“The past,” Faulkner warned “is never dead”, nor is it really past. Until we break down the barrier of division and fear that goes back many generations, no new bridges of hope can be built. Ever since General Congregations 35 and 36, the Society of Jesus has made reconciliation a key message. It is the theme that brought Fr General Arturo Sosa to Asia in the summer of 2019.
Continue reading “Traveling the long road to peace and reconciliation”
Some months ago, Fr Juan Masiá SJ interviewed his Jesuit brother and former Jesuit Superior General Fr Adolfo Nicolás SJ on Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to Japan. Fr Nicolás told Fr Masiá: “Francis will certainly come in the footsteps of Xavier, but he will not see the other religions as if they were the enemy or the competition, but as traveling companions to give each other life with the joy of the Gospel and the joy of love”.
Below is an unofficial translation of the interview, originally done in Spanish.
Conversations in Japan by Juan Masiá with Adolfo Nicolás
At Loyola House, the residence for elderly Jesuits who pray for the world, the Church and the Society, Fr Adolfo Nicolás, former Superior General of the Jesuits, received with satisfaction the good news of Pope Francis’ trip to Thailand and Japan. The news came precisely when he reviewed the text of a colloquium-epilogue on the posthumous work of K Kadowaki (Jesuit pioneer of inculturation and integrator of Zen spirituality with Christian prayer, well known for his book Zen and the Bible). It was the right time to pray with Francis for Japan and from Japan, to pray for Francis. In this context, these conversations about evangelisation arose; but they were interrupted when his health was affected by an illness in mid-September. We publish in the blog, with your permission, the first entries of the series, hoping to complete them, God willing, after the messages of Francis in Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Adolfo Nicolás (AN): We are used to hearing from Francis his favorite refrain: “Pray for me.” May this go both ways: to pray with Francis for Japan and from Japan, to pray for Francis, supporting his evangelical spring.
Juan Masiá (JM): Too much for a post and too little for a complete article.
AN: Also, this fragment might help you think.
JM: Let’s start with the trip, a dream of the young Bergoglio is realised, a dream he had on the day he was missioned, but not granted because of health problems. Now he comes to evangelise in the footsteps of Xavier.
AN: To evangelise, yes, and also to let the West be evangelised. “The sower went out to sow and … it was found that the wheat was already sprouting.” It is the Spirit that had sown before. Our Asian colleagues said it and our companion, Fr Codina, says it about the Amazon…
JM: Xavier came in the footsteps of the Spirit.
AN: Francis will come after Xavier’s same footsteps, but with a different background and style from Xavier’s time. I took part in the Synod on the New Evangelisation, but I did not see the errors of the old evangelisation come to the fore. Xavier brought the theology of his time, he thought that “outside the church there is no salvation” and that the so-called “pagans were rushing en masse into hell.” Today, after Vatican II, the mission as colonisation and proselytism is no longer happening, nor are conversions captured with threats of eternal punishment. Francis will certainly come in the footsteps of Xavier, but he will not see the other religions as if they were the enemy or the competition, but as traveling companions to give each other life with the joy of the Gospel and the joy of love: Evangelii Gaudium, Amoris Laetitia , and to protect all life: Laudato si’.
JM: “Protecting all life” is the official motto of Francis’ visit to Japan, which includes central themes of those exhortations well received by the Japanese bishops that, when they appeal for peace, life and justice, or for the abolition of the death penalty, or for the suppression of nuclear weapons, or against the destruction of the environment and the “throw-away” economy, they do so by joining similar movements from within other religions and in union with them.
AN: That is especially true for cooperation with Buddhism, with which we agree and share four great themes that are very endearing to Francis: contemplation, mercy, discernment and the just protection of all life.
JM: This gives us a lot of stuff for the following posts. We will continue preparing for Francis’ coming with these conversations while we pray with him for Japan and from Japan, pray for him. [Religión Digital]
For more than three weeks now, Fr Adolfo Nicolás SJ has been in the hospital, receiving good medical treatment, and enjoying the close care of our brethren of the Japan Province. His condition is now stable. The Jesuits in Japan, the Conference of Major Superiors of Asia Pacific and the General Curia of the Society of Jesus request all Jesuits, partners in mission, and friends for prayers.
