Takashi Nagai and the Rosary

Blessed Titus Brandsma was martyred for his anti-Nazi work in the Netherlands before and during the early stages of the Second World War. Dr. Takashi Nagai is known for his involvement at the end of the war -- the destruction of Nagasaki by American nuclear bombing in 1945. What binds the stories of the two men? Their Christian faith, and the Rosary.

A couple of years ago a young man made a (rather good and effective) presentation to the youth group Marilee and I were helping with. Unfortunately, for reasons I cannot understand, he interjected a story he had heard about miraculous protection of a group of priests near ground zero in Nagasaki in 1945. Somehow, this struck me as urban legend material, just because of how it was related. (I have no problems with miracles, per se.) After a few hours of intensive internet and library research I came to the conclusion that my suspicions were probably right (although my mind is still open -- enter a comments below if you have some information or a link.). What I found though, was a truly profound miracle, something far beyond the anecdote we had heard.

Takashi Nagai was born and raised whithin Shinto, but influenced by Blaise Pascal's Pensees, begain to inquire about Catholicism. He boarded with a Catholic family while studying medicine, and their example strongly affected him. He became a Catholic, and married their daughter, Midori. He served as a radiologist with the Japanese Army in China, where he worked tirelessly to serve all his patients, no matter which side of the conflict they came from. In June of 1945, he was diagnosed with chronic leukemia, and given roughly three years to live. Nagai was sustained by his wife's unflagging faith, even in the face of this news. Then, as reported here, everything changed:

August 9, 1945, 11:02 AM. A blinding flash. An atomic bomb had just exploded at Urakami, the Northern section of Nagasaki. In the war that they were waging against Japan, the leaders of the United States had available to them a new and terrifying weapon: the A-bomb. The first bomb had been dropped on Hiroshinia, and a second one devastated Nagasaki: Temperature 9,000 Centigrade, 72,000 dead, 100,000 wounded.

At the medical school, located 700 yards from the center of the explosion, Nagai, who was filing X-ray films, was thrown to the floor, his side riddled with glass fragments. Blood flowed heavily from his right temple... objects fluttered about like dead autumn leaves. Soon there was an uninterrupted flow of the wounded: bloodied shadows, clothes torn, hair burned, rushing to the doors of the hospital... A vision of Hell.

Fire was approaching the hospital. Patients were evacuated to the summit of a neighboring hill. Takashi worked to the very limit of his strength. At 4:00 PM, the fire reached the Radiology Department. Thirteen years of research, instruments, valuable documentation, everything went up in smoke. August 10 was spent taking care of the wounded. On the 11th, work was a bit less hurried, and Takashi left to search for Midori, who had stayed at home while the children and their grandmother were safe in the mountains, since August 7. He found the site of his home with difficulty in an area of tiles and cinders. Suddenly, he came upon the carbonized remains of his wife. On his knees, he prayed and wept, then placed the bones in a container. Something shone weakly through the powder of the bones of her right hand: her Rosary!

He bowed his head: "My God, I thank You for permitting her to die while she prayed. Mary, Mother of sorrows, thank you for having been with her at the hour of her death... Jesus, you carried the heavy Cross until you were crucified upon it. Now, You come to shed a light of peace on the mystery of suffering and death, Midori's and mine... Strange fate: I believed so strongly that it would be Midori that would lead me to the tomb... Now her poor remains are resting in my arms... Her voice seems to murmur: forgive, forgive."

Takashi's pardon would be perfect. Later, he will lead Christians discouraged by the loss of their family to consider that the A-bomb was part of God's plan, who always brings good from evil.

On August 15, 1945, the radio broadcasted a message from the Emperor announcing the surrender of Japan. At the beginning of September, Takashi was dying. The radiation from the A-bomb aggravated his illness. He received the last rites and said : "I die happy," then he fell into a partial coma. Water was brought to him from the Lourdes grotto constructed not far from there by Father Maximilian Kolbe. He would write, "I heard a voice telling me to ask Father Maximilian Kolbe to pray for me. I did so. Then I turned to Christ and said to Him: 'Lord, I place myself into Your Divine Hands'" The next day, Takashi was out of danger and he attributed to Father Kolbe (now canonized) the remission from his illness that he enjoyed for six years.

Nagai was never in truly good health again. but was able to write The Bells of Nagasaki, concerning his expereinces before and after the bombing, which remains in print today. He worked to spread Cristianitiy in Japan, as the one hope for a lasting peace, as well as research the effects of the atomic bombing and work to help its victims. Nagai died in 1951, and was mourned throughout Japan.

