We are reminded by
the desk columnist of the Catholic Times that this year in the East is
the year of the snake. Our task, he says, is to use it
well. God gives us the seeds and not the fruit. We are to sow the
seeds and nurture the plant until it produces fruit. As we enter the new
year,
he asks us to ponder what would be necessary to make it a year filled
with hope.
For a Christian, he says the best answer would be to
make the journey with the Holy Spirit as our guide. As is true of any
journey, what is important is deciding with whom do we make the journey.
The Holy Spirit has promised to be with us to the end of time, which
should be reason enough to know which traveling companion is best.
While
a speedy and safe trip is always welcomed on any new journey, a
reliable compass pointing out which direction to take is more important.
If we lose our direction, we can roam aimlessly and get lost. A
compass is necessary to reach our goal. For us, it is the Scriptures.
Like rails a train needs to travel on, Scripture can carry us on to our
destination. Without it, our efforts are often derailed and our
destination out of reach. Likewise, without the proper guiding words and
prayer, we can find ourselves without a destination.
Scripture
not only aids us as a compass but as a map; the map shows us not only
our destination but also how to get there. What may be necessary, in the
new times we are living in now, is a new map, a new explanation to fit
the challenges of our present culture.
Let us rid ourselves of
our regrets and failures by holding on firmly to our Lord's hands. We
are loved more than we can imagine. When we are not relating with our Lord and have no reason for thanks, we will find ourselves lacking peace and squabbling with others.
When we can throw off our greed and show concern for others, we will
have thanks come back to us. Each day is a new beginning. Let it begin
with caring words such as I love you, Thank you, Be happy.
If we
are to experience the goodness of life and give thanks, it is taken
for granted that there have been times of helplessness; we should not
fear them. They are the shortcuts to experiencing blessings. We do not
envy another's good luck but try to imitate their persevering efforts in
not giving up when the going gets tough.
We are beginning a new
year and, as in all new beginnings, doing so without blemish or
regrets. Let us give thanks for this new beginning and live it with joy.
Each year at this
time we prepare for the New Year and in the Church also for World Peace
Day. The Holy Father greets all Catholics with his message of peace,
asking us all to be messengers of the culture of life and peace, as does
the recent editorial in the Catholic Times.
In the Pope's peace
message, entitled "Blessed are the Peacemakers," he notes that because
we all have a desire for peace we have both a right to its blessings
and a duty to work for its attainment, despite the continual threat of
bloody conflicts and war.
"It is alarming to see," he says, "hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between
rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish
and individualistic mindset, which also finds expression
in an unregulated financial capitalism. In addition to the varied forms of
terrorism and international crime, peace is also endangered by those forms of
fundamentalism and fanaticism that distort the true nature of religion, which aims to
foster fellowship and reconciliation among people.... In effect, our times--marked by globalization,
with its positive and negative aspects, as well as the
continuation of violent conflicts and threats of war--demand a new, shared commitment in pursuit of the
common good and the development of all men, and
of the whole man."
The pope sees our universal desire for peace
as being part of God's plans for the world. Having been created with
this desire, it's only natural for us to make efforts to achieve it;
peace is the fruit of the gift of life we have received. Peace allows us
to live with others in fruitfulness, in fellowship and sharing. A necessary condition for its reception is to breakdown the dogmatic acceptance of relativism.
In
order to be a worker for peace, according to the editorial, we have to
be in continuous communication with God. We are then able to bring
light into the darkness that engulfs peace, overcoming evil in its many
guises: egotism, violence, greed, hate, injustice, to name only a few.
Those who are working for their eradication are the protectors of
peace.
In the world today, as the pope has mentioned, with its
injustice and violence, abortion and euthanasia, and the like, we are
violating the dignity of the person. And the clearest example of this
occurs when we accept the culture of death. It is the task of Christians
to work for the undoing of this culture of death. When we act against human dignity, we cannot foster happiness and peace. Let us in the new year be workers for peace.
