By Fr Leo Baker

In 1951, after 18 months in Japan, I was living in Kamogawa, a coastal fishing port, where fishermen, farmers and shopkeepers made up most of the population. I had been appointed there after just a year of language study, only 27-years-old, to try to establish a new mission where none was there before.

It seemed like an almost impossible task. I could only hope, trust and pray that God would make something happen. Soon God did just that, in a remarkable way. Mr Murakami Sensei appeared out of the blue at my door one day. He had come from Yamaguchi, hundreds of kilometers away, to look for his mother. She had called me a few days earlier and I knew the farmhouse where she was staying. It seemed she had a falling out with her family and left home, traveling aimlessly by train until Divine Providence let her finish up at the end of the line in Kamogawa.

Both Mr Murakami and his mother told me they were recently baptized. They were both most enthusiastic about their newfound faith and were anxious to share it with others. They came several times in the next two weeks for Mass in a room in my house and stayed to chat afterwards.

I soon learned that Mr Murakami was a high school teacher, a most intelligent man who had graduated from the highly prestigious Tokyo University. He was taking some time out from teaching. I enjoyed those first meetings and chats with him so much that I said jokingly one morning after Mass, ‘I wish you could stay and work with me and help me to try to get things going here.’ ‘Do you really mean that? I would love to stay here and help you.’ ‘When could you start?’ I asked. ‘Today,’ he said.

So began a 55-year association and friendship. He went home with his mother but soon came back to stay in a little two-room cottage that the Columban Superior in Tokyo had built for a future housekeeper or catechist, before I went to Kamogawa.

In a short time working together, we were able to form a troop of high school boy scouts, with Murakami as scoutmaster. He helped me gather groups of primary school children for Saturday and Sunday school classes and women, suitable and willing to teach, seemed to turn up from nowhere. Most baptisms during the first five years or so were from among these young people.

Within a year of Murakami’s coming, there were so many young people coming to the mission that my house couldn’t hold them, so he helped me plan and negotiate with local builders to erect a small church, which was blessed and opened in time for Christmas 1952.

With so many young children coming along, it seemed obvious that a kindergarten would be a good idea and a fruitful means of apostolate, so Murakami with his knowledge of school affairs, smoothed the way with local authorities for us to build and open Sacred Heart Kindergarten on the mission property, with about 50 pupils and five or six young women teachers.

When I first met him I noticed he had an artificial leg and walked with a crutch. I learned that he had been wounded in New Britain, the largest island of Papua New Guinea, during World War II, when he had left a bunker to fetch blankets for his superior officers. It was hard for me to imagine such a peaceful, gentle, well-educated man as even having been part of the Japanese army. He never showed the slightest animosity towards Australians and frequently spoke apologetically about things the Japanese army had done to Australians.

Kamogawa mission covered a wide area of towns, villages and farm hamlets. I had a bicycle to get around. Mr Murakami found a way of keeping me company on rides all around the district. He had a little motor fitted to his bicycle to help him pedal with only one leg. He would leave his wooden leg behind, strap his crutch to his bicycle and off we would ride. The locals used to watch us racing each other up the hills. We were inseparable. Wherever I had to go Murakami Sensei would come along and be my interpreter, teacher and guide.

After three years he needed to go back to high school teaching, partly because I was unable to pay him a decent wage. So, regretfully we had to part, but not before I was able to find a teaching position for him in a new high school being established by the Marist Brothers in the Columban parish of Kengun in Kumamoto.

He came back to Kamogawa to marry Clara, one of the first young women we had instructed together and prepared for baptism. He took Clara back to his new home in Kumamoto, about 1000 kms from Kamogawa, but they kept regular contact with Kamogawa Church.

In 1994, 40 years after fare-welling Murakami from the Kamogawa mission, I returned there for a nostalgic visit and reunion with some of our earliest converts.

I suspect that Murakami and Clara had a lot to do with organizing that wonderful reunion and the great heart-warming reception that those friends from 40 years ago gave us when we arrived back in Kamogawa. I was happy and amazed to see how strong the bond of friendship still was among those people who had played together at the mission as youngsters.

We continued to correspond, at least for Christmas. He would send me a generous donation, saying it was in gratitude, though I felt I owed at least as much gratitude to him. I think we were both right. We were so dependent on each other in those early years that neither of us could have achieved what we did without the constant help and support of each other.