For more information, The Man Who Loved Others as Himself is a wonderfully detailed Japanese site (with an English language option), this is another interesting site, and Nagai's house that he build after the war is now part of a museum.

How to do it better

This post started life with the title Better Bead Wrangling, but I thought better of it. This is the fourth of what will probably be five posts on the new apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae :

• Why bother with the Rosary anyway?
• The Rosary, history and change
• The Mysteries of the Rosary, old and new
• Praying the Rosary better -- this post
• The Rosary and me -- the next (and last) post

After I get the last post done, I plan to combine these into one piece accessible from the navigation menu.

In the third chapter of this letter, John Paul II turns to "The Rosary, a way of assimilating the mystery" -- to the method of the Rosary itself. This method uses repetitive prayers which in pattern and content can bring us into a proper psychological state for contemplation:

We should not be surprised that our relationship with Christ makes use of a method. God communicates himself to us respecting our human nature and its vital rhythms. Hence, while Christian spirituality is familiar with the most sublime forms of mystical silence in which images, words and gestures are all, so to
speak, superseded by an intense and ineffable union with God, it normally engages the whole person in all his complex psychological, physical and relational reality.

This is seen in both liturgical and non-liturgical prayer, where all the dimensions of a person are involved by various means. In the case of the Rosary, a variety of means can be combined with repetition to assist with spiritual concentration, similar to a number of popular methods known in orther religions. The difference is that the Rosary is structured to fulfill uniquely Christian requirements:

In effect, the Rosary is simply a method of contemplation. As a method, it serves as a means to an end and cannot become an end in itself. All the same, as the fruit of centuries of experience, this method should not be undervalued. In its favour one could cite the experience of countless Saints. This is not to say, however, that the method cannot be improved. Such is the intent of the addition of the new series of mysteria lucis to the overall cycle of mysteries and of the few suggestions which I am proposing in this Letter regarding its manner of recitation. These suggestions, while respecting the well-established structure of this prayer, are intended to help the faithful to understand it in the richness of its symbolism and in harmony with the demands of daily life. Otherwise there is a risk that the Rosary would not only fail to produce the intended spiritual effects, but even that the beads, with which it is usually said, could come to be regarded as some kind of amulet or magic object, thereby radically distorting their meaning and function.

Suggestions on method

The Holy Father has concrete suggestions on a more conteplative praying of the Rosary -- methods that may not be new to you.

Each mystery should be announced, as a way of making that episode in salvation history more concrete, to provide a focus for attention to assist contemplation. This could include meditating on an icon appropriate to the particular mystery, or using methods similar to those suggested by St. Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises.
To deepen this meditation, and to give it a proper foundation, the announcement should be followed by the proclamation of an appropriate biblical passage. In certain situations, this can include a brief commentary. In letting God speak to us in this way, we also break up the reperition in a way that can prevent boredom.
Finally, after announcement and proclamation of the work, is silence. In my experience this is the one suggestion least followed currently -- we are all in too much of a hurry to "get it done". This pause gives us time to concentrate on the mystery, and to enter into meditation on it.

The prayers

Focusing on the mystery, we raise our minds up to God in the Our Father as Jesus in each mystery leads us to the Father. He makes us his brothers and sisters, as we are of each other, making the Rosary a communal, an ecclesial experience, even when one prays by oneself. This prayer lays the foundation for the meditation that will unfold.

The ten Hail Marys are the main part of the Rosary, a prayer both supremely Marian and but also Christ centered. We start each prayer joining in praise and wonder over the great miracle of the Incarnation, in God's tremendous intervention. After acknowledging Mary's unique position, the Theotokos, we appeal to her and ask her intercession both in our lives and in the hour of our deaths.

The "hinge" of this prayer is the name of Jesus. That name provides the "center of gravity" for meditation:

Sometimes, in hurried recitation, this centre of gravity can be overlooked, and with it the connection to the mystery of Christ being contemplated. Yet it is precisely the emphasis given to the name of Jesus and to his mystery that is the sign of a meaningful and fruitful recitation of the Rosary.
John Paul II points out (as Paul IV did) that the custom in some places to addition of a clause referring to the mystery being contemplated (especially in public recitation) reinforces the Christological nature of this prayer and aids concentration of meditation.

The meditation on each mystery is summed up in the "Gloria", where we end up in praise, worship and thanksgiving to the Trinity, the proper end of all contemplation. This should not be a perfunctory conclusion, and can be sung, especially in public recitation.

