Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life is a spiritual classic from the past. He explains that we are living a devout life when God's love moves us to do the good easily, frequently, carefully and promptly. Without faith, few would see this life as one of joy, but this is the life we are called to live. For St. Francis de Sales, devotion is the perfection of charity: doing everything with joy in our heart.
An article in With Bible by a seminary professor, in a leadership role working with the bishops, wants us to reflect on why our hearts are not burning inside us? Society does have problems, and we are members of society and will be influenced by what we hear, and see. He uses the words of St. Paul, who tells the Christians those who are living with the Spirit will live with: "love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness and chastity" (Gal. 5:22).
He mentions a few things that bring about the paralysis of the soul: feeling like a Catholic only on Sundays attending Mass, and forgetting about it until the next Sunday; a fear and burden with Confession. No other religion has this way of experiencing God's grace. We experience the grace of forgiveness and healing in a way that is different. However, many are those who make this a duty that they have to endure without the great joy of an encounter with Jesus, a formality. A sign that we are dealing with a paralysis of spirit.
Another paralysis is the awkward relationship with the priest and sisters in a parish and the dislike to hear what the church teaches. The faults of the clergy and religious become a stumbling block in getting closer to Jesus. The teaching on abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, artificial contraception all considered out of step with the times, is another sign of a paralysis of the spirit. In these cases, is it not that we are sacrificing the value of life and its beauty to our greed, and self-righteousness? We recall the words of Jesus to Peter: "You are not judging by God's standards but by man's" (Matt 16:23).
To give life to the spirit he recommends picking out some favorite passage from Scripture, and posting it where you can easily see it. Memorize the words and repeat them often. Make the sign of the cross and use ejaculations frequently during the day. He continues with other suggestions and concludes with the words of St. Augustine.
“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within, and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state, I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all."
Korean Catholicism hears often the word 'young senior'. We are a rapidly aging society, and the church is aging even faster. Young seniors are those between 55 and 69, and number 21% of the Catholics. Those over 65 in the general population are 12.7 % while those in the church are 16.4 %, and this will continue to increase in the future.
We are not far from a super-aged church. At present, one out of five is a young senior but our pastoral practices have changed little. Many parishes continue with the one day a week school for the elderly, with recreation, trips, developing hobbies, and some parishes would have Scripture study.
Those in their early seventies have shown an interest in the school for the elderly but not the young seniors. There is a need for the church to become interested in this large segment of parish life. There have been efforts in different dioceses with programs for this age group but many feel there is a need for more interest and efforts to determine what this group of seniors wants and needs.
The Peace Weekly had an article on this age group and the efforts being made to answer their needs. At present, we have 11.3 % under 19 years of age, 20-40, 46.2 %, 50-64, 26.1 % and those over 65, 16.4%. When the percentage of those over 65 exceed 7 %, it is called an aging society. When over 14 % it is an aged society and when over 20 %, it is a super aged society. The church will shortly reach the super aged level.
Young seniors are independent, looking for ways to grow, and ways to use their free time in a constructive way. They are different from the traditional older generations of the past for they want to live separate from the children and live as a couple. In 1985, there were 188,615 couples living alone, and in 2015 this has increased to 3,010,000 couples.
The Seoul Diocese from 2007 has had an academy for the young seniors, a two-year course with courses in social issues, culture, religion, church history, religious art, and the like, with specialist in their field giving the lectures. There were also group activities in literature, art, photography, drama and music.
During an eight-year period, over 500 have finished the courses. Those who have taken the programs have all finished high school. There are many who would like to see more creativity in finding ways for the young seniors to use their time. Many of the elderly have talents and experience they can use to help others. This is an area in which much can be done; programs that will give vitality to the elderly can use the elderly as resource persons to make the programs varied and profitable for the recipients and the teachers.
Vietnam
"Woman, what's your name?" "I don't know."
"How old are you? Where are you from?" "I don't know."
"Why did you dig that burrow?" "I don't know."
"How long have you been hiding?" "I don't know."
"Why did you bite my finger?" "I don't know."
"Don't you know that we won't hurt you?" "I don't know."
"Whose side are you on?" "I don't know."
"This is war, you've got to choose." "I don't know."
"Does your village still exist?" "I don't know."
"Are those your children?" "Yes."
This poem by Wislawa Szymborska, (1923-2012) a
Polish poet who was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature, was
the topic for an article in the Kyeongyang magazine by a professor of
English. She helps us to interpret the poem.
The woman was found by some soldiers, in a burrow she dug in the ground. Forgetting one's name is not a common occurrence, except for those with some form of dementia; seeing the situation it is not hard to understand the fear of the woman when asked her name, she was not lying, she was scared.
The following questions were all easy for her and the readers to understand, and they all received the same answer: " I don't know." The woman was being questioned at gun point; the war was raging, and she didn't know what was in store for her and her children. When we are overcome with fear, all our thoughts disappear.
Whose
side are you on? A dangerous question especially since she bit the
finger of the soldier which could have been seen as defiance, and yet
she continued to answer: "I don't know." Fear was everything.
