ASIA/JAPAN - Local Church grateful to missionaries ready to take its future and the work of evangelisation in its own hands

Tuesday, 19 September 2006

Tokyo (Agenzia Fides) - The missionaries brought the seed of the Gospel to Japan. Today the local Church must stand on its own feet and take its future and the work of evangelisation in its own hands according to Rev. Shogo Doi, 67 one of four priests in Sendai diocese in Japan where pastoral work is not easy in an ever more secular culture but all the more necessary among people anxious to hear a message of hope and love.
Rev Shogo Doi hopes to form pastoral groups of religious and lay Catholics to promote a mentality that although small the Catholic community must not be afraid to bear witness to Christ through a Christian life style and to spread the Good News of salvation in Christ.
Fr Doi is deeply grateful to the missionaries and their essential work of sowing the seed of the faith, but he realises that the Church in Japan must and can stand on its own two feet: “Sixty years is a long time. And all that time we have been educated by missionaries. One finds a 'little Switzerland,' 'a little Canada,' 'a little Italy.' It isn't easy to wean ourselves from that."
"I myself was baptised at a church run by missionaries," he continued. "It was a time when associating with Westerners gave one a sense of superiority and one met with a different scale of values. But that was not a real interior renewal. Actually among those who became Christian at that time I don't think there were many who experienced a really deep interior renewal. We have to change that now. The element of mystery in religion is something we must also think of. When Japanese are looking for God, they do not want arguments, but rather a sense of direct communication with God. In the Japanese liturgy we need more contemplation, a greater feeling for the sacred. Here in Japan we did not really put our hearts into 'renewal.' Now we are being forced into it."”. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 19/9/2006 righe 25 parole 259)


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