"You all wanted to go play in the water, why aren't you coming in?"
Words of the father of Han Pia, at water's edge. "Because it's cold," was the children's answer."
"How
do you know that without entering the water and seeing for yourself. Come on in,
if too cold you can always return to the shore." These words of her father, she has never forgotten, and writes in With Bible magazine that she often uses the same words with others, a valuable gift from her father.
Han
Pia is principal of the World Vision School of Global Citizenship, and writes about her experience, and what she has
learned. For 6 years with a knapsack she has traveled around the world,
and experienced many difficulties. According to a Korean proverb, she recalls,
when young these difficulties in old age would be worth even paying for them.
On one transcontinental train trip from
Moscow to Beijing she traveled for 7 nights and 8 days. After that trip
she has never complained of a long, tiring trip. In China she was
on a train that was crowded, like the subways in Korea around the New
Year, and she had to stand all the way for 30 hours.
In
India she was sick from food poisoning and her whole body was a rash, making matters worse, she was attacked by mosquitoes and bedbugs
which made her feel as if she was in a bee hive, her whole body
smarting and swollen. On another occasion she was taking antimalarial medicine and the reaction to the medicine was nausea, and couldn't
eat for two weeks.
She thought walking for 10
hours was her limit, but she did on one occasion walk for
15 hours which raised her expectations. She has extended this in
mountain climbing to 22 hours, and now wants to test her body for another
longer mountain climbing experience.
Recently she met
a woman who had walked a mountain trail for 30 hours. She envied the
woman and made up her mind this new lunar new year to make the same trip.
She doesn't know if her knees will hold up, but she will not know until she tries.
She
recommends to the readers of her article to do something during the new year which they would ordinarily consider difficult but a good, and
have so far avoided. They will gain confidence, strength and courage,
helping them face the difficulties that come along in life.
One of the frustrations, teachers' experience is misunderstanding, or the failure to sympathize with what is being conveyed. Society always has had prophets or whistle blowers, bringing to our attention activities or ways of thinking that are not those of the majority and consequently, not easily accepted.
Lady Justice holds balance scales in her hands, and eyes blindfolded so as not to be swayed by personal feelings. In With Bible magazine, the writer in his article titled 'Broken Scale' feels that our society's fairness is slanted in one direction, towards the one percent of the world made up of the strong and wealthy. This small number's high-handed manner is not criticized, and we are blind to what is going on. The scale is seriously broken.
When a lawyer some years ago was a whistle blower on corruption in one of the industrial giants, it was only the priests for justice who sided with him. He brought his message to the newspapers, but they all treated him coldly. They knew that they would lose income from advertising. He was a well-known lawyer and had information that few others would have available and yet society made him out as a Don Quixote and isolated him. Many turned against him and because of regional prejudice that was added to the opposition, justice was not achieved and he returned to his hometown a broken man: similar to the lives of the prophets of the Old Testament.
A small group within the church have opposed the priests for justice and have expressed this loud and clearly. They have put pressure on the church to do something with these priests. The writer makes clear that not all that is done by these priests needs to be accepted without criticism, but it is a lack of reason when you let some small errors of judgment on their part, in the eyes of some, close the eyes of society to big evils.
The scale of justice needs to be fixed. He mentions a number of professors who maintain the central point in justice is impartiality. The church should be working in its prophetic role as a leader to fix the scale of justice. Social irregularities and unfairness in society need to be addressed. This is the concern of the Church, a present and future subject and Gospel message.
What is meant by justice? We need to think deeply and work to achieve it in our lives. If we make-believe the scale of justice is in good order, and we remain concerned only about what profits us, we are not living as Christians. We need to go about fixing the scale, and concludes with the hope we will work to do this during this new Lunar Year.
Joy and Hope booklet from the Institute of that name, mentions in one of the articles, encyclicals of the last few centuries, and Pope Francis' Laudatio Si. They restate the Church's understanding of the social gospel and our Christian values.
Personalism and concern for the individual are all important, and the author mentions the work of a number of priests who were leaders in the co-operative movement: Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta in the town of Mondragón, Rev. Michael Coady and Jimmy Tomkins in the Antigonish Movement in Canada, and in 1890 the movement by Don Lorenezo Guetti the first cooperative founded in Trentino, Italy.
