Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all in Niigata and Sapporo dioceses!

During our midnight Mass in Niigata cathedral on 24th evening, 2 strong young men have been baptized and also been confirmed by me after several months of intensive preparation by Fr. Ebe, the parish priest and his assistant, Fr. Sakamoto.  As usual, the Cathedral was packed by the people to join the Christmas celebration including quite number of non-Christians.  The evening Mass on 24th December attracts many non-Christians in Japan and a Christmas party has become December tradition in recent Japan.  At least those who decided to come to Church on the night had chance to listen to the Word of God. 

Northern part of Japan has been covered by heavy snow fall for the Christmas day.  Niigata city itself was not so bad but it was so cold.  And the highway connecting Niigata and Fukushima was closed down completely for 2 days because of heavy snowfall and more than 300 cars were stuck for hours in cold snow.  According to the weather forecast, it may snow heavy again in the end of the year.  I got to fly to Sapporo tomorrow and have to return to Niigata for the midnight Mass on 31 December.  I hope I will make it to Sapporo and return to Niigata on time for the end of the year Mass.

Tornado hit a part of Niigata

On 3 December in the afternoon around 3 pm, a small tornado hit a part of Niigata city.  It was really a windy afternoon and very cold.  Fr. Fernando, a parish administrator of Hanazono Parish, was staying in his room in Toyano Church, an out-station of Hanazono, when a part of roof of Toyano Church was ripped off violently with great noise.  Thank God that he was not hurt but a half of the front roof of the Church building was completely damaged and inside the building, especially the second floor, was soaked with strong rain.  Nearby High School building was also damaged and several students were injured by broken windows.  According to the local meteorological observatory, the area was hit by a small tornado.  Recently we hear a lot of incidents of tornado in Japan.  Until few years ago, we thought that tornado has nothing to do with Japan.  Is this because of climate change we are talking about?

Chapel renovation in Yamagata completed

The parish chapel of Yamagata has been under renovation for past few months and the construction work has been completed by the end of October.  So the re-dedication Mass of the Parish Chapel was celebrated on 28 November, the first Sunday of Advent, which was attended by more than 100 parishioners including those members from Shinjo.  Entire flooring, ceiling and wall have been refurbished and a new stained glass window has been added behind the alter, above the crucifix.  Also in order to make the building earthquake resistant, several windows have been removed so that walls would be able to withstand powerful quakes.  A slope way has been added at the entrance of the chapel so that wheel chairs could easily enter the place of worship and prayer. Parish priest, Fr. Honma and the parish council members went through hard time to negotiate with parishioners on several issues on the renovation planning.  I do appreciate their tireless effort to involve everyone in the parish community.  Ayekoo (GOKURO-SAMA, or good job in Ghana local language). 

After the Mass on Sunday, a celebration get-together was held in the parish hall.  Almost half of the participants were our Filipino members who brought their famous Filipino foods for sharing.  I really enjoyed its international atmosphere of the Yamagata Parish community.  I hope that the renovated chapel would be the foundation of the active community life so that the Church community of Yamagata would be the symbol of unity and communion among the society which is in need of clear direction for the better life.  Many people are at a loss of clear direction of their own life and present society which does not give due respect to human lives can not provide bright and clear vision for the future.

The 16th Korea-Japan Bishops Exchange meeting

The 16th Korea-Japan Bishops Exchange meeting was held in Cheongju in Korea from 16 to 18 November.  All together 13 Bishops from Japan and 17 Bishops from Korea participated in the program.  This year, our main theme of the program was suicide which has been one of the major social problem in both Japan and Korea recently.  As for Japan, since 1998 more than thirty thousand people commit suicide every year because of various reasons.  My diocese, Niigata, has the highest rate of suicide among elderly people.  Since Caritas Japan has been tackling with this problem in Japan, Bishop Koda who is in charge of the social enlightenment program of Caritas Japan gave a talk on the topic of "Suicide and pastoral response of the Church in Japan."  Dr. Hong Kang-eui from Korea gave a talk on the topic of "Present state of suicide in Korea and policy directions."

Caritas Japan has just published a booklet on this issue based on the survey in several Catholic communities in Japan.  This booklet in Japanese is available free of charge from Caritas Japan office in Tokyo.

It seems that the Catholic Church in Korea has been receiving quite a number of new episcopal appointments in past few years so that there were number of new faces among participants.  There are 16 dioceses in Japan.  Korea also have the same number of the diocese including the military ordinary but the total number of bishops are much more than Japan since there are several auxiliaries.  Whenever I visit the Catholic Church in Korea, I really feel overwhelmed by their size and power.  According to the statics, there are more than 4 million Catholic in South Korea which is around 9% of the population while there are around half a million Catholics in Japan which is far less than 1% of the population.  There are around 700 priests in the Seoul archdiocese while I have less than 20 priests in my diocese.      

