First Station – Condemned to Death
March 9, 2010
Pilate's First Interrogation of Christ, 1308-1311, Duccio di Buoninsegna, (b. ca. 1255, Siena, d. 1319, Siena), Tempera on wood, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena
The subject of each Station of the Cross can suffice for an entire meditation. When we attended Stations as schoolchildren on every Friday during Lent, I often felt this way: “No, stop, I’m not ready to go to the next Station yet.” At that time I didn’t know about the practice of meditation. It seems that children could benefit from learning about meditation so they can form the habit of considering thoughtfully the mysteries of Faith and develop a habit of contemplating episodes in the life of Christ more deeply.
This is the first Station of my favorite Stations of the Cross.
Jesus is Condemned to Death
V. We adore Thee O Christ and we praise Thee.
R. Because by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.1
And in the morning the chief priests and the whole council, binding Jesus, led Him away and delivered Him to Pilate. And they all condemned Him and said: He is guilty of death. And Pilate sat in the place of judgment and delivered Him to them to be crucified.2
V. God spared not His only Son.
R. But delivered Him up for all of us.3
Let us Pray.
O Lord, Jesus Christ, / who didst come down to earth from the bosom of the Father in heaven, / and didst shed Thy precious blood for the remission of our sins; / we humbly beseech Thee, that on the day of judgment we may be found worthy to be on Thy right hand / and to hear Thy words: Come ye blessed of My Father! / Who livest and reignest forever and ever. Amen.4
Hymn: Who, on Christ’s dear mother gazing pierced by anguish so amazing, born of woman would not weep?
1Tract of the votive Mass of the Holy Cross. 2Mark 15:1, Matt. 26:66, and Jn. 19: 16. 3 First antiphon of Lauds for Good Friday. (Rom. 8: 32). 4Collect, Votive Mass of the Passion of the Lord.
*****
Votive Masses are prayed for some private devotion or in special circumstances. They can be said on days when a feast is not celebrated (ferias), but may not be prayed during Lent and the Octaves of Easter and Pentecost.
Dvorák’s Stabat Mater
March 8, 2010
Many great composers have set to music the beautiful Stabat Mater hymn Catholics are so familiar with because of the Stations of the Cross. Probably none had a greater appreciation of the grief of Our Lady than Antonin Dvorák. On September 19th, 1875 his infant daughter Josefa died. On August 13, 1877 his eleven-month-old daughter died in a household accident. Within a month his son Otakar contracted small pox and died on September 8, the composer’s 36th birthday.
By November 13, 1877 the composer had completed the work, but its first performance was not done until December 23, 1880. The piece brought Dvorák such popularity he was besieged for autographs wherever he went, a sign that he wrote in a universal language everyone can understand. I highly recommend this very moving work for Lenten listening if you are into classical music.
Dvorak: Stabat Mater
About the Stabat Mater: this well known 13th century text was most likely composed by the great Franciscan, Jacapone da Todi or otherwise known, Jacapone Benedetti (1228-1306).
Stations of the Cross
March 8, 2010
Crucifixion c. 1648, Giulio Carpioni, oil on canvas, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
One of my favorite Stations of the Cross, the old 1957 copyright by the Order of St. Benedict in Collegeville, MN, has a much more elegant English translation than their current version. I mourn the fact that today’s young Catholics have been deprived of something so very beautiful and meaningful to me as a child and so I am going to type them into the blog between now and the end of Lent. If you like them, take them from this blog at your pleasure. All the liturgy references are from the Traditional Latin Mass.
Entrance Song – Stabat Mater
At the cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, close to Jesus to the last.
Through her heart His sorrow sharing, all His bitter anguish bearing, now at length the sword had passed.
Prepatory Prayer
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
In a spirit of humility and with a contrite heart, we offer unto Thee, eternal Father, this tribute of our worship, that it may redound to Thy honor and glory, and may avail us and all faithful Christians, both living and dead, unto the forgiveness of sins and the attainment of life everlasting.1
V. It behooves us to glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
R. In whom is our salvation, life and resurrection.2
Let Us Pray
O God, who in the passion of Thy Son/ didst show us the path to eternal glory by the way of the cross: / graciously grant that as by our prayers we now follow Him to the place of Calvary,/ so we may also share His triumph with Him for all eternity. / Who liveth and reigneth with Thee forever and ever. Amen.3
Oh how sad and sore distressed was that mother highly blessed, of the sole-begotten one.
