One foot on the ground, another in the air – always on a journey to serve God. This is an image Fr Ross Jones SJ, President of Saint Ignatius’ College, Riverview in Sydney, Australia uses to show what it means for students and teachers in a Jesuit school to be contemplatives-in-action.
Anastasia* is from Latin America. A few years ago, she married a Japanese man in her country and in April 2015, they took their toddler son to Japan to visit his grandparents. While they were in Japan, they took their son for a general medical check-up and found out that he had a heart problem. They went to the United States and Latin America for second and third opinions, but could not decide on the best treatment for their son.
August is a symbolic month dedicated to peace movements in Japan. Seventy-one years have passed since the defeat of Japan in the Second World War, but the dropping of the first two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945) are still vividly remembered.
A group of 34 Jesuits, half of them from Korea and the rest from Japan gathered in Shimonoseki, in the west of Japan from August 23 to 26 to heal wounds occasioned by the worst historical relationship between both countries and to search for closer cooperation.
Thirty-eight students from Jesuit universities in four Asian countries gathered in Yogyakarta, Indonesia for this year’s Service Learning Programme (SLP), hosted by Sanata Dharma University. The theme this year – Serving the City, Serving the People: Developing Youth Social Movement within the Urban Communities – was inspired by a growing concern that city development is happening without citizen involvement.
The programme employed the Ignatian Pedagogy Framework of Context-Experience-Reflection-Action-Evaluation.
Tokyo is gearing up for the 2020 Olympics. While athletes are training hard, the Japanese government is working equally hard to get the facilities ready in time. To do so, it has recently relaxed immigration procedures to allow more foreign workers to work on the construction of new olympic venues. It has also introduced new regulations for foreign domestic helpers from the Philippines and Vietnam, easing the situation in the previously restricted sector. With this, sources say that this service industry will be worth 600 billion yen (US$5.45 billion) in the near future.
The Japan and Korea Jesuit Provinces took collaboration a step further in September by holding their first plenary meeting of Jesuits and collaborators working in the social apostolate of the two provinces. The meeting took place on Jeju Island, in conjunction with the 2015 Gangjeong Peace Conference.
To foster collaboration at various levels between the Chinese, Japanese and Korean Jesuit Provinces, the three provincials have decided to set up an annual conjoint summer Arrupe Month. The first conjoint Arrupe Month was held from July 16 to August 8, 2015 at the newly built Franciscan spirituality centre in the small and quiet historical township of Daxi in Taiwan, 30 km south of Taipei.
Solidarity in social apostolates is rapidly increasing between the Japan and Korea Jesuit Provinces. In another step towards increased collaboration, the two provinces will hold a bi-province meeting, timed to coincide with the 2015 Gangjeong Peace Conference to be held from September 7 to 9.
We, the major superiors of the Jesuit Conference Asia Pacific, sincerely and enthusiastically welcome Pope Francis’ new encyclical Laudato si’ (On the Care of Our Common Home). He draws attention to the urgent need for reconciliation with creation, already one of our apostolic priorities in Asia Pacific. We urge all the members of our Conference, our colleagues, and all those we seek to serve to make a thoughtful and generous response to the Holy Father’s plea.
For World Refugee Day this year, the Tokyo Jesuit Social Center chose to focus on raising awareness of the plight of the Rohingya in Japan. This decision stemmed from a Skype discussion the Migration Network of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific had about the thousands of Rohingya from Myanmar stranded in the sea by the coasts of Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.
On his return to Tokyo, Fr Isamu Ando SJ, who heads the centre’s migrant desk, asked himself what could possibly be done in Japan.