempt.

The editorial in the Catholic Times noted that popular feeling at present would probably be against abrogating the punishment because of a horrible murder recently publicized, upsetting many and no doubt convincing them that the death penalty is a necessary deterrent to such crimes.

As Christians we base the way we see capital punishment, not on any news story, but on the Gospel teaching. In addition, it has been long known that according to many studies the death penalty does not diminish the number of these crimes.

During the seminar, it was mentioned that fewer countries are using the death penalty than in the past. In 2011, among 198 countries, only 20 continue to use the death penalty.  We are likely to see this trend to end capital punishment continue into the future.

Getting rid of the death penalty does not mean, of course, the end of penalties for crimes. Isolating the criminal from  society is still accomplished by serving time in prison, and for serious crimes, sentencing for life behind bars. The concern of the editorial was to explain clearly the life issues that are involved when a country legalizes the taking of a human life, and why we need to support the efforts to bring an end to this inhuman practice.