Christ above in torment hangs, she beneath beholds the pangs of her dying glorious Son.
1Compiled from offertory prayers of the Traditional Latin Mass. 2Introit of Holy Thursday. 3Rite of the erection of the Stations of the Cross.
Thou Art Jules
March 7, 2010
Julia at Thou Art Jules is having a contest to celebrate her 100th post. She has 3 good books to give away that would interest parents. Visit her to participate.
Sunday Snippets – A Catholic Carnival
March 6, 2010
Welcome to our regular Sunday Snippets where you will find a group of Catholic bloggers sharing their best of the week. Some of us blog about a variety of subjects so you are sure to find something interesting. Visit our virtual living room at This That and the Other Thing where RAnn is our hostess. If you are a blogger, join us by creating a Sunday Snippets post and linking to RAnn’s site. Sign in on Mr. Linkey to create a link to your site.
This week I posted quite a few items. Archbishop Chaput of Denver gave a great talk to the Baptist University of Houston on the role of Christians in American public life. You can learn a little history of Catholicism in America here. I love this bishop! The link is: http://www.sufferingwithjoy.com/2010/03/02/a-pernicious-construct/.
Monday I gave into my arty side and posted a digital painting with a Good Friday themed poem here: http://www.sufferingwithjoy.com/2010/03/01/marys-tears/. I called it “Mary’s Tears”.
Lent for me is a yearly reminder of the need for reparation and forgiveness. I bring you Dr. Paul Takashi Nagai’s address to the parishioners on November 23, 1945 at the bishop’s Requiem Mass for those killed by the atomic bomb in Nagasaki. Really, it’s awesome. Find it here: http://www.sufferingwithjoy.com/2010/03/02/the-way-of-reparation/. I tried to find out if his cause for sainthood had been advanced but the internet search yielded nothing. I’m not giving up, though. Maybe I’ll write to his Cathedral of Maria parish in Urakami.
We’re used to hearing of Eucharistic Miracles in many centuries past, but what about today? Here’s a video about recent Eucharistic Miracles that show Jesus is still trying to get our attention. It’s a great subject for Lent and very impressive.
God bless all my readers.
Recent Eucharistic Miracles
March 5, 2010
A friend sent me this video today. For a confirmation of belief or a shoring up in the throes of doubt I offer this YouTube video on recent miracles involving the Holy Eucharist. Blessed be God. May this bring searchers to the truth and deepen the faith of believers.
Insights on Divine Providence
March 5, 2010
Portrait of a Young Man at Prayer, c.1487, Hans Memling, oil on oak panel, Upton House, Banbury
This morning I was reading Father Romano Guardini’s The Art of Praying and found these passages that seem connected in a way with Archbishop Chaput’s address to the Baptist University of Houston on March 1, 2010 where he spoke on the vocation of the Christian in American public life:
…The future of Christian life depends, among other things, on whether prayer can establish an active link with life as it is and with the stream of history. Here, again, the idea of Providence is the starting point…
The will, the Divine Providence of God is our salvation as St. Paul says (1 Thess. 4: 3), and we laity must work it out in the world, no matter how much some of us would like to flee to the cloister. The evil perpetrated by man against man and against creation cannot be lessened without each of us doing the job he has been given by God. Yet sometimes life seems to be too much to bear and we want to give up and run away. If we arrive at that point, it must be because we are depending too much on ourselves and not enough on God. We are seeking our own will and not His Providential Will. We are not praying the Our Father with an understanding of “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Perhaps the greatest lack in the world today among Christians is a failure to trust in God. It takes little to know we are in trouble and a lot to see God’s providence in bad or evil circumstances. Guardini says:
The prayer that God’s will be done therefore does not mean that the inevitable should be fulfilled and that we are prepared to resign ourselves to it. The will of God is not a fate which has to be endured, but a holy and meaningful act which ushers in a new creation. The demand is that the work should be fulfilled in the way which helps that creation most.
