Statue at Temple Stolen & my comments on the Eucharist

The 101-centimeter-tall statue, which had been placed in the Kannon hall next to the main hall at the temple, was replaced with a two-armed, 60-centimeter-tall wooden statue sprayed in gold.

Shinsai Ishibashi, 69, chief priest at the temple, said a local resident noticed on last Saturday that the lock of Kannon hall had been broken. However, he did not confirm if the original statue was missing.

Thats odd since it seems it took them two days to confirm the statue was obviously missing when the original and the replacement are quite different in size and appearance.

What really interests me in the article though is this line

The figure is usually stored in a miniature shrine deep inside Kannon hall, but was slated to be subject to exposition in 2009 — an event that comes only once every 60 years.

That is why I love being Catholic because our most precious item, a consecrated Host which is the body soul and divinity of Jesus, is so easily available.  A Catholic in a state of grace can actually eat our most precious item every day at mass if they so want.  If a church has adoration one can go, sit and see our Lord.  If there is no adoration He is still present in the tabernacle.  Our most valuable item is so easily accessible that He can even be stolen and desecrated at times by mentally disturbed people.  Compare that to Shinto and Buddhism here in Japan where their sacred objects may only be viewed once every sixty years or so likely with much awe and reverence.  That is something we Catholics need to recapture every time we receive the Eucharist or are in its presence we need to have awe and reverence for that sublime Host.

full article here

In Tokyo Brothers of Charity help feed homeless

full article

I just wanted to mention that homeless people in Tokyo,  as far as Ive ever heard and experienced,  don’t beg, steal, or otherwise bother the rest of society.  In fact they actually try to do productive things like collect cans, paper etc for recycling and whatever money that may bring in.  it is a big change from other big cities where the homeless are obviously begging and can be very confrontational.  I could write an entire essay on the subject and I’m sure others have already so I will just end by saying may God continue to bless the homeless and those who work to help them.

inmates performing”Hail Holy Queen”

Two things one I like this song a lot ( never fails to make me smile) two I cant believe they got prisoners to do this! Actually the prisoners have more videos performing other songs on youtube too.

“Sure, it’s a human life,” responded the Japanese gynecologist. “

full article here

The Priest Ministering in the Era of Choice

“Sure, it’s a human life,” responded the Japanese gynecologist. “What any woman bears is not going to be a monkey or some other animal. We all know that.”

“Then, how can you accept legal abortion?” I asked.

The man thought for a while, then said: “I guess we don’t issue a visa for some of them.”

I had been in Japan long enough to realize that many people here do not see much connection between reverence for God and respect for the ten commandments. I told him, nevertheless, that a baby living in its mother’s womb has a visa from God entitling it to live where its parents live. I think he agreed, but was unwilling to extricate himself from the trap in which Japanese law and social expectations capture gynecologists.

A survey among Japanese doctors indicates that they feel two moments to be very sacred: the time of birth and the time of death.

The Japan which foolishly led the world into legal abortion with its 1948 Eugenic Protection Law may now be turning around to do a beautiful thing for God.

I wonder if this eugenic protection law was to abort babies fathered by a foreigner???

After the abortion, mizuko kuyo

full article here

1. If you ask five different Japanese people about Jizo you get five different answers or at least in my case.

2 I look to the final paragraph of an article to see the real meaning so here we go.

The Japanese live in one of the most secular societies in the world, yet even they experience the aftershocks of abortion. Guilt over abortion is not a “Catholic thing.” Neither are the remedies. Buddhist teaching has it that Jizo vowed out of compassion to postpone nirvana “until the hells are emptied.” Is God’s grace mediated to the Japanese through this somewhat Christ-like personality? Catholics will disagree over the question, but one thing is sure. As the pictures suggest, Jizo fulfills a widespread religious need for the Japanese unmet in any other way.

It is not very politically correct to say so but Jizo is not Christ like at all he is a false god an idol!

Jizo fulfills a widespread religious need for the Japanese unmet in any other way.

Yeah I guess so since it seems the Catholics around here dont say anything or teach people where all their religious needs can be met after an abortion.  Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world so no matter how much someone prays to Jizo he can never do anything because he is nothing therefor Jizo can never truly fulfill people`s needs.

Beauty personified on our streets

full article here

The joy and sweetness of thousands of young Catholic pilgrims who flooded into the city, in the words of Cardinal George Pell, simply “overwhelmed” the rancid negativity of sections of our sex-fixated media, and those aggressive secularists who regard religion as an irrational threat to their way of living.