Variety

Much of the rest of the form of the Rosary does vary from place to place. The opening and closing prayers for the entire Rosary, as well as any concluding prayer after each Gloria can take on a legitimate variety of forms. What makes any of these practices legitimate is that they properly prepare the mind for and sustain the mind in contemplation. This includes starting with either the Apostles Creed or the opening of Psalm 70, and ending with the Salve Regiina or the Litany of Loreto. It can include prayers specific to each mystery after the Gloria. Once again, John Paul is making suggestions not commands.

A suggestion that has received a lot of attention is the scheme for distributing the sets mysteries over the week.

day of week	existing	suggested
Monday	Joyful	Joyful
Tuesday	Sorrowful	Sorrowful
Wednesday	Glorious	Glorious
Thursday	Joyful	Mysteries of Light
Friday	Sorrowful	Sorrowful
Saturday	Glorious	Joyful
Sunday	depends on season	Glorious

I wonder if this is going to turn out to be a work in progress -- I have not talked with anyone who is wildly happy with this schedule, but we will see.
Overall, the aim is to make the Rosary a more contemplative form of prayer. None of the practices is new by itself, but the stress on aquieter and more meditative approach is welcome

The Rosary, History, and Change

Thinking about history can be strange -- it is like looking down a long tunnel, with the only source of light behind you, at the tunnel's mouth. Things close to the mouth are easy to see and we will notice all the differences and changes easily. As we peer farther down the tunnel, farther into the past, we will see less as the light will be dimmer, and things will blend together a bit. All we will be able to make out are the big bright items -- there will be lots of variety close by, but farther in change will be harder to make out. This is often how we see history -- centuries of relative stability with the cream of a century or so of frothy change on top. It really isn't that way -- a lot more was going on back then, and much of the apparent change now isn't that significant. Much of it is a matter of perspective.

A lot of the discussion about the new apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae reminds me of that. Some news writers, and some Catholics, have seemed to think that the Rosary somehow dropped complete from the hands first of St. Dominc then Pope Pius V and that no development or change took place before or since. As the letter itself points out, the Rosary is a technique of meditative and contemplative prayer of a type found in many religions. The idea of counting prayers using stones, a knotted cord, or beads on a string or chain is ancient. The history of the Christian Rosary goes as far back before its official approval in 1569 as 1569 is remote from us. (It was the attachment of indugences at that time, which required a prescribed form for the Rosary, which slowed, but did not entirely stop change.)
For some of you, this stuff is old hat -- the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Rosary, for instance, makes no bones about comprehensively debunking the idea of St Dominc as author of the Rosary (althogh there is no doubt of the Dominican sponsorship of the Rosary, and it's importance.) In fact, there is also an article on the Franciscan Crown, or Seraphic Rosary, which is dated back to the 15th century itself. But I thought at this point in sharing some reactions that I have to the new apostolic letter, that some additional perspective might be useful. The Rosary developed over time -- here is an outline of some highlights:

• St. Benedict prescribed in the sixth century that monks and nuns in the West should recite the 150 Psalms once a week. Memorizing all of them was too difficult for some (I doubt that I could do it) so a "psalter" of 150 repetitions of "Our Father" was substituted. A parallel "psalter of Our Lady" developed with 150 repetitions of "Hail Mary" (This prayer only consisted of its first section from the Gospel of Luke, with it's second section from Luke appearing in the 12th century -- more development later.) A simple string of beads was often used to count the prayers.
• By around the time Thomas of Contimpre cointed the term Rosary for this prayer in 1250, the 150 repetitions had been broken up into three sets of 50 for morning, afternoon, and evening, and the beads were divided up in to groups of ten using larger beads to allow for the insertion of the Doxology at the end of each decade.
• Within another century or so, the Carthusian Henry Egher of Kolkar is recorded as setting forth a Rosary of 15 decades with a scriptural antiphon for each Hail Mary -- this developed into the 15 mysteries.
• In 1483, Our Dear Lady's Psalter was published by Dominicans, which started the long and strong association of that order with the Rosary. It was only in the Sixteenth century that the final form of the Hail Mary emerged, and the official acceptance for the Rosary given.

There have been further changes since Pope Pius V set forth the "official" Rosary. For example, following the lead of the Fatima visionaries, an additional prayer was added by many to the end of each decade. There are still differences in custom from place to place in the use of this technique, as Catholics have made the prayer their own. The idea of additional sets of mysteries, in particular concerning the public life and teachings of Jesus, has been proposed by many groups and authors from Blessed George Preca of Malta (who came up with the term mysteries of light in the 1950's) to the American bishops in the 1970's in the document Behold Your Mother (which I have not found on line yet).