This is as true for the world as a whole as for the individual. The course of the world would be very different if the faithful offered up events to God in the right kind of prayer — and not only with the intent that He should help in this matter or prevent that emergency — but that the great work of His will and the glory of His kingdom should come to the earthly fulfillment that is meant for it here and now.
These quotes hit home for me personally both related to coping with my own illness by developing an attitude of wellness, and in my vocation as a lay person whom God has placed in this world to advance His kingdom. After reading Guardini these past few days, I understand that each of us was born in the exact time, place, and circumstance in history to do God’s will in a way unique to us because each of us is a completely unique creation of His. If we do not do what we were gifted to do, it will not be done by anyone else. That does not mean that God can be defeated by our unwillingness, but that graces will not be granted that would have been granted if we had but done His will. When the instant passes, it is over. Very sobering, thus I have a lot of personal make-up work to do to account for my many past failings.
Dear God, help me always to seek Your will and never to shirk the duties You have given me nor step from the path You have asked that I follow. Let me comprehend Your Providential will in all events of this world with the trust that in everything, even death and disaster, You are bringing about my salvation and that of others. Let me be a pliable instrument in Your hand for the glory of Your kingdom here and in eternity.
A Little of My Story
March 5, 2010
Holy Trinity, 1430, Master of the Votive Picture of Sankt Lambrecht, Museum mittelalterlicher österreichischer Kunst, Vienna
“O Lord,” I prayed, “Help me to grow more patient and trust You more.”
“Are you sure?” He asked.
“Yes, Lord.”
“Okay, I’ll give you fibromyalgia and everything that goes with it,” He said.
“Whoa! What is that, Lord?” I asked.
“You’ll find out, and I’ll be with you every step of the way,” He replied.
Six years or so ago when I was diagnosed my body was burning from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. I couldn’t stand to wear my glasses and couldn’t see without them. Every morning I got up, dressed, had breakfast and promptly collapsed into bed again. After awhile I gave up on dressing and stayed in my nightgown. My mind was in a stupor such that I could hardly pray and I lay there simply clutching my rosary. When I had a conversation with my husband I forgot what I wanted to say after three words were out of my mouth. I gave up driving and stopped going anywhere except to church, which finished me off for the rest of the day.
A couple of years went by and I found myself completely discouraged and wanting to go to bed never to wake again. It seemed that everything the doctor told me to do and prescribed for me only helped marginally. Yet as sick as I was, I never lost the feeling that this condition was God’s will for me, although I did think for awhile that maybe He might have picked a less unpleasant way to get His point across.
One day I said, “Well, Lord, I don’t get it. Here You have smacked me over the head with a 2×4 and I still don’t get it. What is it you want of me?”
“I want all of your pain and suffering. Give it to Me with joy for the restoration of the Traditional Catholic Mass. Give it to Me for the priest I have chosen to be your next bishop. Give it to Me for the redemption of others and to expiate your sins. Give it to me for My priests who are troubled,” He said.
“OK, Lord. Whatever you say. I want to do Your will. But Lord, why did You have to teach me patience and trust this way?” I asked.
“Because you were too full of yourself and your talents and ambitions were misplaced. I could not work through you the way you were. I want you with me for all eternity. I want you to know and understand Me better, to trust Me more through your helplessness and pain and to share what you are learning on this journey with My other children who are suffering even worse than you,” He said. “I want you up here on the cross with Me. I want you to witness to My message of hope and love, and the joy that comes from doing My will. I want you to understand the fullness of My love for you.”
Morning sun over the ocean, Shizuoka Prefecture, (c)Tomo.Yun (www.yunphoto.net/en/)
And so I didn’t give up, and after accepting two new hips from Him through a good surgeon, and after slowly regaining some physical and mental equilibrium from remedies He showed me through knowledgeable holistic practitioners, I started this blog and put it in His hands. I blessed Him for giving me this miserable disease and for putting me through the added great pain of hip degeneration; for making me aware that I have to depend on Him for every breath, every blink, and every beat of my heart. I blessed him for giving me a high maintenance body because I know He wants me to learn how to care for it properly and share what I learn with others. I blessed Him for showing Himself to me both through pain and through the many forms of beauty that reflect His being. Most of all, I bless Him for loving me enough to have created me and for having put all the wonderful people in my life whom I would never have met had I not become disabled.
