Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).
Please remember in your prayers the soul of Columban Father Noel Doyle who died peacefully in the early hours of Good Friday and was buried here in St Columban's Cemetery, Dalgan Park, Ireland, yesterday, Easter Monday.
Father Noel spent most of his life as a missionary priest in Japan. His obituary is here.
Gospel Mark 6:1-6(English Standard Version, Anglicised)
Jesus
went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed
him.And on the Sabbath he began to teach in
the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did
this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty
works done by his hands?Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary
and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his
sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his
relatives and in his own household.”And he could do no mighty work there, except
that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.And he marveled because of their
unbelief.
Both the New
American Bible and the Jerusalem Bible lectionaries read, He was amazed
at their lack of faith. Jesus was among his own people, in the town where
his brothers and sisters, ie, his cousins, lived. Perhaps his amazement was a
form of frustration. Missionaries are men and women who are often 'amazed' at
what seems to be their lack of 'success' in changing the situation, whether it
is leading people to faith in Jesus Christ or working among baptised people for
the justice that the Gospel demands but evidently isn't there.
Yet
Jesus laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. In other
words, he found some who responded in faith.
One Columban
priest who found faith in Keiko, a very sick 14-year-old girl in Japan, was Fr
James Norris, a New Zealander who died on 6 October 2007. Japan is still a
country where fewer than one in two hundred are Catholics. He wrote about his
experience in Far East, the magazine of the Columbans in
Ireland and Britain, in 1973. Father Jim's article made a profound impact on me
and is a story that moves me each time I think
about it. Maybe the few who believed and were healed consoled Jesus in his
humanity. Maybe he felt something of what Father Norris describes in the
closing paragraph of his article.
The story of Keiko and her parents shows us that our Catholic Christian faith
is a gift from God, a gift for which we should thank him every day. It is a story that highlights what the mission of the Church is, ie the mission of each baptised person: to prepare the way for others to know Jesus Christ.
And Keiko in a very real sense was and continues to be a prophet, though not at first recognised as such by those around her. Her radiant smile in the photo above, taken nearly 50 years ago, still touches my heart because it reveals God's love for her and for each of us.
There is a high school in our parish for nearly
2,000 girls conducted by the Sisters of the Infant of Jesus. Very few of these
girls are baptized Christians. As a means of contact, I teach English to the
junior high school pupils three times a week. My classes are very informal and
I am afraid the young ladies don’t take me very seriously, possibly because I
give them no homework or exams. My specialty is supposed to be pronunciation
and intonation.
One day, early in November 1971, I received a
summons from one of my little pupils, Keiko Uemura, aged 14. She was very sick
in the hospital and wished to be baptized. I hadn’t noticed her absence at
school. The nuns were full of apologies for not letting me know, but they
hadn’t thought her illness was serious; moreover, she had never shown any real
interest in religion but on the contrary, during religious classes seemed to
take a delight in trying to tie the Sister up in knots with embarrassing
questions.
When I visited her she seemed in good spirits.
After ascertaining that she really did believe and had sufficient knowledge to
realize what she was doing, I baptized her. A few days later I returned to the
hospital with several books that explained the faith simply and would help her
to pray. She began to prepare for her first Holy Communion. I discovered that
despite her seemingly frivolous behavior during religion classes, she had
retained quite a lot and what was more, in her present crisis could believe,
simply and totally, with no reservations.
In December she was moved to the University
hospital, the largest in town and the best equipped. Keiko herself was not
aware of it, but she was suffering from a rare type of bone cancer that
sometimes afflicted children. The doctor gave her three months to live. Her
parents were wonderful. One of them was always near her, day and night. In her
case this devoted warm parental love was an actual grace that served to open
out and expand her soul to receive the grace of God’s love. As Keiko responded
to God’s love, the change in her thinking and outlook, her values, could not
fail to impress her parents who in turn were drawn along by the girl towards
God.
About Christmas time she made her first Holy
Communion. She was radiantly happy that day, as is evident from the photo.
Present for the occasion were her parents and some of the Sisters from the
school. I made a tape recording for future use. Each week I took her Holy
Communion. Her mother prepared the altar and with Keiko read the book on
doctrine explaining the faith.
Home for the
New Year
The girl was permitted to return home for three
days over the New Year. As a result of an operation she had recovered so well
that she could walk about slowly with the aid of crutches. She believed she was
on the way to complete recovery; she was full of roseate plans for her future,
a trip to Lourdes followed by a life of service as a nurse to crippled
children. Her father hoped against hope for a miracle, but on the quiet he
assured me that it was only a question of time.
Spiritual
progress
During the next three months she made tremendous
spiritual progress. Her mother told me that she herself was sometimes concerned
by the flood of visitors, who often outstayed their welcome, even when Keiko
was in pain. But the girl never showed it; she always put on a cheerful front
and showed her gratitude to all-comers. Later when her mother grumbled about
the inconsiderateness of some people, the girl stopped her with: ‘Mother, it may
be alright for you to complain because you are not a Christian, but I am one
now and must love everybody. Besides, the visitors come because they are
interested in me and I am grateful for this.’ Apart from the occasional sigh or
moan that escaped her lips, she never complained of the pain.
As the long winter faded, the cherry blossom trees
along the Shirakawa River responded to the warm April sun and flooded the banks
with a soft pink mist. I could see the blossoms from the window of her room,
but the girl was too young to appreciate the pathos of their beauty – those
petals whose destiny was to diffuse their delicate beauty for a brief span,
only to be caught by the slightest breeze and flutter to the earth from which
they sprang. Keiko never saw her own life and destiny in those blossoms.
About the middle of April she began to weaken.
Within a week, she had lost consciousness and was given oxygen. She died
peacefully on 27 April. The church was filled at her funeral. Her classmates
were heartbroken and inconsolable, far more emotionally upset than her family.
Indeed, I was surprised at how calmly her parents bore their great loss. I
discovered it was because they had received the grace of the faith through the
girl’s influence, even before they had begun any formal instructions. They were
convinced that she still lived on in God and that they would meet her again.
Whole family
converted
A week after the funeral her parents and her
brother began their study of the doctrine. They were model catechumens. Every
night before the family altar, united to Keiko in spirit, they said the rosary
and read a chapter from the Scriptures. I baptized them on 6 November, the
anniversary of Keiko’s baptism. There were tears of joy in their eyes that day
as they realized they were united to their daughter by grace within the bosom
of God the Father.
One of Keiko’s closest friends who was shattered
by her death but very impressed by the spiritual change in the girl before her
death, has resolved to follow in her footsteps and pursue the ideal of service
Keiko set for herself had she lived. She is now under instructions and intends to become a nurse.
Fr James Norris after officiating at the joint wedding ceremony of three brothers in Japan.
Testimony of
her faith
There was nothing sensational about this girl’s
short life. She did nothing that would merit notice in the mass media; her life
created no more of a stir in society than a petal falling to the ground. But I
am convinced her story is real news and a genuine success story. In these days
of superficial sensationalism, even we Christians tend to forget that the real
battles of life are won or lost within the depths of the heart where a man
meets his God and says yes or no.
Moreover, in
a country like Japan, a missioner seldom sees the grace of God’s action working
so powerfully and swiftly in a soul. Such tangible evidence of God’s presence
is almost a physical sign of His love which bolsters one’s hope no end,
enabling the missioner to keep going. This slip of a girl was a candle in the
darkness, a spring flower in the desert.
Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.
