The Power of Words of Encouragement

It is often said we are slow to give words of praise and encouragement but quick to criticize. A Catholic diocesan bulletin tells the story of a child, his teachers and his mother, and how words of encouragement can nullify words of criticism. It started in kindergarten when the mother of the child was told by the teacher that her son 's behavior was erratic; he couldn't remain seated for three minutes, she said. On the way home, the mother told her son the teacher had praised him, from not being able to sit quietly for a minute to now being able to sit for three minutes. That evening, the boy, who usually needed to be prodded to eat, had two bowls of rice.

Time passed, and he entered grammar school. His teacher told the mother his marks were extremely poor, and he should be examined to uncover the problem. The mother, despite being upset by the remarks of the teacher, that evening told her son that the teacher had said he had a good mind, and if he studied hard he would be able to be the 21st in the class. Hearing these words, the boy's face lit up and he began walking around like a grownup.

When he graduated from middle school, the mother was told that with his marks he would find it difficult to enter a good college. The mother again told the boy that his teacher had said he has a good mind and with some effort, he would be able to enter a first class college, which he did, and graduated with honors.

When he received word of acceptance at college, he grasped his mother's hands and overcome with emotion, thanked her for her encouragement and love during those difficult early years. It was all your doing, he said, you made me what I am today.
The story clearly shows what can be achieved in turning around what could have been a difficult school experience for a child, if a mother's words of encouragement had not trumped the words of criticism coming from her son's many teachers. More than gifts, the bulletin stresses, greater results can be achieved by giving encouraging words.

And they are so easy to give, the bulletin points out, and we can always find a reason for giving this gift. A Korean proverb says we can repay a great debt with words of praise. One person has even recommended that we write down in a notebook these words of encouragement whenever we have been praised. When read again, they often have the ability to bring out the best in us.

Fear and Love in Our Faith LIfe

On the open forum page of the Catholic Times, the writer remembers a fishing trip of a few years ago, which left him with some thoughts about life and death. He was fishing at night in an area which was rugged and dangerous. It was pitch dark, and he was a little frightened. He heard a grumbling sound and looking around, about 10 meters from where he was standing, he saw a fisherman with his hat pushed flat on his head, humming. His first thought was to  begin a conversation but then decided it was best not to disturb him, and his attention went to his Soju (Korean liquor). When he looked again, he was gone.

Shortly after, he felt nausea and a shivering in his back and quickly left the area. The next day at the fishing store of the area, he mentioned what happened and was told it was a rather common experience of others at that spot, at that time of year.

One of the explanations, for those who like to deal with this kind of story, would be that it was a visit from the spirit world; another explanation would be that it was an optical illusion, that he had mistaken some natural object for what he thought was the fisherman. He mentioned that as a child there were times when similar occurrences did happen to him. Whatever the reason, he admits that it was a cause of fear.

Fear of what we have experienced in the past does not compare to the fear of something unknown, he says. The unknown world, death and the after life presents us with a great abyss. When we reflect on death and what is to follow, can we say, he wonders, that awe and fear have no place in our thoughts, remembering that the God of the Old Testament instills awe and fear.                                                                                                                                 In the New Testament, instead, we find intimacy and love, and yet the fear of hell seems to have more power to move our hearts. As believers we trust in the love of Jesus but also fear the loss of this love. For the writer, this means that both fear and love are motivations for his faith life.

Fear is not the same as being afraid, however. We talk a great deal of reverential fear, the fear of hurting those we love, awe in relating with God and the things of the spirit. When using words it's very easy to give them meanings another person would not accept. We have heard we are limited in what we think by the words we have available to express what we think.  A good reason, the writer advises, for us to make the effort necessary to understand what is being said without limiting the meaning of what is said to the limited meanings of our own mental dictionaries.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Helping the Young to Dream

Polarization--isn't it the distinguishing feature of our society? wonders the priest writing in the diocesan bulletin. Isn't it the reason for our many problems? Isn't the neo-liberalism brand of capitalism, now our self-portrait, responsible for the rich getting richer and for the poor being pushed to the brink, without any opportunity for change, for improvement?

The priest working with the youth in the Incheon diocese mentions that many of the young people who have runaway from home and  come to the youth shelters are invariably from the homes of the poor who have been pushed to the brink. The parents of these young people do not know, it seems, how to love their children. In the past, it was the stepmother who was the problem. Nowadays it's the parents who abandon their children, beat and abuse them.  Obviously, it's because the parents themselves have been tormented by their poverty that they have been unable, he says, to be proper parents. All are to be pitied, if under these difficult circumstances they have found it difficult to express normal parental love.