Father M. Basil Pennington (better known for his relationship to Thomas Merton and centering prayer) has written an excellent book on the Rosary, Praying by Hand. In it he discusses the history of the Rosary, his own experience with it, and sets of meditations on the fifteen traditional mysteries, one based on a pilgrimage he made to the Holy Land. He does briefly explore some of the "alternative" rosaries such as the Franciscan Crown, the Servite Rosary based on the seven sorrows of Mary, and the Divine Mercy Chaplet. He also goes into alternative sets of mysteries such as:

The Mysteries of Christ - sets of mysteries based on the person, life and minisry of Jesus

• The Hidden Life
• Jesus' Encounters with Mary
• Jesus' Ministry to Other Women
• Table Talk
• The Healing Mysteries
• "I am": Jesus' Self Identity
• The Foretypes of the Resurrection
• Jesus' Resurrection
• Our Sacramental Life

The Sacraments

• The Eucharist
• Reconciliation
• Annointing of the Sick

On the Journey

• Vocation
• Contenplative Mysteries
• Pregnancy
• When We are in Mourning

One of my favorites is his last one, Mysteries of Social Justice:

• Jesus Feeds the Hungry (John 6:1-15)
• Jesus Heals the Sick (Mark 1:32-34)
• Jesus Respects Women (John 8:3-11)
• Jesus Reaches Out and Touches Outcasts (Mark 1:40-45)
• Jesus Honors the Despised (Luke 10:29-37)

And there is no reason to stop there. The Holy Father has been very careful to say that the changes put forth in is letter are suggestions, as are these other ideas listed above. You don't have to pray the Rosary if you don't want to, and you don't have to pray it a different way than you do now, just because of this letter. But these notes may help some see that the Rosary is something that has developed over time, I believe with Divine guidance, and it continues to develop. There are great Christians and Catholics that have not cared for the Rosary. But, as I pointed out in my previous notes, if you are looking for a deeper, more meditative prayer life, the Rosary may just be what you want.

Why bother with the Rosary anyway?

A lot has been going on in and around the Church in America lately, a lot of it depressing. Many Catholic websurfers seem to be searching for a change from further news about the Situation, or just for some novelty. Well, last week the Holy Father fed some red meat to those wanting something else to discuss, the apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae. No more errant priests -- lets argue over the Rosary! Some already think some of John Paul's suggestions are great, some think they are misguided (or worse), and many don't care.

Well, why should we care? That's the issue I would like to tackle here.

This is addressed to all of us post Vatican II Catholics who just never developed a "rosary habit". We may (or may not) have a prayer life worth mentioning and we get to Mass once a week (or more), but the Rosary has never "caught fire" for us. We who find the rosary boring, or too complicated, or too old fashioned, or irrelevant, or just to "Catholic", and therefore uncool. We who can't remember where our rosary beads are, unless they are draped over the rear view mirror of our car.

Well, this is a letter to us. A letter about why we need the Rosary, and suggestions from the senior bead wrangler himself on how best to get what we need from it. It is the latest letter to us of several laying out the needs of ourselves and others, and God's plan for the Church to meet them.

Also, one important point is that the Holy Father goes out of his way throughout this letter to us to say that these are suggestions, not commands. We are not ordered to say the Rosary, it is something that the Church offers to us, freely.

The new millennium

While many of us in the West are more than adequately provided with food, clothing and shelter (and much more) we still go to bed hungry each night -- spiritually. Last year John Paul wrote of just this need:

Is it not one of the "signs of the times" that in today's world, despite widespread secularization, there is a widespread demand for spirituality, a demand which expresses itself in large part as a renewed need for prayer? Other religions, which are now widely present in ancient Christian lands, offer their own responses to this need, and sometimes they do so in appealing ways. But we who have received the grace of believing in Christ, the revealer of the Father and the Saviour of the world, have a duty to show to what depths the relationship with Christ can lead.

This is from the apostolic letter Novo Millenio Ineunte -- At the Beginning of the New Millennium -- a reflection by John Paul II on the Church's experience during the Jubiliee and what that means for the new millennium. In summing up that experience, he put meeting this need for prayer at the center of the Church's program, as it always has been:

It is important however that what we propose, with the help of God, should be profoundly rooted in contemplation and prayer. Ours is a time of continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of "doing for the sake of doing". We must resist this temptation by trying "to be" before trying "to do".

So how are we to do that? By prayerful contemplation of the Face of the Lord:

... the men and women of our own day — often perhaps unconsciously — ask believers not only to "speak" of Christ, but in a certain sense to "show" him to them. And is it not the Church's task to reflect the light of Christ in every historical period, to make his face shine also before the generations of the new millennium?