Happy New Year
The novel Les Miserables, written by Victor Hugo in 1862, has been
very popular here in Korea over the years in movie, musical and TV
drama versions. A young woman in the French department of Seoul
University has written an article in the Catholic Times on her impressions of
the novel. She believes the reason for the story's power resides in Hugo's sympathetic treatment of persons who are faced with wretched circumstances and yet are able to overcome their problems with determination, skill and and unbending belief.
The expression Les Miserables
means the pitiful people. The novel recounts the lives of people who lack
virtue, the lives of the poor, and the unfortunate. The portrayal, she says, is realistic and
severe. But the misery and wretchedness is not only described negatively but allows us to see how such circumstances can be surmounted.
This
is especially seen in the fate of the main character, Jean Valjean, a
convicted criminal who was released from prison. He was welcomed into
the house of a bishop when all the others refused him shelter, and while in the house he stole the
silverware. When he was arrested by the police, the bishop told them that
it was his gift to Jean Valjean, which got him released. This was not
enough to get him to change his life, however, but he did so after an incident that
happened shortly after.
He
stole a coin from a
child.This was the first time that his conscience gave him trouble and
brought a change in his life. He was able, said the writer, to achieve
goodness through the evil that he experienced. Misery, pain, poverty,
sin--all present in and maintained by society are what we
have to continually strive to overcome. This is the driving force behind
progress and in the process of overcoming these difficulties we become
strong.
Although Victor Hugo was not Catholic, says
the writer, he rejected Catholic teachings and rituals but he
served a God of love and mercy.To Hugo, God was justice and
truth, mercy and law, and the God of love. The God of Les Miserables is
not the all-knowing and almighty God who, in the minds of some, determines our fate and instils fear but he who makes one surpass their will and actions
by working toward an ideal. It is for this reason that Jean Vajean is seen
as a Jesus figure. Like Jesus--God becoming man--Jean Valjean
in overcoming hardships, was man becoming God. He surpassed the bishop in
his passive mercy for he went into the marketplace expressing mercy to
those he met.
In 1789, with the beginning of the French
Revolution, the curtain came down on an era in which people entrusted
everything to God. Now humanity accepts responsibility for making history and for deciding the future direction of society. In the second part
of the book, after the June Revolt of 1832, this is made very clear as the the search for freedom and justice becomes the central focus of the story.
However, misery
does not easily disappear. There is the cunning and evil innkeeper,
the women who in order to live have to sell their bodies, the police office
using force and unfair laws to get his way, and the continual
existence of poverty, misery and pain. And yet by facing these difficult circumstances with
positive values, humanity will end up the victor and be directed to God.
Jean
Valjean is Victor Hugo's ideal human. He lived justly, but to the very
last moment of life he suffered and died lonely, embracing and forgiving all. In Valjean, we can see the image of Jesus, of Prometheus who stole fire for humankind,
and of Sisyphus who continues to roll the stone uphill, only to have it fall
back to the bottom again,requiring still more effort to push it once more uphill, in a seemingly hopeless task.
A
question does arise for many after reading the book or seeing one of
its many adaptations and wondering why was it on the list
of forbidden books of the Catholic Church. To answer correctly such a
question we have to locate ourselves in the times and the Europe in which the book was published. See what was happening in society and how the book would be received by the Catholics. Victor Hugo was
brought up Catholic, kept his faith in God but gradually lost all
sympathy for the Catholic Church. His view of life in any event would
have been in some way formed by what he grew up with even though in
later years he was turned off by what he saw and experienced in the Catholicism of his times.
Today is the Feast of the Holy Family, and the editorial in the Peace Weekly
stresses the importance of family life, especially because of its
influence on the health of our society. Starting on the 30th of
December, a week will be set aside for reflections on the family and its
sanctification.
The end of one year and the beginning of a new
one means that everybody will be busy with many things. However, during
this busy time we need to reflect on what a family is and how to make it
a small domestic church. In his message for the Feast Day, the bishop
responsible for overseeing the health of family life in the diocese says
families are finding it difficult to withstand the distorted values of
society, and the bonds of family are weakening. The role of parents in
correcting the situation cannot be stressed enough, he said, and noted
that we should not pass over lightly the causes and solutions that are
implied.