Mr Murakami’s ashes now lie buried and honored in the Kamogawa Church cemetery that he and his wife helped pay to have fenced. He also arranged the hedge, small garden and granite monument, making it a place where he, Clara and other founding members of the mission could be buried together in a common plot. I sometimes dreamt of opting to be buried there myself, but now I am content with knowing that my ‘co-founder’ is there to keep the memories alive.

You may write Fr Leo Baker at St Columban’s, PO Box 752, NIDDRIE, VIC 3042, AUSTRALIA

An American college student discerns God’s calling and gives back by volunteering in the Columban Catholic Social Justice Ministry in Washington DC.

People have always asked me what I want to be when I ‘grow up’. At age 10, I wanted to be a fashion designer; by 13, the first female president of the United States. I have dreamt of being everything from a high school English teacher to a Peace Corps volunteer. Now when people ask me what I want to be, I just smile, shrug my shoulders, and tell them that I don’t know. And I honestly don’t.

But, I have an idea. My parents have instilled in me the importance of helping others, and I have learned from their example about our duty as citizens of the world to give back to our families and communities. We have the responsibility and capability to make a positive, significant difference in our world.

As such, I have been involved in community service organizations in high school and college, but I never knew how to turn this experience into a lifelong career.

As a high school senior, I read this quote from John Glavin, an English professor at Georgetown University: ‘It’s a very old Jesuit ideal that people are in the world to help save it.’ In that moment I realized that no matter how great it would be to own a smoothie shop on a Caribbean island – my life ambition at the time – I could best live my life working in service to others.(Editor’s note: ‘Smoothies’ are made from non-fat yogurt, real fruit juice, frozen and fresh fruits, berries and ice. A first-cousin of halo-halo?)

I decided to study international relations and literature at American University, and I wanted to gain as much experience as possible before graduation. Attending college in Washington DC gave me the opportunity to work for international and nonprofit service organizations.

In 2007 I was an intern with the Columban Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) office, an amazing experience in which I learned much about my career ambitions and my role in the Catholic Church and the international community.

As a young adult who grew up in the Church and attended Catholic schools, I have always been interested in the Church’s presence in international affairs and social concern and justice. My internship with the Columbans has taught me about all the work done by Religious and lay members of the Church for the advancement of all people. I saw firsthand how principles of equality, integrity and God’s love are put into practice in the international community.

Increased Global Awareness & Concern

The JPIC Office strives for justice in social concerns, such as migration, water rights, economic inequity and worker’s rights. As an intern, I researched the use of Latin American and Asian mercenaries in the Middle East, made phone calls to legislators in opposition to the US – Peru Free Trade Agreement, and wrote an ‘action alert’ concerning emergency governmental rule in Pakistan, among other tasks.

My work increased my awareness of global concern and taught me how members of religious communities and the Church can effectively work together with laity and organizations to tackle pressing global issues.

My religion teachers would tell me that God has called me in a certain direction and that I need to discern my vocation and follow its path. This impressive statement has always intimidated me. I decided a long time ago that this task of ‘discerning my call’ was too difficult and that I would wait for God to appear to me and say, ‘Caitlin, you are meant to be a [fill in the blank], and this will make Me very, very happy’.

When God did not come to me, I became quite concerned. I wondered if God actually was calling me down any path, if there was something I was meant to do and if it involved my faith or its principles.

Through my work with the Columbans, however, I learned that I made the right decision two years ago when I chose to work in the service of others. I discovered this calling is related to my faith and membership in Jesus Christ’s Church. I have seen how Columban employees and members actively use their faith and work to create a better world in which God’s love and mercy for all are evident.

These dedicated people have taught me that I can live my faith – that I can combine all of those religion class lessons and my professional aspirations. And, most importantly, I learned that I am meant, in my own way, to live a life of service and love.

You may contact Caitlin at cc7868a@american.edu . She is from Shiremanstown, Pennsylvania, USA, and is studying at American University in Washington DC.http://www.columban.org/content/view/69/52/ is the webpage of the JPIC Office of the Columbans in the USA.

