austraLasia 1670

50 years celebrates more than a church in Tokyo-Shimoigusa

TOKYO: 22nd October 2006 -- When parish priest, Italian-born Fr Giovanni Battista Massa stood before his parishioners and other well-wishers today at Tokyo-Shimoigusa's Mary Help of Christians parish church, it was more than a simple Golden Jubilee of that Church.  Fr Massa was himself celebrating his priestly Golden Jubilee, and together with his church and his people they were celebrating the story of the Salesians in Japan.
    When Don Cimatti, beloved founder of Salesian work in Japan, began work in Miyazaki in 1926, he already had eyes on Tokyo for a Salesian presence.  That came true nine years later when, at the end of 1934, the Salesians opened their first presence in Tokyo precisely in Shimoigusa, an outer suburban area famous for its cabbages!  The first concern was to establish a small technical school which eventually grew into the Salesian Polytechnic, a huge educational enterprise which has now moved some suburbs away.
    Naturally, the other early attention was vocations, and Don Cimatti soon had a novitiate operating at Shimoigusa.  The work grew, then came the war with its disastrous bombardments of Tokyo. Don Cimatti promised that if there were no victims amongst the Salesians and damage to the work, he would build a church in honour of Mary Help of Christians (repeating a similar promise by the Rector Major, Fr Ricaldone, at Colle Don Bosco where the small Shrine to MHC now stands).
    The protection of the Mother of God was obvious, and Don Cimatti kept his promise.  He began construction in 1948 but it took 7 years in that difficult immediate post-war period.  Overseeing the construction was the man who became its first parish priest, Fr Giovanni Mantegazza. With foresight he built a sufficiently large church to accommodate the hoped-for growth.  And so it was.  He began with some 150 faithful back then.  Today the parish numbers around 2,300 and growing, since the area once occupied by the Salesian Polytechnic has now been turned over to housing with an expected increase of some 500 families to the area.
    Today's celebration becomes, then, a new opening for evangelisation.  The celebration has been well prepared with days of reflection, study, prayer.  Fr Massa reminded the parishioners today that the alterations he has made to the main entrance to the church are a visible symbol of a more profound entrance by each Christian present into communion with Christ. He encouraged each of them to be ready to carry Christ's message beyond its walls to a people who are constantly hungering for the truth.
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