A Privileged and Fascinating Path
March 4, 2010
Last fall Pope Benedict XVI spoke in a general audience on the subject of the theological background of Church architecture from the Romanesque to the Gothic. You might think the topic would be dull and dry, but the Holy Father is a teacher who makes subjects come alive. Here is a portion of his talk quoting his favorite theologian, St. Augustine:
…the way of beauty, is a privileged and fascinating path on which to approach the Mystery of God. What is the beauty that writers, poets, musicians, and artists contemplate and express in their language other than the reflection of the splendor of the eternal Word made flesh?
Then St Augustine says: “Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air, amply spread around everywhere, question the beauty of the sky, question the serried ranks of the stars, question the sun making the day glorious with its bright beams, question the moon tempering the darkness of the following night with its shining rays, question the animals that move in the waters, that amble about on dry land, that fly in the air; their souls hidden, their bodies evident; the visible bodies needing to be controlled, the invisible souls controlling them. Question all these things. They all answer you, “Here we are, look; we’re beautiful!’ Their beauty is their confession. Who made these beautiful changeable things, if not one who is beautiful and unchangeable?” (Sermo CCXLI, 2: PL 38, 1134).
St. Augustine, c. 1474, JOOS van Wassenhove (active 1460-1480), oil on wood, Musee du Louvre, Paris
The Way of Reparation
March 2, 2010
At the offertory of every Mass we offer ourselves and our lives in union with Christ, the perfect Victim, to our heavenly Father. Lent is a time to consider deeply our own sufferings and those of Our Lord, asking God to purify us and to make us whole in His good time.
Dr. Paul Takashi Nagai
One who captured this spirit of unity with the Lamb who was slain and who brought peace to his suffering fellow citizens was Dr. Paul Takashi Nagai, who survived the bombing of Nagasaki. The bishop of the area announced plans for an open-air Requiem Mass to be held next to the ruins of the Cathedral of Maria in the suburb of Urakami, Ground Zero. Crushed into rubble by the blast and then consumed by a raging fire that evening, the once beautiful cathedral called to mind the book of Revelation as Nagai pondered what he would say at the bishop’s invitation to speak at the Mass. Looking at the fallen and blackened timbers as he sat in the rubble, he suddenly knew the message had to be the redemptive dimension of suffering and death.
On November 23, 1945 he faced his burned, bandaged, emaciated and demoralized fellow parishioners who had gathered to pray for their dead in the ancient sacred liturgy of the Church. This is what he said:
On the morning of August 9, a meeting of the Supreme Council of War was in session at Imperial Headquarters, Tokyo, to decide whether Japan would surrender or continue to wage war. At that moment the world stood at a crossroads. A decision had to be made…peace or further cruel bloodshed and carnage.
And just then, at 11:02 A.M., and atom bomb exploded over our suburb. In an instant, eight thousand Christians were called to God, and in a few hours flames turned to ash this venerable Far Eastern holy place.
Cathedral of Maria restored exactly as it was before the atom bomb of August 9, 1945
At midnight that night, our cathedral suddenly burst into flames and was consumed. At exactly that same time in the Imperial Palace, His Majesty the Emperor made known his sacred decision to end the war. On August 15 the Imperial Rescript, which put an end to the fighting, was formally promulgated, and the whole world saw the light of peace. August 15 is also the great feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It is significant, I believe, that the Urakami Cathedral was dedicated to her. We must ask: Was this convergence of events, the end of the war and the celebration of her feast day, merely coincidental, or was it the mysterious Providence of God?
I have heard that the atom bomb…was destined for another city. Heavy clouds rendered that target impossible, and the American crew headed for the secondary target, Nagasaki. Then a mechanical problem arose, and the bomb was dropped further north than planned and burst right above the cathedral… It was not the American crew, I believe, who chose our suburb. God’s Providence chose Urakami and carried the bomb right above our homes. Is there not a profound relationship between the annihilation of Nagasaki and the end of the war? Was not Nagasaki the chosen victim, the lamb without blemish, slain as a whole burnt offering on an altar of sacrifice, atoning for the sins of all the nations during World War II?
