Thanksgiving Mass was celebrated on 7, Sunday at 3:30 pm in Sapporo Cathedral to show our gratitude to Bishop Peter Toshio Jinushi, bishop emeritus of Sapporo. Holy Father accepted the resignation of Bishop Jinushi on 17 November, 2009. Cathedral was packed by so many well-wishers from all over the diocese of Sapporo. I presided over the Mass as an apostolic administrator of the diocese. After the Mass, a small but friendly and warm party was organised by the laity council in the parish kindergarten hall.
Then there was a priest representative's meeting of Sapporo on Monday which used to be the Priests' council. When a diocesan bishop retires, then a priests' council is also dissolved. So at this moment there is no priests' council existing in Sapporo diocese, however, we need some sort of organisation to discuss and decide about diocesan activities among priests. That is why I decided to call the priest representatives' meeting.
Because of heavy snow in Niigata and the airport had been closed for 3 days, I could not reach Sapporo by scheduled flight on Saturday. So I went down to Tokyo by train and took a flight from Haneda to Sapporo on Sunday morning. Since snow subsided a bit, I was able to travel back to Niigata on Monday by an Air Do (Hokkaido International Air) flight. It's not easy to move around during winter season in Niigata and Sapporo.
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