Australian Columban Fr Robert McCulloch was ordained in 1970. He served in Talisayan, Misamis Oriental, Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro, from 1971 till 1974 before going to Rome and Washington DC for studies. He arrived in Pakistan early in January 1979 as a member of the first group of Columbans to go there. Among other things, Father McCulloch lectures at the Theological Institute in Karachi. Here he tells us how missionary work in Pakistan means serving the love of God in a climate of violence, poverty and injustice. 

I would not have been able to sustain myself in my work as a Columban missionary priest if I had looked for immediate results during my 29 years in Pakistan. Year by year, I have come to understand that the real issue is to serve for the love of God, not to look at what I have in my hand or what I can count.

Asking Real Questions

We face tough questions here: How do we continue with the ongoing formation and preparation of liturgical leaders while there is a famine affecting a third of the diocese? How do we plan when there is news of a church being burned down or a convent being attacked by a wild but well-organized mob with the connivance of police and approval of town authorities?

But here are what the real questions should be, about the reality of Pakistani Christians and my presence as a missionary: Is the Gospel lived? Is the Gospel seen to be lived? Is the Gospel shared? Is the Gospel accepted? What are the results from living the Gospel?

On the occasion of Pakistan’s independence on 14 August 1947, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the nation’s founder and first governor-general, called on all Pakistanis to continue attending their mosques, churches and temples and invited them to unite in building their new nation.

Sixty years later, Pakistani Christians live in an atmosphere of spoken and unspoken threat, marginalized by 30 years of unjust political and legal process. So the questions I have posed about living and accepting the Gospel have to be asked within the social, economic and political reality of the lives of Pakistani Christians.

Casting bread – Casting nets
Being a Catholic in Pakistan means I am part of the eight percent of people - Hindus, Christians and Sikhs - who are not Muslim.

Pakistani Muslims must decide for themselves whether Islam can be lived in the reality of 21st-century Pakistan or only according to the standards of 7th-century Arabia.

Pakistani Muslims must decide for themselves whether the fundamentalist call to jihad (religious war against people who are not Muslims) has any basis in their religion.

Pakistani Muslims must decide if the teaching of the Qur’an (Islam’s holy book) permits them to enter into religious dialogue with believers of other faiths.

If and how they consider and resolve these issues will influence the way they interact with Christians and how Christians will interact with them.

If we cast our bread upon the water, cast out the nets from the other side of the boat, what will be the outcome?

Uncertain Certainty
This ‘uncertain certainty’ is how I describe my life and work in Pakistan. I have lived in the Thar Desert and in small villages within the city of Karachi.

With the encouragement and help of friends and Columban supporters, I have been involved in a variety of projects: a primary and secondary school network in the Thar Desert in the interior of the Sindh Province; a hepatitis B and C prevention and management center; the major renovation of St Elizabeth’s Hospital in Hyderabad and the development of its School of Midwifery; and mobile vaccination programs for tribal women and their children.

In September 2006, we started a much-needed and long-planned home-based palliative care service for the terminally ill at St Elizabeth’s Hospital. It’s the first program of its type in Pakistan.

These programs are flourishing, and their operation is in the hands of competent Pakistanis.

In addition, I have found writing and translating theological books into the local Urdu language a challenging work for the past eleven years.

Particularly satisfying was working with the academic staff of the Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne, Australia, to bring about the association of the National Catholic Institute of Theology in Karachi with the Melbourne College of Divinity (MCD). This means that Pakistani theological students can now obtain a bachelor of theology degree from the University of Melbourne, with which MCD is affiliated.

Hope in the midst of mayhem
I have experienced great hope in Pakistan despite the cycles of mayhem, murder and bigoted violence.

A Hindu religious leader, Pabhu Bhagat, was a bitter enemy of Christians, having taken a public oath never to speak with them. Nevertheless, we ensured that he received the life-saving operation he needed in late 1986. In June 2006, 20 years later, he invited me to his house for dinner and friendship.

Muslim lawyers in Karachi, impressed with the genuine simplicity of ordinary Christians, ask to know more about their faith.

Muslims have fasted during Ramadan, and Catholics have fasted during Lent, sitting together to share their experience of the fullness of God.

Muslim, Hindu and Christian medical personnel have together planned how best to help the poorest, those in the greatest need.