How is this to be changed? he asks. The understanding of love that we have as Christians is far from the reality that we have in society. But we can't just remain with that thought, he says. When a passenger ship is sinking and we can't save them all, we don't give up trying to do so. The Incheon diocese, since 1996, has established a children and youth foundation to help these young people who  have  been pushed to the limit. They have provided temporary shelters, short and long term, independent living centers to help rehabilitate them to begin a new life. There are counseling centers, treatment and training centers to help these young people begin a healthy life.

Why so much effort with the youth? There are many answers to this question. One is that the time with the youth is short, and a great deal can be done to remove the tragedy that could await them.

It is said that a person's values are as large as the dreams they have. In the shelters, the priests says, if you ask the children what dreams they have, invariably they say they don't have any, nor ever felt a need to dream. It is imperative, the priest said, that we help them form dreams and nurture those dreams for the future.

The slogan for the diocesan work with the youth, he says, is 'Yism' (Youth-ism). The hope is to help the young make a transparent and authentic effort to form dreams for the future. Isn't this the lofty hope that we should all have for our young people?

What does it Mean to Love the Poor?

“If investments in the banks plunge, this is a tragedy....If families are hurting, if they have nothing to eat, well, this is nothing....This is our crisis today”-- reflections from the Catholic Times' editorial on the talk of Pope Francis on  Pentecost and to the new ambassadors. What is important, he emphasized, is humanity.

Pope Francis called on the world's political and financial leaders to consider the words of St. John Chrysostom: “Not to share one's goods with the poor is to rob them and to deprive them of life. It is not our goods we possess, but theirs.” The editorial mentioned that he spoke his words filled with distress that a child or a homeless person who dies of the cold or of hunger does not make the news but when invested money in the stock market is lost, we have all kinds of consternation.

This kind of thinking has to change, he said. The pope complained that we have turned people into consumers who can be used and discarded. We have arrived at a point where we worship money and have become its slave.

The editorial agreed wholeheartedly with what the pope said on the world of finances; in today's society tenderness and mercy are disappearing.  We have been hearing for many years now that the Church has become middle class, and that the poor do not have a place within the Church. The Church has to become poorer, the editorial said.
The synod of the  Seoul diocese mentioned, ten years ago, that a serious problem in the diocese is that the poor are distancing themselves from the Church. This has been evidenced repeatedly in surveys and studies, and the problem is likely to increase in the future. 

Inchon diocese also in the synod in 1999 also made mention of this same situation.  Poverty is spreading rapidly, and as the gap between the poor and the rich expands, distorting the problem of distributive justice, human as well as communitarian lives are being destroyed by this limitless competition.

The editorial concludes that the concern of the pope can be easily solved. Christians and the Church should be examples of what a life of poverty should be. We need to become aware of Christ's love for the poor and what it should mean to us. A rather simple idea but to put into practice difficult.    
                                                                                    

    

"Healing a Broken World"

 "We are all a part of creation. We have to realize that we preserve our life in harmony with creation." With these words, the Catholic Times begins the interview with Fr. Pedro Walpole from the Philippines, an expert in ecology who visited Korea to discuss ecological issues with Korean Jesuits.

"It is an opportunity," he said, "to discuss the situation and how we've responded to the world of creation, and to see what Korea has been doing to achieve peace." Fr. Pedro was one of the experts who drew up the paper "Healing a Broken World," a report drawn up by the task force on ecology of the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat of the Society of Jesus.

The 2010 report, translated into Korean this past March, provides information, global vision and spiritual resources and recommendations, which Fr. Pedro passed on to the Korean Jesuits. The paper explained not only to the Jesuits but to the whole Church that we have to take responsibility for caring for the environment, examining and carrying out the recommendations suggested in the report.

The paper mentions many areas of concern, including an interesting insight regarding the climate impasse we are all familiar with. Three reasons were given for the difficulty:

1. The enormous economic challenge of reducing greenhouse gases.

2. The complexity of climate science.

3. The deliberate campaigns to confuse the public and discredit the science.

Fr. Pedro in the hour interview, instead of talking about the big and small ecological issues, stressed that our primary concern should be to discover the cause of the problem, which he believes can be found in our wrong attitude toward the problem. There is a lack of trust in one another, resulting in more of us deciding to live separated from others.

People in the city, especially, having lost the bond they should have with others, are searching for comfort as their number-one goal, he said. They are like a floating buoy, with many not reflecting on what is eaten or where it comes from. To solve the problems, we need to become more conscious of our lifestyles, he said, and more grateful for the life that has been given to us.   

