austraLasia 789
CIMATTI'S MIRACLE - IT'S THERE TO BE
SEEN
TOKYO: Sunday 11th January '04
-- Just one miracle is required for Mons. Vincent Cimatti's Cause to advance to
Beatification. If God so wishes and Rome decrees, that may not be so far
off, suggests Japan's local postulator for the cause, Fr. Gaetano Compri.
But for the visitor, simply to catch some glimpses of this Province in action as
it begins 2004 reveals another miracle, a 'healthy' miracle, the Salesian Japan
that was bequeathed as the enduring gift of Cimatti's goodness so evident now in
his spiritual sons and daughters.
What exactly is this gift? The Cimatti
museum at Chofu and its energetic director the aforementioned Fr. Compri, leave
one in no doubt that Cimatti's holiness and his gift to Japan's Salesianity was
one of extraordinary and vital Christian humanism. Where did the man find
the time to write those thousand personal letters, publish that multitude of
scholarly articles on everything from Agriculture to Zen, collect and catalogue
those myriad fossils, shells and butterflies, compose those hundreds of Tantum
Ergo's, Operettas, Ave Maria's, perform those concerts with snatches of Verdi,
teach those children - and form those Salesians?
Holy, God-driven energy in abundance, and you see
it now in those he formed and through those, in those now being
formed.
Is this why Bro Tanaka (Solomon Islands) also
sings Verdi? Why Fr. Abe Nakamoro, pursuing his doctoral studies at Sophia
University in Tokyo can write of the sense of beauty in Japanese life (the
flower, for example) as the key to understanding the Christian revelation of
God's loving providence - and by implication of the wonder of the Preventive
System which also inculcates a sense of beauty? Why we come across Fr.
Suzuki running around the courtyard with the Elementary kids after school at
Kodaira and so obviously loved and appreciated by all the youngsters there and
in the nearby Junior High? Is it in the kindness of Bro Mori at Provincial
House, in the smiling face of Fr. Lam, the Rector there and indeed in the
generous hospitality of each community and in particular the community at
Salesian Polytechnic Ikuei?
The answer must be yes. It will also
explain why Fr. Ishikawa bears a face of suffering after so much dedicated work
in Scripture study, and why the ever cheerful, at-your-service Fr. Bob Zarate,
missionary from the Philippines, has learned more Japanese in three years than
many would in a lifetime. The Venerable Cimatti's influence is
all-pervasive and rather obvious, when you think about it. He lived and
taught self-sacrificing love, gentleness, joy and an appreciation of
everything that is human. Add that to the finesse of the Japanese
character and you have a brew more potent than the local saki.
If this sounds like a tribute to the Salesians in
Japan it is! We need good news stories, and perhaps we need to hear
more from a province that has gone on quietly developing and enculturating the
Salesian charism in an Asian context all these years. The Province,
too, is exporting some of this goodness through its missionary endeavour in the
Solomons and volunteer activity in East Timor. But these are stories
yet to tell.
_______________________
'austraLasia' is an email service for the Salesian
Family of Asia-Pacific
