Today begins the week of prayer for Christian Unity that will end on
Jan. 25, the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. Christians remember
the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John 17:21: "that all be one as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; I pray that they may be [one] in us, that the world may believe that you sent me."
Nothing
can compare to the harm done to the mission to evangelize given to the
Church by Jesus than the divisions and disunity of those who believe in
Jesus. Here is one of the more serious reasons for Christians not to
attack each other, work to understand and respect each
other and work for unity.
Both Catholic papers gave
space to the Unity Octave and one article gave us questions and
answers by the priest director of the Bishops' Committee for Church Unity and Religious Dialogue. Listed below are a few of the questions and answers.
Why do we
need to work for unity? Isn't it necessary for a family to work for
harmony? One third of the Korean population is Christian. We are all in
the family of Jesus and need to treat each other as family and friends.
In living the Gospel we need to have the fellowship and brotherly love
among ourselves.
What are the works of the movement for
unity in Korea? Not only have we worked together in works for our
neighbors but in national calamities and in
movements for human rights. We have worked
together in the independence movement. We worked together in the democratization of the country in the 1970s; we have worked for the
eradication of capital punishment and many other movements to better
society. The translation of the Common Bible is probably the high point
of working together.
By dialoguing and with study what changes can we hope to achieve? We will understand each other better.
Catholics can refrain from saying that Protestants have left their home and are now without a mother, and Protestants can refrain from
calling the Catholic Church Mary's Church. Catholics often say we are
closer to the Buddhism than the Protestants. These and similar phrases
do not help in getting to know and understand each other. We can
hope for the day when Catholics and Protestants can discuss the Bible
and even their religious life together.
What are the
biggest problems in achieving unity? Christian history of Korea is
short and many have accepted their religious belief as something
private and not connected with others. Consequently the
difficulty in changing one's prejudiced opinion of another. Faith
life has to do mostly with our prayers and spiritual works but it is not expressed in our daily lives. This will take time says the priest, and a reason working with other Christians will be difficult.
However, this is also the reason we have to work together for unity.
Changing family life will change the world, so believes the priest in his article in the Kyeongyang magazine. He is speaking about a program for engaged couples. They begin on Friday evening and conclude on Sunday afternoon. One of the participants expressed it this way: "We have talked with each other a great deal, I thought, but never have we been so focused, or talked at such depth as we did, a good preparation for the future."
The priest has been involved with the program for the last 5 years. The program is supervised by Marriage Encounter couples and one priest. The numbers who want to make the program are many so one has to register at least two or three months in advance. You have priests who make the program a condition for their witnessing the marriage, you have those who give the engaged couple the registration for the program as a gift. In most of the programs about one third of the couples are not both Catholic, and you have one couple in each program without any religious affiliation.
Older married couples talk of their experience of married life, the difficulties they experienced and the way they solved them. These are the topics the engaged couples will discuss in their time together. Preparation for the one day of marriage with their presents, meals, invitations and the like, is not as important, they realize, as the groundwork for a long married life, and the problems they will face.
Couples preparing for marriage are celebrating their new life together but also are concerned about the future. They see many who shortly after marriage divorce because of incompatibility. Instead of sacrificing and understanding the other, each considers their own needs. Working to overcome the difficulties of married life together is more difficult for some, than to call it quits.
During the program with the interviews, and confessions the priest meets couples who are at peace, mature, and those who are uncomfortable, and young. You have women who cry, couples who decide to leave during the program; couples who fight severely during the program and those who postpone their marriage or decide to cancel their marriage.
A dynamic sign that the program is serving a good purpose and having good results. Surprisingly, to get priests and couples to partake as leaders in the weekend is not always easy, but those who take the program and after marriage want to be of help during the weekends are more than they need. He hopes to see the number of programs increased and the weekends spread to all of the dioceses in the country. We blogged this Weekend back in Dec. 14th of 2010, and was glad to see the growth in the numbers of those interested has increased.
Money accepted as God is contaminating every thing in our society. We hear often, in a mocking way, without money you can't go to Church. With money, no sin, without it you have sin. Many who have retired or were forced to retire are living with difficulties often because of money.
The first of these, says a priest writing for a pastoral bulletin, is losing the sense of belonging. All have this desire to belong. When a person retires there is the possibility of losing the feeling of security. No longer does one have a sense of belonging, feels lonely, and despondent. A person with a job can feel this loneliness, how much more a person who no longer has the work place.
