We are all familiar with the fable: the Blind Men and the Elephant from the Buddhist religious tradition of India. The king calls a group of blind men and asks them to examine an elephant and tell him what it is. A diocesan bulletin gives us the story and the writer's meditation.
Each blind person gives their thoughts on the section of the elephant they touch. Touching the ivory tusk one blind man imagined a large turnip, another felt the trunk, like a pestle, the tail was a rope, the legs like pillars, the belly was a wall. Shakyamuni (Buddha) tells his disciples they are like these blind men with their lack of understanding. They all have only a partial understanding of who the Buddha is.
In the same way, we Christians are only accepting a part of the God we worship. We believe in a Trinity but each of us with our different environments and individual personalities experiences God's grace differently. One person experiences God as revealed in nature, another in his love showed to us in Jesus, another in the Holy Spirit working in our souls. God comes to us in many different ways.
Korea is made up of those who come from different Providences of the country but we are all Koreans. We all value experiencing God in different ways. Consequently, we don't want to disparage the way others experience God. If we combine all the opinions of the blind men we come to a truer synthesis of elephant.
The elephant fable has much to teach us in the way we see God. Under the banner of Church, Jesus gives us the community of faith with its many understandings of the mystery of God.
By the working of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is working thru us in our daily life. No matter what our position in the community of faith, the level of our knowledge, we are all brothers and sisters of Jesus, disciples, and members of his body, and active subjects of his Gospel.
We can with this fable stress the relativity of what each one experiences as if this is the essence of what the fable wants to say, forgetting that the elephant was always present and much bigger than what each one imagined. Each was limited by their experience of the elephant but it doesn't mean the elephant wasn't there. Objective truth is there and we with the help of others, speaking and interrelating with others within the church and society come to a greater understanding of the God we believe in and who continues to work in us and through us.
World Future Society was the topic of an article in the Kyeongyang magazine by an educator with experience as a teacher and counselor. She lists the occupations that may not be existent in 2050 according to the World Future Society.
Classrooms and teachers will give way to supercomputers and smart systems. On-line programs will be available to all. 80% of the present occupations will disappear with the appearance of robots. Languages will disappear. We have over 6,000 languages at present.The expertise of translating will be so advanced that there will be no need to learn a language and the three languages with the greatest number of speakers will be the important languages.
The number of doctors will decrease with the use of technology that will allow examination from a distance. Paper will decrease with the appearance of eBooks. With the availability of technology like Google Glass, we will be communicating with the computer in a hands-free format.
She mentions students knowledge of English has improved greatly. Thanks to on-line Google's translation programs and correspondence with international friends met on Social Media, students have no fear in communicating with friends in different cultures or fearful of traveling overseas.
She mentions students have a wide variety of possible occupations they aspire to, while parents are limited to the ones they see as safe and lucrative and make for an easy life.
However, many of these professions will not continue to have the numbers as in the past. More important is how will I wish to live in the future. Some of those who have studied the situation see occupations demanding sensitivity and emotional maturity continuing to exist. Artists, therapists, and counselors will be around.
How do parents prepare their children for this new age? Students need to prepare to do what they want to do and not what the parents would like. Success and money are not what the goal should be.
There have been countries that have experimented with guaranteed income for those who will not find jobs. In 2016 the Swiss turned down by vote a monthly salary of $2,555 for every adult but that will probably be the direction society will be headed.
The writer concludes the future is not to determine the kind of occupation according to income. The future will be automated and the need is to find happiness and to follow one's dreams: searching for what will satisfy. She concludes her article by asking parents are they preparing their children for non-existent occupations?
Both
Catholic weeklies had articles and even an editorial on two
Maryknollers who will be leaving for the States in March. Father Gerald
Farrell 93, and Fr, Joseph Slaby 84, who have spent over a half a
century in Korea.
Sadness is present, they expressed to
the interviewer, but they were led by the Spirit at the same age to
come to Korea with joy in their hearts and they leave with joy.They have
no misgivings on their new calling. This will be their new life in the
States. They have no pictures to show of their life.They have tried to
live in the present and not look back with lingering attachment to the
past. They both worked to deepen their own spiritual life and those with
whom they worked.
Many are the similarities of the two
missioners. They both came to Korea at the age of 33. Both were delayed
vocations. Fr. Farrell started off as a medical officer in the Navy and
Fr. Slaby was an engineer. They both entered Maryknoll with the
opposition of their fathers. Fr. Slaby's father was Protestant and found
the son's decision hard to accept. Both had difficulty in the study of
Korean they told the interviewer.