He then introduces us to Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century, a book translated into Korean last year. He was a founder of the Catholic Worker Movement in the United States with Dorothy Day and was considered Dorothy's mentor. He failed in many of the programs he tried to implement but left behind round-table-discussion groups, houses of hospitality, farming communes, and other programs. He died a pauper but is respected as an outstanding Catholic layperson.
He was born in France and joined the Christian Brothers. He left them and was attracted by the Sillon Movement in France, which aimed to bring Catholicism closer to the ideals of the French Republic, but he left them because of their lack of concern for what he thought was the spiritual. His call to military service and his opposition to war prompted his leaving of France for Canada and later for the United States where he worked in the movement for Catholic workers with which he was familiar in France.
He lived a very difficult and poverty filled life. He found the church in the United States lukewarm, and receiving no help began a house of hospitality for ten women without homes as a cooperative. He joined Dorothy Day, a journalist, a woman with radical ideas with whom he began the Catholic Worker newspaper which used the encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, and In the 40th Year an encyclical issued by Pius XI as resource material for their paper.
Briefly, he was against all movements and systems from above that used force and was promoting movements that relied on personal responsibility. He would be considered a Catholic anarchist by many for he would oppose industrialization. He wanted everything to come from below, the responsibility of everyone and wanted the church to be a dynamic leader in the movement. His Easy Essays promoted these ideas.
EASY ESSAY - WHAT MAKES MAN HUMAN
1. To give and not to take
that is what makes man human.
2. To serve and not to rule
that is what makes man human.
3. To help and not to crush
that is what makes man human.
4. To nourish and not to devour
that is what makes man human.
5. And if need be
to die and not to live
that is what makes man human.
6. Ideals and not deals
that is what makes man human.
7. Creed and not greed
that is what makes man human.
In the
Catholic Digest one of the writers wonders why faces in church are so
grim. He was in church with his wife waiting to confess and remembered
the words of a friend. A grandmother in the
confessional didn't speak so the priest asked her to confess her
sins.... "Father living is sin." He laughed at the words of his
friend but they continued to reverberate in his mind while waiting to
confess.
He
recalls the look on his own face and those he sees in the church:
soldiers on the battle field, or like the walking dead. Even when
praying the grim face doesn't disappear. What should his face express
when praying? He asks himself.
When
he was in the States he was called back to Korea when his mother was
dying and recalls the peaceful look on his mother's face at death.
On
the day he was preparing for confession the Gospel at the Mass was from
Matt. 11:28-30. "Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened,
and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am
gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls. Yes,my yoke is easy and my burden light."
Thoughts usually are expressed on our faces. Should not the words of Jesus
become so much a part of oneself that they find expression on our faces?
During
the liturgical year we have two Sundays in which the celebrant of the
Mass wears rose vestments: Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent
and Laetare Sunday the fourth of Lent, both words can be translated
rejoice. Joy is the hallmark of a Christian and Pope Francis in his message
to us wrote about the Joy of the Gospel.
In Korean as in English we do often distinguish between Joy, happiness and
pleasure. Without much thought we can say that joy is internal,
happiness has to do with the emotions and pleasure with the body. All
are important and valuable, but the one that should always be present is joy
which does not depend on external stimuli and lasts.
Recently, the world news reported how a few rich persons have more wealth than billions of the poor. We have heard similar news repeatedly over the years, and wealth continues to be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer persons, and unless something is done, matters will only get worse.
Catholic Times' column on the issue reminds the readers that for a Christian, God in his creation intended the goods of creation to be enjoyed by all. "God intended the earth and all that it contains for the use of every human being. Thus, as all men follow justice and unite goods should abound for them on a reasonable basis" (The Church Today # 69).
Catholicism has not denied the right to private poverty, but it is not the highest right. Abuse of this right of private property should be regulated with certain limitations. Development of the market and increase of money is not always for the benefit of all the citizens.
