By Sr. Remedios Carmen Locsin, R.A.

In Japan, there are numerous immigrants often in precarious situations, uprooted as they are from their original culture and country. To help them find interior peace and be connection with their own history is to enable them to survive. Such is the mission I find myself in at the present moment in a section of Tokyo.

Multi-cultural Parish

After 20 years in Osaka where I was engaged in school apostolate, I arrived here in Tokyo two years ago, where we are starting a new foundation. Our apartments were we first lived is located just behind the Church of Kasai, a very dynamic parish, animated by the Augustinian Fathers. On Sunday, there is an afternoon English Mass attended by people from various countries: USA, India, Sri-Lanka, Lithuania, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines.

Rosary Crusade

Some Filipinos married to the Japanese invited me to take part in their rosary crusade. I go with them every Saturday afternoon bringing statues of Our Lady of Fatima and the Sto. Niño. With each family, we pray the rosary, the litanies and sing hymns familiar to all. The family keeps the statue throughout the week and continues to pray the rosary.

Hunger for the Word

After some months, two women from the group requested me to help them him with the Bible better. We started this meeting with the “Lectio Divina” (reading of the Word quietly and prayerfully in community). Their hunger for the Word of God was so strong that this contact inebriated them and inflamed their desire to share their experience. Very soon the group of two became eight. Then these women had the idea of re-structuring our Saturday prayer in the home by adding Bible study with sharing. Some members of the group asked the parish priest to have a real Bible Study in English after the Sunday Mass. Thus, another group had been formed.

These women are delighted with the experience. They feel that they have grown in intimacy with the Lord and their life is thus transformed as well as their relationships with the people around them. They also reach out to those in need. All this has convinced me that apostles are born from contact with the Word of God and that Lectio Divina leads to contemplation. We usually end the Lectio Divina with moments of silent individual prayer.

After a year and a half we transferred to another parish, Shiomi Church, but I still continue with my apostolate at Kasai Church with the Filipinos. Aside from Shiomi Church I also go to Umeda where there are two Masses in English every Sunday. I go to Umeda for the Sunday school of the children. Fr. Nicolas, S.J., the spiritual adviser of the El Shaddai, requested me to prepare the first communicants and we had our first group of communicants last Dec. 1, 1996. So one of my apostolates is the catechism of young children.

Since there is rather a large number of Catholic immigrants in Japan and they form part of the Japanese Church, I personally feel that there is a real need for a more systematic Pastoral Care Program.

“All this has convinced me that apostles are born from contact with the Word of God and that Lectio Divina (prayerful scripture reading leads to contemplation. We usually end the Lectio Divina with moments of silent individual prayer.”