Caritas Diocesan directors met in Hiroshima

Caritas Japan has organised an annual diocesan directors meeting from 9 to 11 November in Hiroshima.  Though the respective dioceses have quite different type of Caritas organisations, majority of the directors from 16 Catholic dioceses in Japan got together in the diocesan administration office in Hiroshima.  As these directors have been appointed by their own bishops for charitable activities or welfare activities in their dioceses and not directly for the national organisation, Caritas Japan have to coordinate with the diocesan directors at least once a year to ask their assistance especially in fund raising activities.  Without assistance from them, Caritas Japan is unable to organise fund raising as we have been doing.

It was my second time to visit Hiroshima.  Since I did not have enough time to visit the A-bomb memorial last time, I wanted to make sure to take time to visit the memorial.  I have been to Nagasaki memorial several times but Hiroshima memorial also had quite an impact on me.  We human beings should utilise our wisdom which has been granted by God to avoid such misery of our own making.  (Photo above:  Hiroshima Peace memorial Chapel with a statue of JPII who visited Hiroshima in 1981)

Seoul Pax Forum

I was honored to be invited as a keynote speaker for the 2010 Seoul Pax Forum organised by the Catholic Education Foundation and the Catholic University of Korea on 5 November in Seoul.  The Foundation was established in 1994 with the sponsorship of the Seoul Archdiocese and is currently administering several schools in Seoul Archdiocese including the Catholic University of Korea.  The venue of the forum was the St. Mary's Hospital which is also under the administration of the Foundation.  This is the second forum organised by the Foundation with the theme, "Solidarity for Asian Peace".  It was my first experience to give a talk outside Japan and also in completely prepared English text.  Because of the translation and publication of a booklet, the text had been prepared beforehand and was sent to the organising committee so that what I had to do was to just read through the text.  I spoke on the very basics of the Human Development from the view point of Catholic Church as a president of Caritas Japan.  I do believe the concept of Human Development has common value with the Gospel message and Caritas organisation of the Catholic Church could be the best tool to implement this concept since the Caritas organisation is both global and local at the same time.  Caritas organisation is always with people in grassroots level since the organisation completely rely on the local Church structure.  Where there is a Catholic Church, then there is Caritas.

I am grateful to the organizer of the forum to invite me to share my thoughts on development and also share our experience, for Caritas Japan,  to be a part of peace building and development in Asia.

This is the day, for Shinjo.

A Catholic community in Shinjo in Yamagata prefecture has finally acquired their own place of worship on Thursday, 28 October.  It took more than 9 years to make their dream come true.  According to the sharing by one of their leading members, when she had arrived in Shinjo area 22 years ago, she could find everything she needed for her life except a place of worship.  In the year 2001, Fr. Honma, then a parish priest of Tsuruoka decided to travel to Shinjo to celebrate the Holy Eucharist in a public facility and asked her to invite her friends to come for the Mass.  She went around the town to find her friends even during the shopping in a local supermarket.  When I first visited their community in 2005, I was actually surprised to know that so many of them were there.  The majority of the Catholic community in Shinjo are from Philippines.  In 80's and 90's, the local government invited Filipinos, Chinese and Korean ladies to come to Japan to be wives of local Japanese farmers.  In 2007, when I made yet another visit to the community, I asked them to count the actual number of Filipinos in the area and we found out that there are more than 100 residing.  They are not only wives but also mothers of many kids who had been baptised.  During that visit, the community expressed their desire to build their own Church.  I was skeptical.  The community did not have enough fund in their coffers.  There were, and even now, only 2 local Japanese members in the community of Shinjo.  So when they asked me about building their Church, I said "yes" but, in fact, I thought it would be just a dream.

But God has his own plan and he provided us everything what we needed.  In my 2009 pastoral letter, I asked the entire diocese to consider to support the Shinjo so that we might be able to build a Church by 2012 when the Niigata diocese celebrates its 100th anniversary.  But an abandoned private kindergarten building and its land was put on sale last year and the information was brought to the diocese by Fr. Honma, the parish priest of Yamagata and in charge of Shinjo.  Still I was in doubt since we did not have enough contribution at that time and the Niigata diocese is not so financially well-off with only 7,000 Catholics.  However, God has his own plan to be realised.  In my surprise, so many people and parish communities,including several individuals from other dioceses, made significant contributions and early this year, we managed to purchase the property.  Thank God.  It took 6 moths to refurbish the building to make a kindergarten to a church.  A significant contributions also made us able to purchase a wonderful set of stained glasses.

As Catholic Church in Japan does not have sufficient outposts in rural villages, the presence of so many Filipinos in the villages as wives and mothers are quite crucial for the evengelisation in Japan.  In fact, as I have been telling them, they are missionaries sent to Japan to be witness of the Word of God despite their different reasons to be in Japan.  God has his own plan to proclaim his good news in Japan.

Thank you for the effort made by the Shinjo community and support from other Catholic communities in the Niigata diocese.  I also thank all other people outside the diocese who has been supporting the Catholics in Shinjo.  Now is the time for the members in Shinjo, with 2 Japanese, many Filipinos and many more kids, to consider the Church as their "base" of the life and make long-term plan to maintain the building and develop the community.  We are always with you.