In these times, we have many young people who are
hurting, because of the distorted values that have infiltrated family
life. Pope John Paul saw the family as the "intimate community of
love." And yet there remains in many families selfish decisions, parents
desiring satisfaction through their children, spouses demanding a
one-way sacrifice of the other, lack of understanding, and the like,
which makes for instability of the family. Today it is even difficult to
find unconditional love in the family. Problems with the young are
often caused by societal and educational difficulties, which are usually
preceded to a great extent by the breakdown of family values.
The
Church sees the family in a much deeper and spiritual way than does
society. Parents are to love each other as Christ loved the Church. It
is this example of love that all parents should have. Before the desire for their children to enter a first-rate college and succeed in
life, they should be concerned with having the Gospel values introduced
to their children.
Mother's role in the family is central. All of us received our first feeding at our mother's bosom, and learned something about love and courage from our mothers. The mother's hands extending to the child should be like the extended hands of God. In this way, the child will grow in love.
Fathers should have the same trust and faith that Joesph had in God when Joseph took care of Jesus and his mother. The place of the father in the family is obviously of great importance. No matter how difficult the situation may turn out to be, he is responsible for the welfare of the family.
We
are coming to the end of the year and the editorial hopes that every
family will get together to talk about how they will become a holier family in the new year.
Because the
relationship between husband and wife is so close, it's not surprising
that they can be easily hurt by the words they say to each other. The
words that tend to cause hurt feelings depend, according to the
priest-columnist of the Peace Weekly, on the biological differences
between male and female. In his weekly column on happiness, he explores
the effect of our gender differences on a couple's happiness. Whether
this is mostly myth is the reader's choice to make; it does make for
interesting reading.
In the male, speech is controlled by the
left hemisphere of the brain; in the female both the left and right
hemisphere control speech. When the left hemisphere of the brain in
both the male and female is damaged, as sometimes happens in a violent
accident, the male loses his ability to speak, the female does not.
From the time of creation God made man to speak 10,000 words a day while the woman was made to speak 25,000 words, says the columnist. Let
us suppose, says the columnist, that during the day both the husband
and wife, at work or in the home, have spoken 10,000 words. Then that
evening when they are together, let us also suppose that the husband
doesn't want to talk anymore while the wife still has 15,000 words she
wants to share with him. It's easy to understand why the woman becomes
frustrated, believing that he simply does not want to talk.
Continuing with the gender differences as they manifest in our everyday behaviors, the columnist says the
male can do only one thing at a time while the female can do many
things. The woman while active doing something, let's say cooking, can
also do a number of other things, like listening to what is being said,
talking on the telephone, among other things; the man, supposedly, can
do only one thing at a time. He says the woman's sight is also more
developed than the man's, distinguishing more colors. When a couple
goes shopping for clothes, determining what goes with what is often a
contentious issue. The woman also has better visual memory than a man's.
At any large gathering of people, the man will remember only a few of
those he meets, the woman will remember many. The man also loses more of
his hearing ability than the woman.
The woman, however, finds it
more difficult to follow directions. And with age the woman loses
spacial cognitive abilities.This is something husbands would do well to
remember, he advises.
Man's skin is four times the thickness of
the woman's. She, however, has more fat which allows her to endure the
cold better than the man. However, with age she shows her age quicker
than the male because of her thinner skin.
The woman's senses are also more acute and she is more emotional. When the husband is sick she often begins her caring efforts with words of comfort and then prepares
the medicines and food. When the wife is sick many husbands do not know
what to do. He is often less perceptive of what his wife is feeling,
sometimes only noticing his wife's anger after the instigating situation
has passed. With a husband whose senses are dull, and a wife who is
very sensitive, there is bound to be conflict.
The obvious
consequence of these gender differences for a man and a woman living
together is likely to be unhappiness, unless, says the columnist, the
couple learn to accept the differences between
the sexes, and refuse to make them into an obstacle in achieving
happiness together. Once this is accomplished, a beautiful harmony
becomes possible, with the man and the woman taking turns deferring to
the other in areas where the other is more competent.
Liturgically, we have greeted again the baby Jesus with joy and praise
as we come to the end of an eventful 2012. The Catholic Times' editorial
reminds us that at this time of year we tend to look back on the passing year with regret, and
forward to the new year with some trepidation.