Our witness, however, would be hopelessly inadequate if we ourselves had not first contemplated his face. The Great Jubilee has certainly helped us to do this more deeply. At the end of the Jubilee, as we go back to our ordinary routine, storing in our hearts the treasures of this very special time, our gaze is more than ever firmly set on the face of the Lord.

We are to plunge deep into the Gospels, to conteplate the mystery of both his human and divine natures, to see both the Face of sorrow and the Face of the Risen Lord. This makes it possible, it prepares us, to do the work set out for us, to start on the adventure we have been called to. As John Paul put it, Duc in altum: set out into the deep!

The Rosary

So, weren't we talking about the Rosary, and the letter sent out last week?

Just a few pages into this new letter on the Rosary, the Holy Father starts referring to the earlier letter:

I have felt drawn to offer a reflection on the Rosary, as a kind of Marian complement to that Letter and an exhortation to contemplate the face of Christ in union with, and at the school of, his Most Holy Mother. To recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ.

He then discusses the timeliness of a revival in the Rosary, first to counter "a certain crisis of the Rosary" that may be resulting in the Rosary not being taught. (I can attest to that -- in my work as a CCD teacher and in youth ministry, I have encountered many kids who have never even heard of the Rosary.) He states that, properly understood, the Rosary is not in conflict with either the centrality of the Eucharist or with ecumenical activity.

But the most important reason for strongly encouraging the practice of the Rosary is that it represents a most effective means of fostering among the faithful that commitment to the contemplation of the Christian mystery which I have proposed in the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte as a genuine “training in holiness”: “What is needed is a Christian life distinguished above all in the art of prayer”. Inasmuch as contemporary culture, even amid so many indications to the contrary, has witnessed the flowering of a new call for spirituality, due also to the influence of other religions, it is more urgent than ever that our Christian communities should become “genuine schools of prayer”.

The Rosary belongs among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions of Christian contemplation. Developed in the West, it is a typically meditative prayer, corresponding in some way to the “prayer of the heart” or “Jesus prayer” which took root in the soil of the Christian East.

The one thing that we are not being called to, is some sort of limp pietism. The Holy Father is placing the Rosary, properly understood and practiced, on the level with the other meditative traditions that have become popular recently:

... the West is now experiencing a renewed demand for meditation, which at times leads to a keen interest in aspects of other religions. Some Christians, limited in their knowledge of the Christian contemplative tradition, are attracted by those forms of prayer. While the latter contain many elements which are positive and at times compatible with Christian experience, they are often based on ultimately unacceptable premises. Much in vogue among these approaches are methods aimed at attaining a high level of spiritual concentration by using techniques of a psychophysical, repetitive and symbolic nature. The Rosary is situated within this broad gamut of religious phenomena, but it is distinguished by characteristics of its own which correspond to specifically Christian requirements.

Why care about the Rosary? Because we feel the need for a deepness in prayer that goes beyond chatter and we don't seem to know what to do about that need. The Rosary is simple, but it is theologically sound and suited for deep contemplation. It is time for many of us to just get over our hangups about the Rosary (just part of getting over ourselves in general) and get to it.

The Little Flower, or how I climbed down and caught on

When I entered the Catholic Church in the mid 80's, I found a lot to love, especially what I would call the roominess of it. It's a much bigger place than the Episcopal Church is, in a lot of surprising ways. There were things though that bothered a deep Evangelical strain in me -- certain Marian feasts and doctrines, and certain saints, in particular St Therese. I don't know really what it was, maybe just the name "The Little Flower" that just came off a bit twee. Some of the statuary and artwork didn't help either, and I stalled (as many do) in the childhood section of her autobiography.

To be honest, there have always been certain things, for example the more mindless happy-clappy (what a wonderful British phrase that is) worship sing alongs that I have found distasteful and sometimes a bit embarassing And being a rather emotional person, I have always been cautious about the more emotional expressions of faith -- perhaps I feared the vulnerablility, the lack of control. But taste can get in the way of love, and it is holy humility that is the remedy for that.

It was later, reading Bishop Gaucher's biography, then Dorothy Day's book on Therese that helped me to start getting past that. I have found in her writtings the spiritual advantages of being little

To be little is not attributing to oneself the virtues that one practices, believing oneself capable of anything, but to recognize that God places this treasure in the hands of His little child to be used when necessary, but it remains always God's treasure. Finally, it is not to become discouraged over one's faults, for children fall often, but they are too little to hurt themselves very much.

Thank you St. Therese -- a few roses today would be welcome . . .