Another problem for the retired is a lack of hobbies or interests. During their years in the work place one was too busy to have any other concerns besides work, and now retired, relating with others for some is not easy, and money can be a problem when they hear the word hobby. For many each day is filled with boredom and despondency.
Family is the third problem. During the years in the work place there was not the time for dialogue nor the concern for a warmer family atmosphere, all changed after retirement. At this time discord was easily perceived. Fathers noticed that there was more rapport with the mothers, which is no surprise since they spent more time with the children.
Many of the fathers mention after retirement the difficulties of life. The father has retired but the mother's work continues. Often these words are heard by the fathers from the children. The home should be a place of refuge but it is not, and many feel more lonely in the home. They want to be closer to the families and that is where the Church should become involved.
This situation is one in which the Church should take an interest and help with programs for the elderly. There are many families where walls have been built between the family members, and there is a need to find ways of giving comfort and helping the elderly couples to overcome their problems.
The modern families are not as closely knit as they were in the past, and although many parents are not giving all their savings to the children as once was done, the extended family is no longer a reality. The writer wants the parishes to become concerned for these elder members who don't feel a sense of belonging. Suicide is also a result of this restlessness. Programs for healing are required.
Joy of the Gospel begins with the meeting of Jesus. This is the
message of Pope Francis in his first exhortation. On the opinion page
of the Catholic Times the priest writer asks: Is there a foundation
for the hope that we should have for the new evangelization?
Yes,
he answers and gives us the writings of Fr. Gerald Foley to consider.
"When we are baptized we become in earnest a disciple of Jesus not in
the parish but in our families and in the work place. In our daily lives
we discover the holy not in a passive way but actively, and it is only
the layperson that can do it."
Christians in this fast
changing world are finding it difficult facing their problems:
lack of communication, conflict between husband and
wife, parents and children, lack of trust, scars, the need for
reconciliation etc. We also have problems with contraception, abortion,
sex education, divorce and remarriage, sex outside of marriage, living together without marriage, depression, suicides, which give rise to
bigger problems. In the past there was a dependence on morality and
belief with little concern for problems in families, and few programs to
address the new situations.
The priest feels there
has to be an emphasis on families in the pastoral work of the church;
integrating our daily lives with our faith life. When the parishioners
do not find support within the church they will start looking outside
for the nourishment they need. This he feels is part of the reason
for the increase of the tepid. Lack of joy in the life of Christians and
the formality and sense of duty in their religious lives is not a good
sign for the future.
We need a new way of doing
evangelization. The Church is too much parish centered. He wants the
family to be the center of pastoral work. This is also the thinking of
Pope John Paul II, and the writer feels an epoch change has to
take place in Korea. The joy of the Gospel has to be handed down to the
children from the parents. God's grace has to be experienced in the
marriage and in the family. Pastoral work should be centered on the
family.
This past year we had the Extraordinary General
Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on topics related to the family and
evangelization. This will be followed this year with an Ordinary
General Assembly of the Synod. The pope is hoping that the sessions
will be a way of bringing the mercy of Jesus to the families and wants us to dream of the possibilities. A dream of the whole church,
otherwise it will be a series of day dreams, but if all of us have the same dream
it will be the reality.
Catholic Digest has an article by a former education minister on the formula for happiness. What is the essence of education? His answer is to make the students happy. Parents desire the same happiness but for them success needs to come first. 'Sweetness comes after the bitter' is very much part of the parent's thinking: you study hard, go to a good college, get a good job, and succeed, and happiness will follow. On the contrary, in the study of psychology, economy and sociology, says the writer, it is clear that those who are happy are the ones who succeed.
He tells us about a trip to a monastery near the Black Sea that was built after the recognition of Catholicism by the Empire in the 4th century. The corruption in the Church was great, and a desire for a return to a renewal of the spiritual life. The monastery he visited was built on the side of a cliff and at its prime would have had over 200 monks; the location was close to Constantinople and had many monasteries.
These monks, he says, could have been searching for different values and goals. Some were looking for reasons for the universe and life, some wanted prayer, others found life in society difficult etc..... They had three meals a day, related with their brother monks, worked with them and experienced many different feelings, practiced the virtues and were tempted with many of the vices.
How did these monks experience happiness differently from those outside the monastery? He refers to a study made in a convent of sisters on happiness. The happiness level had nothing to do with the experience in the convent or the level of maturity but more to do with habit and training. In other words sisters who where optimistic, joyful and positive were happier than those who did not have these dispositions. Sister who as children was happy would continue to be disposed in this way until death.