Father Farrell joined
the navy as a medical officer after graduation from medical school.
During this time he made his decision to be a missioner. He had a bright
future but decided to leave it all which was a big blow to his father.
He mentions how difficult it was even to mention his decision to his
father. The father hearing about his son's plans refused even to speak
to him. This changed the day before ordination.
Father
Slaby worked as an engineer after college and had the same problem with
his father who was a Protestant. He mentioned the most difficult part
of the missionary life was language as did Fr. Farrell. Fr.Slaby, also
mentions to the interviewer some difficulty with scrupulosity with which
he had to struggle and worked hard to live thoroughly the life of a
priest and missioner. He spent a year at the Angelicum in Rome studying
spirituality,.
Both where involved in the Charismatic
movement from the beginning. Fr. Farrell was one of the leaders of the
Charismatic movement in Korea when the whole idea seemed Protestant and
many priests not happy with the movement. They were also instrumental in
introducing the Eucharistic Adoration Movement to Korea. In 1978 they
began the Marian Priestly Group, meeting every two months for the
study of the spiritual life.
The editorial mentions how
the two missioners considered their time in Korea a grace and gift. The
work of the missioners in Korea have done much to make the Korean Church the envy of many other nations. In conclusion the editorial hopes with the growth of the Church and the blessings of large numbers of
clergy being ordained each year they will like the two old
missioners consider going to other countries as a grace
and gift.
When we think about the history of the Church in Korea we remember the many martyrs but at the same time many were those who wanted to live and turned against the community of faith.
After Chu Mun-mo, James (1752-1801) the Chinese priest entered Korea, the Masses were attended with great fervor. However, those who reported the Masses and gave the names of those in attendance to the authorities were also Catholics. The numbers of those who turned against the Church were as large as those who died as Martyrs.
An article in Catholic Digest taken from lectures of a professor reminds us of the sadness during the many years of persecution and the large number of those that turned against the community of faith. The writer mentions how in his own life he reflects on what he does and wonders whether it is a martyr's choice or a renegade's act. When he speaks and acts, is it building up or dividing the community?
One of the Catholics who because of the rites controversy fell away; reported to the authorities the whereabouts of the priest. The Christians were quick to hide him. In order to give the priest time to escape the leader of the Catholics put on the priest's clothes to give time for the priest to escape. He was tortured, suffered but never gave in and finally killed.
Many of the Catholics gave their lives to save the priest. Kang Wan-suk, Columba, was a member of the noble class and the authorities were not allowed to search her house and that is where he was hidden for 6 years. Many are the stories retold about Columba and her work as a catechist.
The priest during this time was hearing about the deaths of many of the Catholics because of his presence and he decided to return to China. He had only to cross over the Yalu River to live. It was at this time that he began to think deeply on what was transpiring in Korea. The Catholics were given their lives for the priest and he was returning home. He returned to his Christians and gave himself up to the authorities.
This part of the story was written by the French Missioner Fr. Dallet, using the written material left by his compatriot, the martyred bishop Antoine Daveluy. He called this the Korean 'Quo Vadis' (Where are you going?) section of the history. (The story of St. Peter who was leaving Rome to escape the persecution and was met by Jesus on the Road asking him Quo Vadis? And returns to Rome and death).
Father reported to the authorities that he was the Father Chu they were looking for and was killed on April 19, 1801, the first priest who died as a martyr in Korea.
In the Kyeongyang magazine, an article by a layman who has worked for 16 years with the diocesan family pastoral committee tells the readers what he has learned.
He mentions a documentary he saw about a priest who was sent to a poor country in Africa. He wondered what would Jesus do in his situation. Would he build a school or a church? It's not what I need but what the others' need that is an act of love.
The writer has the same question about family life. What would Jesus do to help families? We all know the difficulties families are facing in our society. The relationship of husband and wife, the axis on which the family rests is shaking. Children consequently are affected negatively. Alienation comes with age, economic difficulties continue to exist, courting, marriage and having children are renounced; all are part of the reason that Korea has one of the lowest marriage and birth rates in the world.
What would Jesus do? He believes it would be programs for the families. How do families need to communicate? How to solve the problems they meet? How are scars inflicted and healed? How does one convey to another what he feels inside? How to listen to another person? He feels these questions are important and need answers.
We know what Jesus is asking of us but just repeating this we know is useless. Important as it is to know what Jesus wants us to do, we need something concrete to experience. Persons have to be prepared to listen to the words they hear.
