Twenty-five years ago on Oct. 3rd, East and West Germany were united as the one nation of Germany. Ceremonies were held even in Korea to commemorate the reuniting of the division. After one-quarter of a century has passed, the celebrations have been instrumental in bringing enthusiastic interest to our own efforts at unification.
A professor whose specialty is working for Korean unification writes in his column in the Catholic Times of his expectations. On August 25th, the North and South agreed to stop acts of hostility, and begin ways of cooperating with one another. President Park on the plane back from China said that she would begin immediately to discuss peaceful unification of the country.
For the past seven and eight years, we have almost completely stopped contact with North Korea except for the Kaesong Industrial Park, which is a collaborative effort between the North and South. It is only a one-hour ride from Seoul, and the South Korean companies employ North Korean cheap labor, which helps the North with foreign currency. Now that they have agreed to open the road to cooperation, and the president wants to begin immediately to discuss unification the columnist calls this a paradox of paradoxes.
Contact between the East and West Germany existed for a long period of time, in many different ways: social, financial, cultural, so that when the time came to vote, it made the unification possible. The professor calls the making of the one Germany not an absorption but a joining. He asks what made the East join the West? He finds this very easy to answer. It was Billy Brandt, who with his 'change through rapprochement' paved the way for eventual unification.
West Germany stationed a resident correspondent in East Germany. They could exchange letters, notifying each other on what was going on in each other's Germany. Chancellor Helmet Kohl made the official exchange rate between the East and West as a one to one, and a reason the East voted for unification. His efforts for unification can't be overlooked.
Germany's road to unification was long, and the professor closes with his observation on Korea's unification. Without Brandt putting in the railroad tracks, and Kohl putting the train on the tracks, nothing would have happened. When are we going to start laying the tracks down for future
unification?
Father, how do you cut your fingernails? An elementary school altar boy asked this question of the pastor after Mass. In the View from the Ark in the Catholic Times, the writer uses this incident to mull over an important attitude, often forgotten.
The
priest writer was taken aback by the question, trying to figure out what
was behind the question. Was there a method of cutting fingernails?
"My mother cuts my fingernails, I can see you cutting your left hand
fingernails but how do you do the right hand? Our school teacher drew
blood when he cut his fingernails." He wanted to know who was cutting
the priest's fingernails.
A fingernail clipper makes
the cutting a very precise and easy job. Some clippers when they cut, make no noise. He noticed with age the cutting of the
finger nails was not like it was. At the beginning he thought it
was the dull blade but one day the thought came that like all of
nature, age brings a toughness and brittleness to his
body and fingernails.
As children we remember that scars and
broken bones healed quickly. Our bodies were soft and pliable, our
spirit was supple, we didn't have any preconceptions, we accepted
freely and easily what was given. We were open to bold adventure. With
age we saw much of this disappear because we needed the toughness of
the body to withstand threats from outside, and to protect others.
Softness
is necessary but we can't make a flexible branch into a pole.
Hardness is necessary if we want to stand up to the stormy world in
which we live. However, softness is a distinguishing mark of life; death
is stiffness. Life is open to change and growth, and why we need to be pliable and soft. He acknowledges the possibility that hardness of the body may be for future
ages and for the good of other parts of our body.
However,
there is no need for our hearts to become hard. Often the way we
live not only does the body become hardened but our souls take on this
quality. Experience, knowledge, wisdom and courage, that comes with
age doesn't make us stronger, but the flattery, self-righteousness,
judging of others, our greed, and fear are hardening the muscles and tying our hands and feet.
The world we live in is
making us hard. Christians know that God's love is always being poured
into us which should make us soft and allow us to recover the suppleness of youth.
Isn't this why Jesus wants us to become like children. He concludes with
the wish that we all become like the child who wanted to know who cut
the priest's fingernails.
World population can be divided into three groups: Atheists, Agnostics and Theists. Each word has many different definitions and understandings, but it does serve a purpose for it gives a simple breakdown of beliefs. Atheists prefer to deny God, Agnostics are doubtful, and Theists affirm in some fashion.
One subdivision of the Theists would be Christian, which again are divided among
themselves, for they understand the words of Jesus differently.
Today
is Mission Sunday, celebrated every year on the third Sunday of October
that reminds us of the last words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew to
the Church: "Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my
disciples...."