You may write the author at Columban House, C-6/2-B. 3rd Street, Bath Island, KARACHI, PAKISTAN or email him at robertbr@cyber.net.pk

Related Information
Pakistan Catholic Bishops Conference: http://www.pcbcsite.org

Melbourne College of Divinity: http://www.mcd.edu.au

This year Ramadan begins in the Americas on 31 August and in the rest of the world the following day. 
It ends on 29 September.

By Sister Redempta Twomey SSC

Columban Sister Redempta is Assistant Editor of Far East, the magazine of the Columbans in Ireland and Britain. Pope Benedict XVI will be on pilgrimage in Lourdes from 13 to 15 September.

In the semi-darkness of the confessional, the priest, Fr Romain listened to the little girl. Poor and unlettered, she told him of the strange event that had happened two days previously on the eleventh of February 1858 in the grotto of Massabielle. In the local dialect she said, ‘I saw something white, in the shape of a lady.’ A good man, he listened without showing any interest though he was amazed at the coherence of her story. One detail in particular struck him: as she bent to remove her shoes and stockings to cross the little stream and join her companions in gathering sticks, Bernadette said she heard a noise, ‘like a gust of wind.’ The priest thought of the ‘gust of the wind’ at Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 2. Was this too the Holy Spirit? It was then that the child saw ‘something white’ and knelt and prayed the rosary in front of her.

And so, the word spread, the people came and little Bernadette faced priest and prosecutor with unwavering calm. The lady asked for a church and processions, she asked that people wash in the water Bernadette had so humiliatingly uncovered. The child faithfully relayed all her requests. But who was this lady?

The parish priest, Fr Dominique Peyramale, gave an ultimatum: ‘If she wants a chapel let her tell you her name.’ When Bernadette asked her, the lady simply smiled. ‘She is having a lot of fun with you,’ the priest said. But he was struck by the huge numbers that went to the grotto, by the fervor and conversion of the people. Who was this woman?

In the morning light of 25 March Bernadette knelt at the grotto and was overcome with joy when the lady appeared. This time she replied, ‘I am the Immaculate Conception.’ Not understanding the words, little Bernadette kept repeating them as she rushed off to the parish house and blurted them out to the priest. He was dumbfounded. Only four years previously the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary had been proclaimed in Rome. But Bernadette would have known nothing of this, nor of the enormity of the revelation given to her. Her joy overflowed when she understood that it was indeed the Virgin Mary who had appeared to her. Lourdes quickly became a place of pilgrimage; today over six million pilgrims come to pray at the grotto, to drink the water, to light candles and walk in processions. This year, the 150th anniversary of the apparitions, is a special Jubilee Year when more pilgrims from all over the world are expected. In this place of prayer and healing the sick are welcomed and many are healed both physically and spiritually. There were three people present when Our Lady first appeared to Bernadette in February 1858. Exactly one hundred and fifty years later over 70,000 pilgrims united in prayer and celebrated the Eucharist by the Grotto.

In celebration of the Jubilee, the facade of the Rosary Basilica has been covered with magnificent mosaics depicting the five Luminous Mysteries or Mysteries of Light of the Rosary. These glowing images by Father Marko I. Rupnik are a marvelous evocation of the gospel. As one pilgrim said, ‘To gaze on them is to pray.’

A new Way of the Cross for the sick lies by the River Gave. The beauty and power of the sculptures lead one to a deeper contemplation of the passion of Christ. Bernadette’s own life was marked by the Passion from her childhood to her death in the convent of Nevers at the age of 35. She herself in her humility and simplicity is the greatest witness of Lourdes. ‘The beautiful young lady smiled at me and we prayed together.’ A century and a half later Lourdes remains impregnated with that smile and that prayer. 

Thanks to Fr Tim Finigan for permission to use photos from his blog: 
http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com

The official website for the 150th anniversary: http://www.lourdes2008.com/en/index.php.
The shrine’s official English-language website is http://www.lourdes-france.org/index.php?goto_centre=ru&contexte=en&id=405&id_rubrique=405

‘Lourdes is a shrine of Mary, but Mary is the first to point our hearts and minds towards her son Jesus. Mary in her short conversations with Bernadette indicates to us the path towards her son: the path of repentance and penance, the path of prayer and of the Eucharist.’

From the homily notes of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin on 24 May during the International Military Pilgrimage to Lourdes 2008. Full text: http://www.dublindiocese.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1230&Itemid=372