Programs for families, the engaged, for fathers are some of the possibilities. He has seen the good that programs of this type have done. He desires to see the family as a church and the church as a family. They need to be seen as one. Jesus came to us in a family and we need to work to make the family into a church.
"The most Beautiful thing that God made, the Bible says, was the family. He created man and woman, and He gave them everything. He gave them the world! Grow, multiply, cultivate the earth, make it produce, make it grow. He presented to a family all of the love that God has in Himself, all of the beauty that God has in Himself, all of the truth that God has in Himself, He gives to the family. And a family is truly a family when it is able to open its arms and receive all of this love" (Pope Francis).
Why are we Christians? Theologians have written books on this question. A professor in the Catholic Medical School writes an article in the Catholic Times asking himself, in these dizzy times, the same question, embarrassed that he doesn't live in imitation of Jesus.
What does it mean to live like a Christian? The first question in the old catechism was: "Why did God make me? God made me to know, love and serve him in this life and be happy with him in the next." This expresses succinctly why we are Christians. We know our origins and needs and what is necessary to accomplish them: to live in the way we are made is to live a fully human life.
Our life as a Christian is to be fully human. This is realized within the community of faith, the church. Those on a journey in search of this completeness are Christians. Jesus has told us he is the way, the truth, and life (Jn. 14:6). We know what we have to do. Each is called in their own particular way for the journey.
The journey is not without trials and difficulties. Often going against the stream of the times. Jesus showed us the way in his own life.
What are we to do? We are called to build up God's kingdom, but in working to realize God's justice we have opposing understandings within the community of faith. Not a strange reality for we have seen this repeated in history from the beginning. Even in Jesus' time, we had two opposing groups who were against Jesus: Pharisees and Sadducees.
Sadducees were happy with the status quo and were willing to go along with the political power of the times. They didn't want to rock the boat they would be considered conservatives, while the Pharisees were interested in the life to come and in following the law as they knew it, and not happy with the situation of society and wanted change, they were the liberals.
Today we can see these two schools of thought within our society. Liberals and Conservatives talking past each other, similar to what we have in the church, more ideologues than Christians.
We need to see what the church considers important and what the church is saying. When the pastoral workers are silent we are faced with confusion. When we go against the truth we are fighting against the kingdom. We need a balance between the things of the world and our work in building up God's kingdom. Is God's justice being formed within the world? We need to look deeply into our roles as Christians and we will find our way.
Smartphone use is now a fixed reality of life. Consequently, pastoral work among the young is a challenge and efforts are made to understand and adapt to the present situation. Not really surprising is the refusal of some of the Sunday school students to go on retreat or camp because they can't take their smartphone with them.
Young people from the time they are born, learn to relate easily to the digital culture and have a preference for instant gratification for the wonders of the digital experience. With the smartphone in their hand, they can quickly enter the SNS world. However, with the use of the digital media, their attention spans continue to decrease. Instead of using words to express feelings they use emoticons. They feel at home with animated cartoons (webtoons) which last less than 10 minutes.
The Catholic Peace Weekly in an article tells the readers how far the pastoral work has progressed in using the digital media for work with the young. Mentioned are the efforts in some of the dioceses and parishes to use cyberspace.
One parish in Seoul found the children busy taking a religious internet quiz and checking the results. Other examples were listed on how the parishes have tried to get the interest of the children. Seoul began in 2015 working with the internet to instruct the children. They have used digital platforms and Korean KaKao Talk (Korean free mobile instant messaging application for smartphones with free text and call features). Since 2013 Taegu has been using Podcasting for instructions and was successful.
Some of the teachers have expressed the opinion that we lag behind the Protestants in these efforts. We don't have the capability at present to take advantage of the opportunities available. There are many programs that are now available but one of the teachers mentions that we need programs for the young people, that are attractive.
Young people in Korea 10-19 use the smartphone about 4.8 hours a day and 2.7 hours they are frequenting SNS. Middle school children use it the most with 4.9. 73.8 % use it for contacts with others, 53.6% for information, 30.1% for pleasure and to relieve stress, and 20.1 % out of habit.
About 3 out of 10 young people are in danger of becoming addicted. The numbers of those who are addicted increase each year. Middle school students are the highest with about 36.3% in danger of addiction. Those who use the smartphone for pleasure and to relieve stress or habit are in the most danger.
Some fear that too much will be invested in developing our approach to the internet and although necessary they are hoping we will not forget that the best type of education comes from the 'hands on type of learning' where the students reflect on what they are learning with programs and in relationships.
