Hope triumphs – main theme of experiences

The programme was interspersed with artistic pieces of great delicacy and quality that showed the mystical and melancholic dimension of the Japanese soul. The two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan sixty-five years ago are two wounds that are hidden, but still present and even today their effects could be felt.

Machida confirms this with his witness. He comes from Nagasaki and tells how difficult it is to blot out that tragedy. For this reason the schools of his city, over the past few years, have collected signatures against the proliferation of nuclear arms and then presented them to the United Nations. The project, in which he and his wife are personally involved, has developed with a successful slogan: ‘Send a pencil instead of a missile’. The pencils that are collected are then given to children in Manila. Besides economic assistance and adoptions at a distance, which allow the Filipino children to continue their studies, a friendship has developed between Filipino and Japanese young people with group exchanges – a contribution to peace among peoples and hope for the future generations.

Also Miyako, at the end of her story about her family, returns to the wound of Nagasaki and with her beautiful voice intones ‘The bells of Nagasaki’, a song which recalls the bombing of August ’45, but which opens also to the hope of a world without war.

Together with her husband, Masaharu, they have had a difficult life with tragic moments. After their early years of marriage the arrival of a disabled baby required special attention and, often, the weight fell on her husband, who some years later, whilst far away from the family for work, one day decided he would not return home. About that time Miyako met the Focolare. After hearing people speaking about forgiveness, she decided to write a letter to her husband whom she hadn’t seen for some time. And he, coming to realise what he had left behind, came back. Little by little, he attempted to reconstruct a relationship with everyone at home, above all with his eldest son who had turned against him. It was during the mass celebrated on the occasion of Chiara Lubich’s death that the Sakai family were once and for all reconciled, remembering what the priest had told them the day of their wedding: ‘Make sure that Jesus is always in your midst.’

In this presentation of different experiences of the Movement the witness of a young midwife is also striking. Her name, Nozomi, means hope. An expectant mother, a particularly difficult patient, gave the nurse the possibility of breaking the bonds of anonymity and getting involved with this woman’s situation. The woman was not only worried about the birth, but also about what would happen ‘after’ – she couldn’t stand babies and didn’t know how she would cope. Nozomi used every opportunity to be with her, listening to her and encouraging her. When the time came the woman wanted her to be with her in the delivery room. When she was leaving the hospital she said goodbye with these words: ‘I’m not sure how things would have gone without you.’

Roberto Catalano