Our present
society is
facing unprecedented changes and difficulties. The economic problems now
being faced by Korea rank second only to the conditions that required
the IMF bailout; the country is suffering the pains of a
stagnant economy. There is generational and class discord, which
makes us lose our societal balance; the efforts of our citizens working
for a
good and human society end up dispersed and diffused.
How
is it with our Christians? How much of our trusting in the
Gospels accompanies us as we go about our daily tasks? Not much, it's
safe to say. For this reason the Pope, with concern for Christians who in these troubled times are disturbed in their faith life, has given us this Year of Faith.
The Year of Faith may be directed mainly for the struggling Christianity of the West, despite its rich and deep-rooted heritage, but we
also see the signs of this weakness in faith life in Korea. If we do
not attempt to fight against this drift in society, these same problems
will come to us shortly.
We can't deny that within
Catholicism in Korea, there is the attachment to an individualized and personal
religious life: a desire to hold firmly to one's spirituality, live morally, and seek salvation.
However, the Church teaches that the true
Christian is to go beyond the self, relate to the community and
society, and desire the salvation of the world. We should have a desire
to see the world changed to the values we have received from Christ and
be involved in the attainment of this goal by our participation. The editorial ends by asking us to reflect on what does it mean for us to say we are true disciples of Christ.
For a Christian, this desire to
see the teachings of Christ accepted is not a desire to be on the
winning side or push a certain opinion, but it is a matter of love for
the world and our brothers and sisters.
Christians believe that this is the way to find happiness in life.We see the many problems that we have in society. Big and
small conflicts, suicides, horrible
crimes, mental and physical difficulties, frustrations, loss of hope
and not knowing why we are here in the first place. Christians should feel we have some of the answers to these problems. And as Pope John
Paul II said it is not a desire to impose these values but proposing them. This
requires, first of all, that we as Christians truly believe we have the
remedies for the many ills afflicting society.
Catholic media in Korea has for some time emphasized in stories
and articles the importance of community in our spiritual life. With
the ascendency of individualism in society this has been a very
difficult sell. The Catholic Times' journalist headlines his article with:
"Need to Bring Joy into the Life of Community." Community life, it is true, often interferes with individual plans and for many becomes an obstacle to participation in community activities.
One
Catholic asked, "Do I have to go to confession? I have not sinned. I
pray the rosary morning and evening, and never miss Mass. Why do I have
to go to confession?" The priest asked what have you done for the poor? Have you prayed for the poor? The parishioner replied, "Do I also have to do that?"
This is the way a priest explains individualism as it appears in parish life. More than something wrong, he
hears this with sadness. In the Our Father we pray 'Our' but many
still ask only for what satisfies personal needs.
In response to this situation, the Korean church,
realizing that many Catholics were satisfied with a personal faith
life has in recent years endeavored to bring small community life more directly into the life of our Christians, increasing fellowship, connecting faith life with daily life, and strengthening the Christians' initiative and spontaneity. The efforts have not all been successful, sometimes colliding with problems already existing within some parishes. However, even with the problems it is a good alternative, the columnist believes, to a distorted individualism.
One pastor quoted by the journalist wrote that the small community initiative was encouraged by the Second Vatican Council and is a sign of the future direction of the Church. It's a way of incorporating the poor into the life of the church and bringing joy and intimacy into the community.
At
the beginning of the Church, these small communities gave life to the
Church. In our own Korean beginnings, the early Christians were not
interested only in their own salvation. Even in difficult circumstances,
they were living according to the teachings of the church, and going
out to their neighbors in love. Recently, the building of large parish
churches has closed many mission stations where community life was
strong. When the mission stations joined the large parish communities, there was a loss of intimacy and a feeling of alienation.
Bringing back the joy of a shared faith life will be an important part of the future Church. Dioceses are working to make the small Christian communities an attractive option for their members and
consider this an important pastoral initiative. One pastor expresses
the hope that ultimately those working to build community, when they experience the joy, satisfaction and benefits of community, will be the movement's best teachers.