In the monastery on the cliff, happy monks lived together with the unhappy ones. And the writer concludes that what you do in life, or happens to you will not determine the degree of happiness but happiness will rest on a person's natural capabilities, habits and personality.
He mentions a professor at Berkeley who says a person with a lot of money has more purchasing power but also has more wants which takes away from the quality of life, and the possession of happiness, with the danger of becoming a slave to money.
Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky who in her positive psychology studies says the same thing. Happiness brings success. We have to continually experience this happiness be trained and educated in this way of thinking. We should not be awaiting future happiness but happiness in the here and now. We need to educate for happiness and not success.
The opinion in the article works on the empirical scientific research that has been made but the ever present understanding of grace in a person's life, for a Christian, is something we can not evaluate with the tools of science.
"I am a member of the Street People's Choir" is the title of an article in the Catholic Digest. Pope Francis on his visit to the Flower Village while in Korea, in August of last year, arrived by helicopter. There to meet him were about 30,000 people. He transferred to an open car, during this time the Street People's Choir was singing, because of the noise, no one was conscious of their presence.
The pope got out of the car and entered the vestibule of the building and took off his shoes. He was the only one who did, every body else walked in wearing their shoes. The writer thought the pope's feet were hurting. The Street People's Choir was waiting for him and started singing again, but the noise from those in the building was so loud, the singing was buried in the noise.
Behind the stage on which the Street People's Choir was singing was a placard written in Italian introducing them. The pope saw the placard and looking towards the choir raised his two hands over his head and gave them a thumbs up sign telling them to sing louder. They were gratified by the sign of recognition.
The choir was from the Seoul railroad station where the writer of the article says she attended one of their recitals. She was surprised to see women in the group and was impressed with the director and accompanist. She wanted to join the choir to help them as an alto member, and asked one of the religious sisters who helped form the choir, and was accepted as a member.
Because of the visit of the pope and the way the mass media carried the story, the difficulty of finding a place to practice was solved. This had been a problem in the past. After each practice there was a meal served which was appreciated by all. The writer mentions how she began a sponsoring group to help pay for the meals. She had some success, and hopes it will continue to grow.
She concludes her article with the words of Pope Francis: "Important in helping the poor is not just give a one time monetary gift, but to join them to become a member of the cultural life of society." She would like these words to ring loud and clear throughout society.
The social gospel of the Church, in Korea like other countries of the
world, is often misunderstood and attacked. A priest in the Catholic
Times gives us some answers to many of the difficulties in his article.
Those who are sensitive to issues of justice write and speak often on
the problems they see, and this interest gives rise to much rebuttal,
making the topic relevant.
Is the social gospel about
problems in society? Why don't they see their own faults and those of the church instead of expressing criticism of society? There are those who do not
want to hear anything about politics, and want those interested in the
social gospel to go outside to make their opinion known. However, the
Church exists in society. The social gospel is not only limited to
society, humans need others to live, we were born to live with others,
the social gospel helps us have a right relationship with God and our follow human beings.
Do
you think the social gospel is something extra, good if we have it, and
good if we don't? Our belief is made up of what we believe and what we need
to do. What we need to do is the social gospel; it is not an extra but
an integral part of the teaching. It is what I am called to do in my
daily life.
There are those that bring in the
separation of Church and State as a reason for not getting involved. We
can't separate religion from life. The separation of Church and State is
to prevent one Church becoming involved in the governing of a country. The Church is not to infringe in the proper field of the government but
to teach the way of God.
Many are those that think the
social gospel has a leftist tendency and is part and parcel of the
progressive agenda. However, welfare and morality issues would be in
most cases just opposite what the progressives desire and there is confrontation. On the other hand the conservative policies and
directions in these areas would be more compatible. In examining society the social gospel may have many different opinions, but they are all
based on Scripture. It may seem at times to be similar to some special
groups in society but it is based on the gospels which makes the difference.
A good gauge for the level of our religious life will depend on our acceptance of the social gospel. If we do
not meet God in the Scriptures, pray, study and do not share in the
body and blood of Jesus at Mass, we will not be bearing the fruit
of love. The social gospel is an important part of our faith life. When
we have an antipathy or misunderstanding of the
social gospel there is a serious problem with the teaching of the Church. What is the reason for my misunderstanding, is it the Scriptures or the World?
"So if the light in you is darkness, how terribly dark it will be"( Matt. 6:23).
