Only Jerry Novotny and I attended the full meeting. Iwo had gone to bed because he was very tired. Iru had Mass during that time and came late and didn’t open his mouth once. Of course, he’d been alone in the car with Marek for 2 hours coming from Naruto and he’ll spend the day with Mark showing him Aki, Akaoka, the Catholic Cemetery and Enokuchi, before he brings him to the airport this evening.
Marek’s first question was on about why should the OMI stay in Japan. We brought up the question of vocations, here and from abroad. We tried to instill
in him the necessity to stay here as this is a truly mission country. We have not ‘converted’ many but seeds are planted … which is missionary work. We told him that at one time we had over 30 OMI’sin about 10 parishes and now we have 16 trying to handle 15 parishes. Is it missionary work to just be in parishes? … or kindergartens?
There are many more approaches to the mission than just that. If that’s all we have to do, we could do them in our countries of origin. That’s the only question he asked.
At the end, he did admit that Japan is the most difficult mission in the world. So, I said, then you must send us more people … who want to work in such a mission. These newer men should know what the Japan mission is about before
coming here so that they know what they will face. That’s the general picture of our 2 and a half hours spent with Marek. That was the main theme.
Ikeda Jun
Mar. 18, 2019