Her response could easily be seen as contempt and resistance which it was not. For this to have been the case, you would expect a few more words in her response and more of a game plan in her answer. She was 100 percent paralyzed with fear. The miserable results of war are not who, where and how many have died, but the end of dialogue, and as in the poem the answer: "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know." The fear that enters the soul: is no more and no less than 'horrible'.
The last question: "Are those your children?" You would expect the same answer as in the previous questions but no, this time it was a resounding yes. I don't know was her response in the face of death but this time it was her children she couldn't forget. She was a mother. War makes us forget everything, but she couldn't forget her children.
We are all someone's son or daughter, someone's mother or father. In this world, there is no one who is alone. Even after we leave this earth all of creation sends the message of love. This is the prayer we have in our hearts: peace instead of war, overcoming injustice with justice, evil with generosity, selfishness with concern for others and making this central in our lives.
Life is not fair. History makes this clear, and most of us need no reminder. We deal with this in much of society by motivational stories, visuals, and philosophies that try to make sense of the unfavorable conditions in life that many face from birth.
The Kyeongyang magazine has an article written by one of these men who reaching sixty realized his dependence on liquor and is receiving help at a hospital. With the help of medicine, and his efforts to change his thinking, he feels there will be a change in his destiny.
His religious life became the bedrock from which he began. Peace came to his restless spirit. Up until then, he gave all the blame to his parents for his lot in life. He began drinking and smoking at the age of 16 and developed a strong resentment against his parents and the world. He hated his family and enjoyed the time away from the house. He was beaten, he recalls, by his father for no reason. He remembers his father taking him to a little stream behind the house and shoving his head in the water a number of times; every time he remembers this his whole-body shivers. Study was impossible; he often skipped school, and barely received his graduation certificate.
Age difference between his mother and father was 20 years. His father forced a girl who could have been his daughter as his second wife. He was born the first son of that union and had a brother two years younger. His father's first wife had eight children so altogether it was a family of ten. The father was happy to have a young wife, and although he was not working had his wife go out peddling for income.
His father also had a morbid jealousy of his wife and would often beat her, which added reasons for the dislike he had for his father. The mother wanted to leave her husband, but she had two children and did raise them until adulthood.
On one occasion, he remembers the visit to the first wife's house where his mother was violently attacked by the mother-in-law and first wife in the muddy front yard of the house. He saw all his older sisters and brothers but didn't know them. He and his brother were in the corner huddled together watching what was going on. Seeing the treatment his mother received increased his resentment. His brother had a kindlier disposition and did not have the same resentment he had.
Finally, he left and got married. Not having an education he was helped by his parents with money to begin a business, but since he had no business sense everything he tired failed. He was depressed, couldn't sleep and avoided people but kept his drinking habit.
He agreed to a divorce, and his wife took their 16-year-old son. He hoped to change and get the family back, but although he worked hard, nothing ever turned out the way he expected. Over ten years he was in and out of prisons and was now in confinement in the hospital run by the ministry of Justice: treated for alcohol addiction.
During the time in prison, he followed his religious life sincerely. He finished the course for high school and now on his own learning the art of creative writing. After all those years at the age of sixty, he finally began to realize who he was. He is no longer young and sees himself as just so many rustling leaves on a corn stock with little strength.
He wants to warn others against blaming everything on destiny, and living with resentment. For those like himself, he recommends a religious life, and to quickly find their problem and work to remedy the situation. On his part, he is working on his love for music, and wants to spend the rest of his life in playing the saxophone, and helping others like himself, to begin a new life.
Apathy that spreads easily throughout the world has to be addressed. This was the topic of an article in With Bible. An educator emeritus gives the readers his strong views on some of our problems.
Korea's
minimum hourly wage was 5,580 won (US $5.31 cents) for 2015, and was raised 8.1
percent for 2016 to 6,030 won, (US 48 cents). It was a struggle for both labor and business each
complaining: labor saying it was insufficient to improve the life of the
workers, and employers claiming it would be difficult for small
business.
Difficulties in economic life are often
blamed on the workers which is offensive, many who consider themselves middle class accept this situation and keep quiet; heartbreaking, and the writer includes the church. Opposition to a raise in the minimum wage in the States was received by the President: "Try to live on the minimum wage I can't
do it," put an end to the squabble. In the fast food world in New
York the minimum wage was raised to 15 dollars an hour.
He
singles out the church for not saying anything about the way much of society sees
labor problems: shifting the responsibility onto the
workers. The professor emeritus, says the church has not in his estimation said
anything about the situation in Korea outside of some platitudes.
A
year has past from the visit of Pope Francis to Korea. We have already
forgotten what he said, and only remember the event. Strong, said the
writer, were the words he spoke on the plane back to Rome from Korea.
Parents of the victims in the Sewol disaster gave the pope a yellow
ribbon cherishing the memory of those who died in the Sewol Disaster.
Someone approached the pope, and said would it not be proper to be neutral on
the incident and remove the ribbon. The pope answered: "in the presence
of suffering we can not be neutral."