Nagasaki atom bomb - the photo that terrified me as a child
We are the inheritors of Adam’s sin… of Cain’s sin. He killed his brother. Yes, we have forgotten we are God’s children. We have turned to idols and forgotten love. Hating one another, killing one another, joyfully killing one another! At last the evil and horrific conflict came to an end, but mere repentance was not enough for peace…. We had to offer a stupendous sacrifice…. Cities had been leveled, but even that was not enough…. Only this hansai [holocaust] in Nagasaki sufficed, and at that moment God inspired the Emperor to issue the sacred proclamation that ended the war. The Christian flock of Nagasaki was true to the Faith through three centuries of persecution. During the recent war, it prayed ceaselessly for a lasting peace. Here was the one pure lamb that had to be sacrificed as hansai on His altar…so that many millions of lives might be saved.
Happy are those who weep; they shall be comforted. We must walk the way of reparation… ridiculed, whipped, punished for our crimes, sweaty and bloody. But we can turn our minds’ eyes to Jesus carrying His Cross up the hill of Calvary…. The Lord has given; the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Let us be thankful that Nagasaki was chosen for the whole burnt sacrifice! Let us be thankful that through this sacrifice, peace was granted to the world and religious freedom to Japan.
Our large and small sacrifices this Lent are expiation for our sins and those of the world. We cannot know at this time how God will use what we freely offer, but in the next world we will see all those who were lifted up because of them. Dr. Nagai’s words are timeless as truth is timeless. Lord let me always bless you and never complain about anything for the rest of my life!
A Pernicious Construct
March 2, 2010
Today Sandro Magister of chiesa features the content of a very challenging presentation by a Catholic bishop in the depths of the Bible Belt. Here are a couple of excerpts from Archbishop Chaput’s March 1, 2010 address at the Baptist University of Houston on the vocation of Christians in American public life:
Fifty years ago this fall, in September 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for president, spoke to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. He had one purpose. He needed to convince 300 uneasy Protestant ministers, and the country at large, that a Catholic like himself could serve loyally as our nation’s chief executive. Kennedy convinced the country, if not the ministers, and went on to be elected. And his speech left a lasting mark on American politics. It was sincere, compelling, articulate – and wrong. Not wrong about the patriotism of Catholics, but wrong about American history and very wrong about the role of religious faith in our nation’s life. And he wasn’t merely “wrong.” His Houston remarks profoundly undermined the place not just of Catholics, but of all religious believers, in America’s public life and political conversation. Today, half a century later, we’re paying for the damage.
Archbishop Chaput is the foremost American bishop on the subject of Catholic life and politics and is an ardent pro-life advocate. In his talk he continues to lay out the historical development of secularism in our country, starting with the great divorce between religion and politics that was already happening and that Kennedy voiced in 1960.
Early in his remarks, Kennedy said: “I believe in an America where the separation of Church and state is absolute.” [The pernicious construct] Given the distrust historically shown to Catholics in this country, his words were shrewdly chosen. The trouble is, the Constitution doesn’t say that. The Founders and Framers didn’t believe that. And the history of the United States contradicts that. Unlike revolutionary leaders in Europe, the American Founders looked quite favorably on religion. Many were believers themselves. In fact, one of the main reasons for writing the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause – the clause that bars any federally-endorsed Church – was that several of the Constitution’s Framers wanted to protect the publicly funded Protestant Churches they already had in their own states. John Adams actually preferred a “mild and equitable establishment of religion” and helped draft that into the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution.
Crucifixion, 1503, Cranach, Lucas the Elder, pine panel, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
Secularism is poisonous to life itself. It’s why this day the terminally ill, mentally challenged, disabled and elderly have reason to fear for their lives. There is no place for valuing suffering outside of the Christian construct, and no place for respect for life or person. The times we live in are more dangerous to our souls, our country and the world than ever before. Struck loose from Judeo-Christian moorings, life purpose becomes utilitarian and hopeless. Chaput brings forth the challenge to Christians today:
…Christianity is not mainly – or even significantly –- about politics. It’s about living and sharing the love of God. And Christian political engagement, when it happens, is never mainly the task of the clergy. That work belongs to lay believers who live most intensely in the world. Christian faith is not a set of ethics or doctrines. It’s not a group of theories about social and economic justice. All these things have their place. All of them can be important. But a Christian life begins in a relationship with Jesus Christ; and it bears fruit in the justice, mercy and love we show to others because of that relationship. [Yes, Yes, and Yes!]