Catholics are the largest Christian division but again, we have different understandings of what Jesus said and did even among Catholics. We call many among them cafeteria Catholic, superstitious, traditional, cradle, convert, liberal, untratraditional, charismatic, evangelical, tepid, folk, cultural and many more.
What should be clear, however, is
that Jesus wanted to make disciples and the Church that he formed is a
body of disciples. The word disciple means one who submits, conforms
themselves to the discipline of the teacher in this case Jesus. There
are Christians who do not want to be disciples but if one considers
themselves a disciple and Jesus wanted the Church to make disciples, then
we have to ask ourselves if Jesus would accept me as a disciple?
Certainly no teacher in academia would accept a student saying he was a
disciple if he did not accept what was taught. They may have been a
student but the word disciple would not be used.
Many
of the articles, and sermons today remind us that we are the first that
need to be evangelized. Pope Francis in his message reminds us: "All her
members are called to proclaim the Gospel by their witness of life."
This requires that we first evangelize ourselves. Christians should be simply followers of Christ.
"Whoever
bids other folks to do right, but gives an evil example by
acting the opposite way, is like a foolish weaver who weaves quickly
with one hand and unravels the cloth just as quickly with the
other." These words of St,Thomas More make clear what we know only too
well. People do not listen to the words as much as the example of the
person we are. Evangelization has to begin with ourselves and it is not a
one time event but a work of a lifetime.
In 1777, King Jeongjo was beginning his reign as a reformer in the Joseon Dynasty. His rule of 24 years was too short to make any great improvement, but his efforts have been praised; he also had a premonition of some dark times in Korea's future. In the Pastoral Bulletin for priests, we have this introduction to history and the writer's thoughts on the beginnings of Christianity in Korea.
These years in history were filled with turmoil. In China the rule of Emperor Qianlong and expansion, but also saw the beginning of decline. In England, we had the industrial revolution; France was ripe for the cultural revolution, and the new country of the States was proclaiming independence. We were surrounded by war.
It was the year of 1777 in winter that young scholars met together at a Buddhist Temple in Yeoju Province to study about Catholicism from books they received from China. They came from a distance, ragged, but with a gleam in their eyes.
In a time of upheaval, the learned are looking for answers. Confucianism influenced them to study ways to make sense of what was going on in the world. The books they possessed were from the West and translated into Chinese, and some of them had to do with Catholicism. With the meetings, we have the beginning of the spread of Christianity without the help of clergy: a story with which we are familiar..
These scholars found in Catholicism a new light. They did not see Catholicism as something to change society but a frightful new teaching. An example is Paul, Yun Ji-chung. When his
mother died he
performed the funeral ceremony according to the Catholic rite which was the wish of his mother, instead of
the Confucian rite, and he burned the ancestral tablets. Not to follow the Confucian customs on the occasion of coming of age, marriage, funeral, and ancestor worship was asking for trouble.
Refusal to go along with what society was asking was tantamount to attempting to overthrow the society, a way of acting that was seen as revolutionary. You were putting your life on the line. This was no exaggeration, and for 100 years we had the persecution that gave us about 10 thousand martyrs.
What is the face of Catholicism now in Korea? Are we showing society a new road to follow? Or is it rather the church itself doesn't know what to do? Jesus said that he was the way the truth and life, and only through him can we go to the father.
Do we think we can be Christians by going in search of money and power? Do we think that more knowledge will get us to our goal as Christians? He concludes that we are intoxicated with our power.
Two people, side by side, were using the escalator and bickering. The man on the right, "Let those who are busy go on their way, move aside a little," addressing the woman who was blocking the left lane of the escalator." "Because of the fear of accidents we are not to make a commotion," she responded. The man, "Heavens, do you know how busy the young people are these days, and you are blocking the way. Do You think that if we all moved to the right the machinery would breakdown?" The woman did not give answer, and when they arrived at the floor level she went off quickly.
These are the kinds of scenes that we often witness. We have the conservative and the progressive.The one that is busy with the present and the one who is thinking of the future, A columnist in the Catholic Times reminds us of this fact of life. In this example we would be on the side of the man but this is not always so easy to decide.
For seventy years we had the forces who were pushing: "let us live better" and those who screamed: "let's get rid of the dictator". However, both have been realized: we have a better life and we have a working democracy, and yet we have the infighting. We should be able to give praise and understanding for what has been accomplished but no, we continue to discount and disparage the other.
