NAGASAKI: 26 September 2012
-- On
Monday 24 September, Fr Pascual Chávez made a flying
visit to Nagasaki.
Earlier that day he had been in Osaka, visiting Salesians and
Salesian
Sisters and catching up with the 600 students at the Seiko
Gakuin
Salesian school, where he blessed a large statue of Don Bosco
at the
entrance to the school.
The Rector Major was met by an enthusiastic group of 50 or so
Salesians
on his arrival at Nagasaki airport that afternoon. The
following day he
was able to fulfill a long-held wish to visit the Oura church
(built
over a place where early Japanese Christians had preserved the
faith
for some 250 years during the period of Japan's isolation),
the
Cathedral at Urakami, the Peace monument and finally the
Atomic Bomb
Museum where he prayed and meditated for some time.
On the afternoon of the 25th he met the Salesian Family at the
church
at Nakamachi, attended by some 200 people. After Mass the
children from
the Sisters of Charity of Jesus' school were amongst others
who offered
the RM various items and examples of Japanese dancing.
The Rector Major has now left Japan and is on his way to Turin
where he
will present the missionary cross to 45 Salesians, and others
from the
FMA and volunteers. One of the Salesians will later be going
to Japan
as a missionary.
This is the first long and demanding journey, full of
appointments,
that the Rector Major has made since falling ill earlier in
the year.
By all accounts he has stood up well to the ordeal.
Although he had prepared texts (in Italian) the Rector Major
for the
most part spoke off the cuff as he is wont to do on these
occasions. Should anybody be interested in the written
texts,
which have not been translated into English, it is just a
matter of
asking and you can receive them.