" We should be giving life to one another and be concerned for the sustainability of our relationships with others and with nature," he said. "This is important not only for Christians but for all of us. We have to rid ourselves of the habit of consuming for our comfort, and seek to communicate more with others. Many aspects of our life depend on finances for the development of science and industry, however, we should be at least equally concerned with efforts to preserve and develop a healthy way of living."

 

Love Needs Justice

Pastoral social involvement in society includes family, marriage, culture, politics, finances. In all these aspects of society, the Church has to protect and foster human dignity, the community of peoples, the common good, dialogue, and to cooperate with others in society in finding ways to achieve these goals. These words began the article in the Peace Weekly by a priest-participant in the symposium on the Critique and Future of Catholic Pastoral Work in Society. This should be, he says, the standard the Church should use to examine its activity in this area of need.

For many, the social gospel is based too much on the hereafter. At times it seems a patronizing blessing after death, the priest says. Instead of working for the common good, it's concerned with the faults of society in an abstract kind of way. The Church has to work to help those who are working to make a just and peaceful society. He can't erase from his thinking that at times the Church seems satisfied to merely serve the weak, being one with them, without the additional effort to better their lot.

He laments the fact that this integral part of the Gospel message is not understood by so many Catholics and is seen as unimportant or, worse, as interference, as something having nothing to do with the Gospel message. Sadly, many see participating in society and living a life of faith as two different divisions of  life.

It has been 20 years now since the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which incorporates the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. The existence of the catechism is not even known in many parishes. The change of life, the engagement and sacrifices we are being called to are not attractive to many. Working for justice is seen as painful and is avoided. We separate the Mass and our liturgical life from our daily life. The obligation we have to love is also the obligation we have to work for justice.

Another participant mentioned how we can say many things in our formal meetings, such as the synods we had 10 years ago in the diocese, but little comes from their deliberations, he said. He also mentioned that the numbers of Catholics in the wealthier areas of the diocese are higher than in the poorer sections. The Church has to model a simpler lifestyle, he said, and be concerned for the poorer areas of the diocese with more investment in personnel and funds.

The priest emphasized that he would like to have all our Catholics be exposed to the teachings of the social gospel. They need to know how we as citizens and people of faith can live the social  gospel in our daily lives. This had to be, he says, part of the teaching for all those in pastoral work.

This has been a concern of the Church in Korea for some time and we are seeing some changes. The "either-or" thinking is still prevalent in many areas where it doesn't belong. The "both-and" thinking is the healthier way of being concerned for the good of all. 

The Gap and Eul Culture in Korea

Recently, we have seen the words 'Gap' and 'Eul' in articles and editorials. A Catholic Times columnist explains that the words are usually used as names of legal parties in a contract, but originally derived from the first two words in a list of 10 "Heavenly Stems" and another list of 12 "Earthly Branches," denoting a period of 60 years in the old Chinese calendar. In English we would probably say A and B.

They now have meanings that were not in the words as they were first used: bigger and smaller, stronger and weaker. This kind of thinking has been associated with a number of incidents where a person's position in society allowed for the demeaning of another who was not, according to that person's standards, of comparable worth. "Bigger and stronger" would be Gap; "smaller and weaker" would be Eul. One company, for example, used its strong position in the marketplace to force a small retailer to buy more than they needed. Such incidents have recently been reported in the media, giving rise to the expression "The Gap and Eul Culture."

Thinking in this mode is certainly not only a Korean phenomenon but evident throughout the world. It is prideful thinking that often comes with a prominent position in business or in any organization or group where some believe themselves superior to the others in the group. In a contract, the Gap party is seen to be in the favorable position, with the Eul party being disadvantaged and having to respond to the Gap party. The columnist reminds the reader that there is always a bigger Gap above him, and it's easy to forget that there is room for the positions to change. There are circumstances when we are Gap and at other times Eul, but most of the time we give in to the illusion we are always Gap.

When we are treated as Gap, there obviously is no problem. When we believe we are treated as Eul, anger can easily arise. With this rather long introduction, the columnist sees the Gap-Eul phenomena not only as a problem in society but also within the Church. There are many cases within the believing community where the difficulty Christians are experiencing comes from the results of this kind of thinking. From the II Vatican Council we know that the community of  believers is a fellowship of brothers and sisters who are to communicate with each other as equals.

"Each one of you is a son of God because of your faith in Christ Jesus. All of you who have been baptized in Christ have clothed yourselves with him....All are one in Christ" (Galatians 3:26-28). This understanding by St. Paul, the journalist stresses, is not only true of his time but for all time. He concludes his column with the suggestion that we look at ourselves to see if we are not acting like an ultra Gap. To be one with Jesus requires that we lower ourselves, and not be afraid of being considered a EUL.