Within the church the situation is the same: each group is bringing in arguments that support their position, and only look for points that will bolster their position. Both positions have some truth and deficiency.
Jesus when he selected his first group of intimate followers, wanted a varied group with different backgrounds and temperaments. He had the conservatives and the progressives among the apostles, both united in their allegiance to Jesus.
Truth should always be the goal. However, truth has different meanings for different people. Conservative/liberal dichotomy is popular but when we reduce it to 'black-and-white' and 'either-or' thinking and forget all the other possibilities we are doing a disservice to truth and ourselves. As Christians these dichotomies make little sense. The transcendentals for us are not just the True, Good and Beautiful but also Oneness.
What is important is the person we are, for that will determine what we see and how we judge. If we are not happy, not at peace, have a troubled conscience, and afflicted spirit we need the humility to acknowledge this reality, and admit to ourselves that it may influence our thinking. When we don't have complete spiritual and psychological health, and this is the reality for most of us, with humility we pursue the truth and refuse to be boxed into thinking that what we say and believe is all there is on the subject, and allow ourselves to listen deeply to the other.
On the spiritual page of the Catholic Times, a priest in his column writes about his trip on the subway to a meeting. Empty seats were few, and he was happy to find one, and enjoy the trip.
At one of the stations two mentally handicapped persons, a down syndrome and a mentally challenged person entered the car and sat opposite him. They were tightly holding their guardian's hand and looking around with a frown on their faces.
Right beside the columnist a woman in her fifties, and a man in his early twenties, were whispering how blessed and thankful it is to have good health. No comparison, but it was easy to surmise the reason for the topic.
Shortly after a woman with her daughter entered and sat beside him and began talking in a very low voice. "Ordinarily, when you meet a person who is handicapped you know what to do, don't you?" asked the mother.
"What is that all about?" answered the daughter.
"When we relate with those who are handicapped, we treat them just like everybody else?"
"That is what they say!" answered the daughter. "Since they have a handicap, however, they need our help. When we have concern for each other than we will find joy, that I know."
They both continued talking to each other like friends. When they were leaving they both with a little nod of the head towards the handicapped, went towards the door. The two handicapped persons without a word, laughing waved their hands in a good-bye salute.
The columnist found what he had just experienced was something rare. Here were two persons seeing the same two handicapped persons and relating in two different ways. Their viewpoints were different and consequently, what they saw was different.
When he got up to leave he winked at the two and they responded with a laugh and the down syndrome individual gave an eye response as coming from an angel.
When he rides the subways he often looks at faces of those riding with him, and reminds himself that the way he judges the person determines what he sees. A healthy viewpoint will determine a healthy vision.
Education is an important work of the Church, and she continually goes in search of ways of doing the job as thoroughly as possible. Workshops and symposiums are an ongoing reality in each diocese and in the country, Catholic papers and magazines treat the subject often because of its importance and recently in the Seoul Diocese was a symposium on character education and the means to achieve it.
In today's world, we are overcome with information but information is not knowledge nor is knowledge wisdom. Catholic schools want to reach the whole person and inspire him to be a self-learner for a life time.
Character education-- education for the whole person-- is composed of autonomy, community, and dignity. All three working together to form the personality of the individual. These words came out of a symposium sponsored by the Korean bishops.
In the keynote address, a priest professor stressed a Christian education has as its goal the formation of a full person, a value system that comes from the gospels, cultivation of the virtues and a spirituality internalized and integrated into the personality.
Another participant mentioned the integration of these values in the life of the teachers. Care has to be taken that they are not overworked so this becomes an unrealistic expectation. Programs for the formation of the teachers to instill these values are necessary.
Another professor explained how this education for the whole person was done in the States, France and Germany. He mentioned the two starting points are the textbook and creative experience. Both need to go together: creativity with others should develop into service. Concern is for the development of each student's temperament, potentiality, interests and sharing with others. Standardization needs to be avoided, and each student needs to find meaning and motivation in their studies. Parents should be involved, and the student's autonomy and responsibility fostered.
The ideal is concern for each student in the educational process. In English, the Latin roots of the word education have great meaning: educare which means to train and mold while educere means to lead out, the combination of both should be the aim of education from kindergarten to university. The worry in Korea is that education will have the market as the goal and directed to qualifications and a means of making money.
