austraLasia #3137
Rector Major visits Nagasaki
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.
Rector Major visits Nagasaki
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.