~Statement released by Fr Antoine Kerhuel SJ, Secretary of the Society of Jesus
Photographing Fr General Arturo Sosa’s six-day visit was a daunting task, given the flurry of activities. There was pressure to capture the moment, the perfect image. In his evening talk at St Ignatius, low light levels offered a big challenge since quick movements blurred the image. At Sophia University, when Fr General spoke of the role of a Jesuit university in the world, the university’s communications team was anxious to have multiple photos to choose from. Their shutters clicked incessantly and audibly, taking what seemed like 10 photos per click. In the province assembly, the difficulty was trying to fit everyone into one shot.
Sometimes it was easy to lose sight of the main focus. During the Mass at St Ignatius, when a song to Our Lady was being sung, two children near the doors of the church started to pull on the hands of their mother. Some elderly women looked with reproach since the children’s shrieks vied with the soprano’s clear crisp voice. As the women looked away, they did not realise that the children were in fact pulling their mother over to the statue of Our Lady. One child even clasped the hands of Our Lady delicately, her eyes looking up at her with wonder. Filled with emotion, I failed to capture what would have been a meaningful photograph.
The most iconic image of the visit was unplanned. As Fr Adolfo Nicolás blessed Fr General in Loyola House, Fr Sanji Yamaoka, the Province Socius, captured that moment on his smartphone. The post became viral as soon as we uploaded it. The image expressed a fraternal bond, a sense of community that Jesuits and our lay partners all aspire for.
During that visit to Loyola House, someone asked what improvement the Society needed that they could pray for. After pausing briefly, Fr General said, “Community life.” From then on, I noticed that “community” influenced the angle of our coverage.
And so, while feasting on the barbecue (asada in Spanish ) prepared by Fr Provincial Renzo De Luca and Fr Juan Haidar at the scholasticate, while enjoying the music in Elisabeth University, and as laughter resonated in the Nagatsuka and Yamaguchi communities, the afterimage of brother Jesuits blessing each other never left us.
At a sumptuous meal Fr Saturnino Ochoa and Br Nobuchika Muraoka prepared in Fukuoka to cap the visit, Fr General, visibly tired but happy, remarked, “I am grateful that my visit became a good excuse for our brothers to gather”. Perhaps it was not merely the General’s visit that brought us joy. It was in seeing each other and remembering that we are companions of Jesus.
Fr Jody Magtoto SJ is a Filipino from the Japanese Jesuit Province and works in communications.
Students from Jesuit universities in Indonesia, Philippines, Korea, Timor-Leste and Japan spent two weeks learning about post-disaster community recovery from the experience of Japan. Through volunteer activities and exchanges with people from the local community, the students studied the progress of the reconstruction and recovery of Iwate Prefecture, badly hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.
During the first few days of their arrival, the participants attended lectures on Ignatian education and spirituality, and post-disaster recovery at Sophia University in Tokyo to prepare them for their service learning trip. Then they were sent out for their immersion to Iwate Prefecture.
In the city of Kamaishi, the students helped farmers weed at a local non-profit organisation farm, cleaned factory buildings, helped organise a festival for a nursery school and staged cultural dance performances for the elderly at a nursing home. Students and staff also joined the “Kamaishi Yoisa Festival”, a traditional dance festival held every summer.
Since the students were there foremost to learn about disaster recovery, they visited areas that were worst hit by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake: the towns of Ofunato, Rikuzentakada, which was severely struck by the tsunami, and Unosumai and Otsuchi next to Kamaishi. With them was a professional tour guide who survived the disaster. In Ofunato, the students interacted with Japanese and Filipino Catholics who were brought together fortuitously by the tsunami. In the aftermath of the disaster, the town’s small Japanese Catholic community went around providing aid to survivors when they encountered hundreds of Filipino Catholics also living there. Since then, the Japanese and Filipino Catholics have revitalised the Catholic community, filling the Ofunato Church during Mass.
Some students experienced life-transforming changes in their values and perspectives from listening to the painful stories of the survivors. Many of them realised the importance of faith and gratitude for their life and surroundings. The students also discussed the case in their own countries, reflecting on ways to address natural disasters from their newly gained knowledge. The impact of their experience was evident in the sincerity and seriousness of the group reflections each evening and at the end of the programme.
“As an engineering student, my engagement with the local people opened my eyes to see beyond the colours of hazard maps and the sciences of infrastructure design and construction,” shared Garnelo Jose Cupay from Xavier University in the Philippines. “The call to magis for me is a call to listen and see the stories of the people who have been affected, and provide them with what they truly need.”
