Happy and blessed Easter!

Happy and blessed Easter to you all!

Thanks for the hard work of the parish priest and his assistant, Fr. Ebe and Fr. Sakamoto, to prepare very well 3 candidates for this year's Easter baptism, I was happy to welcome three ladies for the sacrament to join the community.  There was one baptism on Easter Vigil and 2 on Easter Sunday.  In addition, 2 high school students, a boy and a girl, received the sacrament of confirmation on Easter Sunday.  Congratulations to all of you who received these sacraments and welcome to join our Catholic community in Niigata.

It is all about passing over.  We have to find out from and to where we have to pass over.   As resurrected Jesus did not remain at the place where he had been laid, those who received into new life have to also leave where we are and move into completely different place,or take completely new way of living based on new values.  So what are we leaving behind us?  Also as Peter said we also have to be a witnesses of what we experienced.  As we contemplate about the reality of Japan at this moment especially the situation after the March 11 disaster, we seriously think about what kind of message or value we are going to witness to other people in Japan.  As for moral decisions, there should be only "Yes" or "No" and should not be any compromise in between, though in reality, we are often unable to meet the requirements and fail.  If we are obliged to protect human life which is a precious gift of God, then we have to be real witnesses of the value and say "No" to any political move to destroy it such as re-opening of nuclear power plants in Japan even though no one actually knows the real cause of the accident in Fukushima yet.

Though the cherry blossom of this spring is coming quite slow and we still can not feel real spring in Niigata yet, Easter celebration, as usual, brings warm and bright feelings of spring time.   I wish all of you very happy Easter.