In closing Chaput said:
We live in a country that was once – despite its sins and flaws – deeply shaped by Christian faith. It can be so again. But we will do that together, or we won’t do it at all. We need to remember the words of St. Hilary from so long ago: “Unum sunt, qui invicem sunt”, they are one, who are wholly for each other. May God grant us the grace to love each other, support each other and live wholly for each other in Jesus Christ – so that we might work together in renewing the nation that has served human freedom so well.
If ever we are to stand up and be counted as genuine, visible followers of Christ doing the very difficult to counteract the spirit of the world, now is the time. The helpless, sick and suffering, by uniting with the sufferings of Christ can be a silent, invisible, potent army of support to those seeking to restore all things in Christ.
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Mary’s Tears
March 1, 2010
The last few days I’ve been working on this art piece in my digital art program. It’s my first try at this kind of look and seemed like a good Lenten project.
Late last November we had rain and, looking out the window, I saw how beautiful the raindrops were on the nandina bushes. The sight made me think of Mary’s tears at the cross, so I took my small digital camera out and snapped a few shots. Finding an area on one that I liked, I cropped it and painted the image. Then through other digital machinations I finished the image, wrote the poem and voila!
If you want to share this with others, please link to this post, credit me and leave a comment here. I’d like to know if it is worthwhile for me to make more of these kinds of images. God bless you, readers.
Sunday Snippets – A Catholic Carnival
February 27, 2010
Welcome to Sunday Snippets where you can find posts on a variety of subjects from Catholic bloggers. Visit RAnn at This That and The Other Thing to discover them.
This week I posted a second prayer from the Divine Office of Prime I laid down on a painting I did from a beautiful APOD photo by the Hubble telescope. You can see both the original and the painting with the prayer laid over it here. Hubble photos of space are stunningly beautiful.
If you are a history buff, you’ll be interested in my book review of The Last Train From Hiroshima, which I strongly recommend. Deeply moving.
If you like conversion stories mixed with history, you’ll really like A Song for Nagasaki, another book I strongly recommend. Someday Dr. Paul Takashi Nagai will probably be raised to the altars. Really gripping and emotional. Have a box of tissues handy.
I posted a reflection on a paragraph from Father Romano Guardini’s book on prayer, my Lenten reading.
Lastly, if you are looking for a really convenient way to grow your own vegetables, especially if you have debilitating conditions, my post tells how my husband and I have done it. Puttering in the yard is healthy and relaxing for some like us, and you will be surprised that you can have a green thumb after all like we did. Now is the time to be planning for delicious veggies and fruits without back pain and stiff joints to make it happen.
“The Last Train from Hiroshima”
February 26, 2010
My thoughtful husband brought this book home from the library, knowing my great interest in Japan and World War II. At the age of 14 or 15 I read John Hersey’s Hiroshima: The Story of six human beings who survived the explosion of the atom bomb over Hiroshima. Putting it in today’s slang, the book freaked me out. As a child of the Cold War, which I believe began immediately after Hiroshima and Nagasaki though historians will disagree, the fear of a repeat of August, 1945 has been bound to my psyche for life.
A monumental and heart rending work,The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back (John MacRae Books)
In the confusion and chaos of the flattened city, survivors and the dying were overcome with a terrible thirst. As the black rain containing radioactive isotopes fell they opened their mouths to take it in and hastened their deaths. Ferocious tornados of fire chased people into the river only to become waterspouts and then emerge as fire on the other side.
Pellegrino spares nothing describing the hellish scene and reporting the words of the survivors who were forbidden by their government to speak publicly about their experiences for many years. To this day scientists cannot explain some of the phenomena after the blast, but this book gives far more scientific information and understanding than any previous work, especially to the average person.