The activity was part of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities – Asia Pacific’s annual Service Learning Program held this year from August 1 to 14 and hosted by Sophia University. Twenty-eight students and nine faculty members joined from eight universities, including six students from Sanata Dharma University in Indonesia, seven from the four Ateneo Universities in the Philippines (Manila, Davao, Zamboanga and Cagayan de Oro), four from Sogang University in South Korea, two from Instituto São João de Brito in Timor-Leste and nine from Sophia University. [With reporting from Sophia University]
For the Buddhist Studies and Dialogue Group of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific, there was no better place to talk about peace and reconciliation, the theme of this year’s workshop, other than Hiroshima. The city devastated by the first atomic bomb now stands as a beacon of peace and reconciliation. Continue reading “Engaging in Buddhist-Christian dialogue towards peace and reconciliation”
“Our language and culture might be different, but what mattered most is the emotional connection we had. This allowed us to be more open to cross our borders.” Yohana Pegas Syane of Gonzaga College (Jakarta) realised this after participating in the six-day 4th Ignatian Student Leadership Forum (ISLF).
More than 70 student leaders from 19 Jesuit secondary schools in Japan, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines and Timor-Leste gathered in Tokyo for the forum. It was storming when they arrived on August 8, accompanied by their teachers, but by the time they reached the Sophia University Junior College Hadano campus on the outskirts of Tokyo, a full rainbow blazed in the sky to welcome them.
Fr Sali Augustine SJ, Sophia School Corporation Trustee for General Affairs, welcomed the delegates and presided at the opening Mass. It did not take long for the delegates to bond and make friends, especially with the sports activities the next day.
ISLF began six years ago when five schools in Asia Pacific decided to hold a gathering of student leaders together. They wanted to offer student leaders a chance to get to know their peers in other Jesuit schools and learn from each other about Ignatian leadership in their contexts and experiences. The first ISLF was hosted by Xavier School in Manila.
This year’s theme, “Beyond the Border”, challenged the student leaders to go beyond their own cultures and comfort zones as they discussed world issues such as migration, war and ecology. They also had an opportunity for immersion. Scholastic Naoki Ochi SJ, who conceived the theme, explained that he opted not to use the verb “cross” because “to cross the border is a grace”.
He also hopes that ISLF will help to “promote inter-province events more and more because differences of provinces are not boundaries”. Indeed, this is what many participants realised.
“I grew up in a country where it is so easy to create a lot of borders. But this is not helpful for my country and for the world,” said Ruka Matsumoto of Sophia Fukuoka (Japan). “I’ve realised that I can begin to change this perspective if I change my own perspective first.“
Jules Malhabour of Ateneo de Iloilo (Philippines) said that the most significant lesson he learnt is that people create their own borders. “We are the ones who create our own ‘borders’ and therefore, only we have the ability to erase them. The ISLF experience truly opened both my eyes, and my heart.”
For Danielle Francine Reyes, also from Ateneo de Iloilo, the ISLF was “a bridge among these differences, [that] built strong friendships among countries and brought us fruitful experiences”.
Aprilia de Jesus of Colégio de Santo Inácio de Loiola (Timor-Leste) agrees. “Our differences in cultures and languages do not separate us because we are united as sons and daughters of St Ignatius”.
The forum was also a rewarding experience for the teachers and organising team.
Wah Yan College (Hong Kong) teacher Kei Fung Vic Chan was pleased to see how the students grew as they were given the flexibility to discover what they could do and to explore their personal growth. “In the classroom, teachers at times focus on strategies rather than the person of the students. This is in itself a border that divides. With ISLF I saw how the students learnt more deeply than what is taught in the classroom,” she said.
Muyako Sakura of the Jesuit Education Center office helped to organise the event, and was happy to see the students gradually open up their eyes and hearts to issues of migrants, wars, and ecology.
For Yoshitoshi Kado, a volunteer from Tokyo University, the forum was an “unforgettable memory”. “It was the first time in my life to talk about faith in the Lord with teenagers from other countries and it was very stimulating,” he said.
At the end of the forum, Scholastic Kotaro Mori SJ, who headed the organising committee, likened the ISLF experience to that of the disciples on their way to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). They all felt a burning in their hearts, a common flame that will hopefully inspire them to go out into the world beyond their borders.
