austraLasia #1874
Fr Shirieda's moving story of conversion
ROME: 12th June 2007 -- Fr John Bosco Shirieda is reported on
www.sdb.org to have died at the age of 75, at the UPS in Rome, on 10th
June. The outline that follows however, is from his own hand, and signed
in Tokyo, 1998. It is a moving story, one which needs to be abbreviated
here for obvious reasons.
"Japan, 15th August 1945, the end of World War
II. I had lost everything: my father, an infantry commander, had died in
the camps in China back in 1937. Our home in Kagoshima was burned to the ground
under the furious final American bombardments. At one point I dreamed of
following my father in a glorious military career, but this dream was long
since dead. I also lost a best friend at Hiroshima.
The task was to rebuild life modestly, and that had to start
with somewhere to live. There was wood aplenty in Japan after the war -
but no nails! One day I tried taking a handful from a Catholic church in
Miyakonojo, being built with the help of American soldiers. On the one
hand I disliked stealing. On the other it was absolutely necessary and
then again, to steal from these hated foreigners (and more so from Catholics),
who had destroyed my life's dreams seemed almost a good thing.
So there I was with more nails than I could carry - all
going well, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was a white man, a priest. I
imagined myself, hands and feet bound, shut up in prison. I immediately thought
of my mother who had called me 'Masayuki', the 'just one', and who had taught
me to be honest. My worst thought was what this theft would mean to her, so I
cried out, spontaneously, 'Sir, do what you like with me, but don't tell my
mother'! As a response the man put his hands in the drawer where the
nails were, gave me some and sent me off without a word about Christianity. All
he said was 'If you need more, come back'! I went home flabbergasted.
That night I saw his face in my dreams teaching me to GIVE - in that post war
period when everyone in Japan was taking.
So the day after I returned to find the priest. I told
him I was putting aside thoughts of being a general in the Imperial Army and
instead wanted to learn to be like him. I would never have said I wanted to be
a Christian though! But what I saw in him was a teacher of life. He
was a witness to it.
I did receive baptism at some point after that, without
understanding much at all of the Christian mysteries but for one thing - the
Christian is one who looks to God alone who is love as Christ was. He offers
his own life for the salvation of others. That missionary's name was Fr
Adino Roncato (from Venice) and I am in debt to that life of grace.
During a fire in Tokyo (our own technical school) he rushed
into the flames to save a friend of mine, and died amongst those flames,
embracing the young Japanese he had gone to save. Don Adino was reduced to a
handful of ashes. He used say, when he was alive, 'Masayuki, I would like
to become a part of your Japanese soil', and that's what he became, literally.
That was when I saw, for the first time, the example of a life consumed for
God's love.
I decided, then, to become a second Don Adino, a Salesian
and priest like him. That's why I ended up in Italy, and became his mother's
adopted son. Rosa died in my arms 20 years later, on the same day her son had
died."
The story goes on, but to sum it up, Fr Shirieda points out
that his brother became a Salesian, and priest, his sister an FMA, and his
mother became a Catholic and Salesian Cooperator.
He puts it all down to the fruitfulness of one who 'did not
ask what he could expect from life but what life could expect from him - and
gave it'.
And now Fr Shirieda himself has followed his beloved Don
Adino into the loving arms of the Father. He was in Rome from 1974/5 until his
death. He was undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious
Dialogue for 25 years and a professor at the UPS.
_________________
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