Prominently featured are unforgettable characters who survived both Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. They were the ones who staggered over the radioactive wasteland to the train station to catch the only transportation out of Hiroshima to what they thought was safety only to be caught in the second blast three days later over Nagasaki. Some of them were dead in six weeks from radiation poisoning while others lived many years. Most died from cancer caused by radiation effects.
Tsutomo Yamaguchi, RIP - link to Facebook page
The last survivor, Tsutsomo Yamaguchi, died January 4, 2010 at age 93, the only “official” recognized-by-the-government survivor of both atom bombs. He suffered leukemia, cataracts, and finally stomach cancer from the radiation effects. Yamaguchi traveled to New York in 2006, bringing comfort to families who lost loved ones at ground zero on 9-11 as only he could. Like Dr. Takashi Nagai who survived Nagasaki, he unfailingly brought a message of love and forgiveness to the world. It is sad that when he addressed the United Nations with this message, asking for a ban on nuclear weapons, some people rolled their eyes.
I must say that even though the recounting of deeply disturbing aspects of this story left me with feelings of horror, Pellegrino also brought out the heroism of ordinary people, too. This book answered some questions I’ve had for a long time about what led to Japanese aggression and how the United States arrived at the decision to drop atom bombs to end the war in the Pacific. The role communist Russia and Stalin played was not insignificant, as I have suspected for some time.
We are now over three generations past the events of August 6th and 9th of 1945, but this story must not die. In this age with Sharia governments threatening nuclear war, the lessons from Japan demand attention. What Pellegrino records is very painful to read, but essential to understanding what happened then and what could happen today with far worse effects. I believe the book should be required reading in history classes.
“A Song for Nagasaki” by Paul Glynn, S.M.
February 26, 2010
Dr. Takashi Nagai
Last Sunday I found a book at the church library. It wasn’t on my top ten for Lent, but it was about Japan and a Japanese holy man who transformed others’ lives by his gentleness and forgiveness. Since I am interested in Japanese history, especially in what transpired to cause the terrible aggression that drew so many into World War II, I checked it out. What I ended up with is a moving conversion story that brings Christ’s teachings to life in a unique way and that has enriched my Lenten prayer.
A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai-Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb
Nagai entered into a spiritual quest while he attended medical school in Nagasaki – a quest that led him from Shintoism to atheism to Catholicism and ultimately to marriage with the daughter of the family which had been at the heart of the underground Church for the centuries of government persecution of Christians. The biography reveals how Nagai’s medical studies, service as a medic in the Japanese army during the occupation of Manchuria, and his return to become a pioneer of radiology research at Nagasaki University formed his spiritual growth.
Before the bomb exploded over the city that fateful August day, Nagai already had developed leukemia from his radiation exposure, yet he had refused to quit working. The cancer did not stop him from caring for victims of the inferno although he was wounded himself, and to his surprise and that of his fellow medical practitioners, his disease went into remission for a couple of years because of his exposure to the bomb’s radiation.
Nyoko-do
Nagai lost his beloved wife in the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945, but his children who were farther from ground zero survived. Not long after, he moved into the rubble of the ruined city to study the effects of radiation on all life forms, constructing a tiny dwelling on the ground where his house once stood. He called his little abode “Nyoko-do“, meaning “as yourself hall” taken from Jesus’s words: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It was one 6×6 room with a porch built by friends. He lived there with his children until he died.
Throughout the book Glynn interweaves Japanese history and customs into Nagai’s story, giving the reader a good understanding of the depth of this man. He describes well how Nagai brought not only physical healing but spiritual healing to the suffering and war-weary people. Determined not to be bitter or vengeful, he wrote articles and powerful books as a legacy for his children that became best-sellers throughout Japan. During the last four years of his life, he accomplished this lying on his back because of weakness and abdominal swelling caused by the cancer.
This book above all, is a story of love and forgiveness, of sanctity brought forth from horror. Many people from around the world, including Helen Keller journeyed to meet this unassuming man, who gave most of his earnings for the education and care of war orphans. His example continues to inspire and he is considered a saint by many Japanese people of all faiths.
If you are attracted to conversion stories, this book will not disappoint you. It is filled with the wonders of God’s grace and inspiration to overcome all bitterness, resentment, and desire for vengeance that plague the human heart. Nagai truly suffered with joy.
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