For many Sydneysiders, even jaded priests, it showcased a new generation of young people who shocked them with their social conservatism. This wasn’t the fabled youth of binge drinking, drug abuse and rampant sexually transmitted diseases, but a group of gregarious, sophisticated people unashamedly embracing the 21st-century revival in orthodox religious faith.

The World Youth Day generation, as the national German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has described it, “is united by a consciousness fundamentally different from that of the 1968 generation and their children”. It is rebelling against the do-whatever-you-want culture spawned by the 1960s social revolution. It has experienced first hand the consequences of the four-decade-long experimentation with false freedom, the broken marriages and damaged children, and a sense that there are many truths and no immutable moral rules.

Amen!! The problem is many my age have been cheated out of knowing their faith by tides of liberalism that swept through the church.  I am lucky that through the grace of God I was able to return to the Catholic church more informed then ever and very orthodox.  I dont lean to the left or the right, those are political terms, I want to go straight to the heart of truth straight to Rome to the rock.  That is the only way to survive.  I, like many of my peers, received a very shoddy education in all things Catholic while growing up, so I am very thankful for the internet where I can look up official church documents, and where I can also watch ewtn or listen to it on my ipod.  I can also get on the internet and write a blog where I can say hey I can live a decent faithful Catholic life in Japan a place where many (not all) Western foreigners come and toss all morality aside.  Im not bragging make no mistake I just want to encourage others to lead a better life and to show Japanese people what a good Catholic looks like because you might be the only one they ever meet.  Pray for the country and its people too especially the people that really annoy you.

Pope’s tree flourishes while others wither

Jerusalem, Jul 22, 2008 / 02:06 pm (CNA).- In the Jubilee Year of 2000, Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land stopping at one point to bless an olive tree on the Mount of the Beatitudes. A forester with the Jewish National Fund reports that this tree is the only one producing olives this year.

full article

Too bad there dont seem to be any photos of this tree because I would love to see it.

Okinawa Catholics Mark Battle Aniversary with Pilgrimage and Empty Words

full article

“In his homily, Capuchin Franciscan Father LaSalle Parsons exhorted the congregation, saying, “We are lamenting that little has been achieved in 63 years. How long must we wait? Jesus urges us to act now. Let’s work for peace.“

Maybe it is just me or a bad translation but that makes no sense. Peace has been achieved in Japan. The statement “let`s work for peace” really annoys me because it sounds like empty words that are so often tossed around in this country. I think the real work for peace in Japan involves working for the end of abortion which, as far as I can find, is never worked for here by churches that I am aware of.

“However, a notable number of participants came from outside of Okinawa. Saneiki Tanaka who came from Hokkaido’s Obihiro Church with his university friend said, “This was our first visit to Okinawa. To be honest, we are shocked by the atrocities of war and the terror of mass suicides. I feel now we shouldn’t overlook such tragedies. We want all Hokkaido to know of them.“

What about the tragedy of abortion here where Ive read that 300, 000 babies a year are killed. What are they doing to make people aware of that and stop it??? Where is the outrage? Oh wait there is none. The churches promote groups such as Caritas but do nothing that I know of to pray in front of places that perform abortions and so on. Meanwhile the news is full of comments about Japans aging society with no one to replace them. Oh yeah because the replacements are all dead and no one has said a thing.

As the pope said in a recent address at World Youth Day

“The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. They cannot, however, be understood apart from a profound reflection upon the innate dignity of every human life from conception to natural death: a dignity conferred by God himself and thus inviolable.”

Full text of that speech here

In Japan, Buddhism May Be Dying Out

full article

“Across Japan, Buddhism faces a confluence of problems, some familiar to religions in other wealthy nations, others unique to the faith here.”

“According to a 2007 report by the Japan Consumers’ Association, the average cost of a funeral, excluding the cemetery plot, was $21,500, of which $5,100 covered services performed by a Buddhist priest.”

I have no idea how much, if anything, one must pay a Catholic priest for a funeral mass but it surely cant be that expensive!

Pope’s Message to Other Faith Leaders

full article here

“The Holy Father’s second meeting with representatives of other religions took place at the Chapter Hall of St. Mary’s Cathedral, including leaders from the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions. To them he said, “Motivated by charity, [the Church] approached dialogue believing that the true source of freedom is found in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians believe it is he who fully discloses the human potential for virtue and goodness, and he who liberates us from sin and darkness.”