Thinking that economic development alone is going to be distributed to all the citizens is false. The increase of the national wealth, has as in the past, made the gap between the haves, and the have-nots larger. Economic development is a good when it benefits all the citizens. Markets should be controlled by mechanisms that will help to make an adequate distribution of wealth.
It is not that we have a lack of food that people go hungry, nor a lack of clothing for the many who do not have clothes to wear. The reason that children are dying in Africa from sickness is the market system is not working. "Seeing their poverty, hearing their cries and knowing their sufferings. We are scandalized because we know there is enough food for everyone, and that hunger is the result of a poor distribution of goods and income. The problem is made worse by the generalized practice of wastefulness” (Joy of the Gospel #191).
We need to meditate on these words of Pope Francis. When the economy is doing well not all benefit and when big business does well not all do well. To help all live decently there is a need for restrictions on personal wealth and freedom of the market, and expansion of welfare. 'Common good thinking' should be our goal: not only the ethical thing to do but the way we will all live the decent life.
Each year in most of the countries where Christianity is present we
have the Unity Octave or Prayer for Christian Unity from January 18-25.
This year's theme is taken from 1 Peter 2:9-10. "But you are a chosen
race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him
who
called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a
people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy,
but now
you have received mercy."
This year the material was prepared by
the Christians of Latvia based on the passage from St. Peter's first
letter where we are asked to proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord.
Themes for each day are listed below.
Day 1: Let the stone be rolled away
Day 2: Called to be messengers of Joy
Day 3: The witness of fellowship
Day 4: A priestly people called to proclaim the Gospel
Day 5: The fellowship of the Apostles
Day 6: Listen to this dream
Day 7: Hospitality for prayer
Day 8: Hearts burning for unity
Week of prayer has a history of over a hundred years and since many different religious Christian groups met together to compose the prayers, expectations of all the parties may not be satisfied. All
know, however, that the objective is to bring about the wish of Jesus that we be
one as he is one with the Father.
"May they all be one. Father,
may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the
world may believe it was you who sent me" (John 17: 21).
Korea
is an example of ecumenism at the highest level that hopefully will be
spread throughout the whole of Christianity. Emphasizing what we hold in common, and praying we may come
to a common understanding of what separates us, and work to achieve unity the Spirit wants.
The editorial in the Catholic Times
reminds the readers that Catholicism entered Korea 230 years ago and
Protestantism 130 years ago. We need to reflect
deeply on the path we are called to walk as disciples of Jesus, and do all we can to heal the wounds we have inflicted on the mystical body of Christ.
A series of articles in the Catholic Times exams the way sex is seen
in the popular culture. Morality gives way to profit as the standard of judgement.
News is often not honest, and citizens show little
concern. Biotechnology without recourse to any ethical position is of
little interest to the media.
All kinds of suggestive advertising come into the homes; there are no limits in contents or location. Smart phones are used mostly by those in their 20s and 30s and what is harmful is difficult to classify and passed over quickly.
A recent article was concerned with the way advertising for clothes is made to the young students. Thinness is carried to a degree where it becomes harmful. One is not recognized if one is not pretty and thin. Appearance is the supreme judge of a person's value: corsets grafted into the school dress and length of dresses.
On the wall next to the entrance to a high school was an advertisement addressed to girls with a famous dance vocalist. Wearing her school uniform a girl student in the advertisement was drawing the attention to her thinness of a man in his forties with dark classes, admiring her beauty. The advertisement was removed shortly for being suggestive.
There are persons sensitive to what is happening, and the article mentions health teachers in one of the school systems. They notified the schools and made the problem of these kinds of advertising known. The result of this kind of advertising is having a bad influence on students. A girl's figure becomes all important and leads to all kinds of health problems: anorexia, indigestion, menstrual pain, underweight and TB and other problems.
With the attentions given by the public to the advertising, the clothing company did agree to change the advertising for the future. Companies of this type are not interested in the health of the students as much as appearance and consequently, the way they choose to market their clothes: 'Beauty is strength.'
Many are the teachers who feel that the protection of our school children is not provided for adequately. "When we don't take a problem seriously it is not a problem, but needs to become a problem." When the young people become objects of sexual exploitation in advertising, something needs to be done and more voices raised in protest, working for a change.
