A priest who is working in the country with a small farming community writes about a recent experience in With Bible.
He had just returned from the city after taking care of a problem with
his neck. Some of the members of the community had returned from
picking wild blue berries in the mountains behind their village. They
were attacked by a swarm of ground digger wasps once they are on the
person it is almost impossible to chase them off even with a towel.
The catechist was bitten 50 to 70 times and the manager about 50
times.
After the attack, the catechist tried to run away and lost his glasses. They were taken to the public health center; the catechist's blood pressure dropped and was in shock and as white as a sheet. They called the ambulance to take him to the emergency room of a nearby hospital.
The priest went looking for the glasses in the area in which they were picking wild blue berries with his dog but no sign of the glasses, and he was even bitten by one of the wasps on the back of his hand. He received a call from the manager that the catechist's blood pressure had returned to normal, and the body coldness disappeared. If the catechist had died, it would have been the end of his experiment in community living.
He quickly drove his truck to the hospital, and on the way was bitten on the ankle by another wasp he had brought along with him in his shoe. He showed the catechist the bite on the hand and easily commiserated with the catechist who had 50 of these bites.
The next day
they went to a nearby Catholic church to hear the talk of a Buddhist
monk who had graduated from the college seminary. The models he praised were Mother Theresa, Dalai Lama, Pope Francis, and Charles de
Foucauld. The theme of the monk's talk was understanding comes
from experience.
"... My greatest interest is in the spiritual world. Without experience of pain, we will not have understanding. I did all the Buddhist meditations, but I felt a dryness that did not leave me.
I decided to go to a country that was poor and undergo some of their trials at which time I met the Dalai Lama and Mother Theresa. What kind of life is necessary to experience an opening to the spiritual? It is not speaking well but giving happiness to others. Mother Theresa is a good example of this life... Another example is the Dalai Lama with whom I spent time. The emptier a person's interior life is the more embellishment in the talk and exterior. We are in a period, sadly, in which we package up the exterior gorgeously.
I remember talking to Thomas Merton while with the Dalai Lama: one holy man meeting another. Dalai Lama canceled all his appointments for four days. He was fighting for the independence of Tibet, and Merton was against the Vietnam War. They were both pacifists. Merton was electrocuted in a hotel in Bangkok and there was talk it was an assassination by the American CIA.
Often I get telephone calls from Korea asking me why is life so dry? They all have to do with the loss of meaning. I answered: they should fast for three days. In India, they only have one side dish. In Korea were not happy because we eat too well. Who are the Saints today? It's the farmers."
Both the farmers and the doctors give life to people, but doctors make thousands of dollars and the farmers hundreds. The farmers give life to the doctors and are not understood by our upside-down society. Farmers are saints because they give life to others with their sacrifice.
How to be motivated by the repetitive in our lives is the subject of an article in Bible & Life.
A priest writing in the magazine recounts a senior priest telling him
that he enjoys dramas but not watching a number of different dramas
but the same drama over and over-again. This surprised him for once he has seen a movie he has no desire to see it again.
The older priest explained that it was not the story line that interested him but the performers' facial expressions, voice tones, and bodily movements in their role. Whether their words and the way they express them fit the atmosphere in which they were in. This, the older priest said, is what separates performers into levels of excellence. He finds this an extremely enjoyable past time. The same word uttered with a person's total energy makes a big difference.
Yes, that's true! Even though the same words are used, the way they are said can make a great difference; he had no trouble understanding this. With this mind cast, listening and watching, you will not be bored was his own conclusion.
He quickly thought of his saying Mass with only the readings and prayers that change: the ordinary of the Mass stays the same. And for many, this is a reason the Mass becomes tedious. Was this not the reason they have guitar Masses and the like for the young people?
He thought about his own way of saying Mass and whether his words are said with the appropriate ardor and sincerity. Does he feel the way Jesus felt on the night that he uttered those word: "This is my body this is my blood?"
Each Mass is a repetition of Jesus' death and resurrection: a rebroadcast. One way of looking at the Mass is to see the monotony which is natural. However, when we remember what it is renewing for us: the love that Jesus is confessing with these words than no matter how many times we hear those words of love we never tire. "I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you" (John 13:15).
However, the priest is not a performer with a phony expression and emotion but is called to live in the way Jesus has shown us and when this is the case, the Mass will be real. When the priest is living like Jesus, the Mass will have the authentic feelings and expressions.
He
concludes the article with the thought of St.Therese of Lisieux whose
spirituality was to even in the smallest of acts to do it with the greatest of love. He wants to leave us with her spiritually to do all with great love. This is the way the priest should approach every Mass, and every act and word during the Mass, and should also be the mind of each person who attends Mass.
October is World Mission Month. Mission Sunday was last Sunday, reminding us of the mission we all received. All are missioners. At each Mass, we are sent out into the world by Jesus: Go forth the Mass is ended ( Ite missa est).
A column in the Catholic Times wants us to remember what we are meant to do when sent into the world. Without an understanding of the social gospel, we will not be armed with the tools for our mission. We are called to carry out the teachings of Jesus, which comes with our mission call and what we call the social gospel.
The columnist gives us an example of a person who prepares for the future by saving two thousand dollars every month: 24 thousand dollars in one year, two hundred 40 thousand in 10 years. A house in the metropolitan area of Seoul with that money would be difficult to find, and few who could save 2,000 dollars a month.
Difficulty in buying a house and educating a family continues to increase. Many find it difficult to get out of debt. Young people in their twenties and thirties on average are not making two thousand a month, and when they look at the future, there is little hope, and give up working for the future, and instead 'let us enjoy ourselves' is the results. Those in the business world are figuring out ways of captivating these young people to buy and search for pleasure, all helping to produce the culture of death.
Family debt increases and we have a breakdown of communication giving rise to conflicts in the family. The ones who should be sharing are not, and they want the ordinary folk to do the sharing with the' wage peak system' where retirement-age workers continue to work with a smaller salary to allow the young to enter the labor force. The columnist does not see this as the answer. He wants a more substantial approach to the problem.
We have little knowledge of the structural evil in society that influences us daily without our knowledge: "Sins give rise to social situations and institutions that are contrary to the divine goodness. 'Structures of sin' are the expression and effect of personal sins. They lead their victims to do evil in their turn. In an analogous sense, they constitute a "social sin" (From the Catechism of the Church).
"But evangelization would not be complete if it did not take account of the unceasing interplay of the Gospel and of man's concrete life, both personal and social. This is why evangelization involves an explicit message, adapted to the different situations constantly being realized, about the rights and duties of every human being, about family life without which personal growth and development are hardly possible, about life in society, about international life, peace, justice and development- a message, especially energetic today about liberation" Evangelii Nuntiandi #29.
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.