It is not
sufficient to give condolences to those who are hurting in society but
before the harm is done to speak out about the problems. Bishops have
the responsibility to do this, and when they don't they are putting
the Gospel in the coffin and burying it. He misses the courage in the
time of Cardinal Kim.
When the Christians are
Pharisees and the priests are the Sadducees the church is no longer the
light and salt of the earth and just another group in society. The
number of young people and elders who are committing suicides is
staggering, the number of workers who are irregular is one third of the
labor force; this, he opines, is worse than in the time of Jesus.
He
concludes with a desire to see a change. The Church is not worrying
about society but the society worries about the church. This is not the
society that Jesus wanted us to have, and before the people become
activated it requires the bishops and priests to wake up.
Healing with the written word, is a fresh and unfamiliar way of meeting one's inner self. Recently, the Catholic Times had an article on a retreat at the Benedictine Monastery using the written word. Each one writes a short autobiography to get to know oneself, and the emotions engendered: joy, anger, sorrow, pleasure, love, hate, hope. The seven colors of the rainbow were also elements of the retreat, but each was to use their own words to describe what was happening as they meditated on the emotions and colors.
An article in With Bible, possibly with a similar intent, was entitled 'Writing with Pencil Wakes up the Soul'. The writer is a religious sister whose interest and specialty are media and spirituality. She begins by using the words of Marshal McLuhan: mediums are tools that extend our bodies and senses.
She tells her readers, she is not using a pencil, but the computer keyboard which is much faster. She wonders what would she do without the computer. And remembers the words of a novelist who felt when writing with a pencil that his body was pushing the pencil. What was he saying? Was it not that his words were being inscribed on his Soul?
She mentions reading often the letters her father sent her during her first years in the convent before his death. They were written in an old style, with Chinese characters interspersed. "...your
father always has you in mind, in the future give yourself entirely to
the life, be a devoted religious to help the many who are hurting, is
my prayer for you. That is all that I can do for you."
Reading the letters, she remembers the love of her father and the sorrow that she was not a better daughter in showing love for him. She imagines if the letters were written with a keyboard, they would not have the same meaning as seeing the father's letter in his own hand, unique to him. Today it is rare to run across anything written by hand.
What is important to her is rather than be in step with the new, shifting, urgent and confused lifestyle is to move slowly, with less, and to enjoy it. No matter how much she tries to keep up with the new it will always stay ahead of her, and she will be fretful and miss what is important. Many things change, but when she remains concerned about what doesn't change she's at rest.
If we are to use the new technology correctly patience and discipline are required. Writing by hand helps us to develop patience, silence, time to think, and slows down the pace in which we live. She is giving breath to her soul. Writing one word after another, slowly, she concludes, like magic her soul awakes, and she finds herself praying.
Lack of respect for the opinions of others is prevalent in all societies and especially when we find it so easy to express ourselves. In offenses against the truth in the Catechism of the Church # 2478: "To avoid rash judgment, everyone
should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor's
thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way:
- Every good Christian ought to be more
ready to give a favorable interpretation to another's statement than to
condemn it. But if he cannot do so, let him ask how the other
understands it. And if the latter understands it badly, let the former
correct him with love....
St. Thomas Aquinas many centuries ago, engaged in argumentation by first arguing for the position he disagreed, and often making it stronger, before giving his opinion. A religious priest introduces to the readers of the Catholic Times a serious problem in the community of faith when we forget we are Populus Dei (the People of God). This is the 50th year after the close of the Second Vatican Council, and he wants us to remember our call to renewal, and adapting to new circumstances.
The Church is one of the organizations in society. It has a special object and clear boundaries, and the members' status and roll are specialized and has strict regulations. He has asked his parishioners in the past who is the owner of the parish, and unanimously he gets the answer that the parishioners are, but he reminds them they will all one day have to leave. God is the master of the church and community.
Without this understanding, we are just like any other organization in society. To behave as our own master is one of our temptations. In the community, we have dissonance and conflict, light and darkness, good and evil. We are not a church of the good and healthy, but a church of sinners asking for forgiveness daily.
Today we hear the words not infrequently: a follower of the North, a leftist, Red. They give these tags to some bishops and priests: impure elements. At times we even hear: "take off your clerical clothes" -- "renounce the priesthood," and the like. In the past when they didn't like some of the acts of the clergy, which they considered extreme, they did not express this publicly. We have now those that call themselves Patriotic Catholics for Korea and wonders about their Catholicism.
No need to talk about those who are pro-North but whether we are pro-God. The Church is not here for itself, but as light and salt of the earth.
"Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is nothing else than the culmination of
the way he lived his entire life. Moved by his example, we want to enter
fully into the fabric of society, sharing the lives of all, listening
to their concerns, helping them materially and spiritually in their
needs, rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep;
arm in arm with others, we are committed to building a new world. But we
do so not from a sense of obligation, not as a burdensome duty, but as
the result of a personal decision which brings us joy and gives meaning
to our lives" (Joy of the Gospel 269).
