An "Ordinary" Jesuit: Bl. Nicholas Keian Fukunaga, SJ

Jesuits in formation are constantly being evaluated by other Jesuits. (And I am referring here, of course, only to the formal processes of evaluation, rather than the ongoing, informal assessments that, no doubt, occur!)

As they pass from stage to stage, information is collected from reliable sources, in order to discern whether Novice X or Brother Y or Scholastic Z can be prudently allowed to pronounce first vows, or go on regency, or move on to theology, or be admitted to ordination. When a Jesuit is being considered for a position of governance, a similar process of evaluation is undergone. Information concerning his aptitude for governance is collected, and, if the Jesuit is being considered for a position like Rector of a large community or Novice Master that requires the appointment of Fr. General, the whole dossier of information and evaluations is forwarded to Rome.

The documents surviving in Rome concerning Nicholas  Keian Fukunaga (one of the four new Jesuit blessed beatified last November 24, 2008) all have a simple unanimous theme: his superiors considered Nicholas “ordinary.” No doubt, in the Latin they used at that time, the word would have been more pointed:  “mediocritatem.”

He was never ordained.  He never passed the evaluations.

 Born in 1569 (around twenty years before Pedro Kibe), he entered the novitiate in Amagusa at the age of 18, in 1588. The future saint, Paul Miki, had entered a few years ahead of him and was still in Amagusa when Nicholas entered.  Nicholas made his first vows in 1590. The years after that saw him studying for the priesthood, doing excellent ministry as a preacher, but somehow never being considered “fit” enough to be ordained.

One of his classmates, for example, Blessed Julian Nakaura (beatified along with him last November 24) was ordained in 1608. Nicholas was sent to assist him in Fukuoka, was considered a great help as a lay preacher, but was, mysteriously, not considered ready for ordination.

In 1614, Nicholas was one of those expelled from Japan to Macau, along with Peter Kibe, who was then a lay catechist or dojuko. Nicholas was put in charge of these lay catechists. He was finally admitted to final vows in 1619, when he was fifty years old, an unusually long thirty-seven years after he had entered the Society. He was still, it seems, not considered worthy of ordination.

In 1620, he was sent back to Japan, apparently because he dared to express an opinion that differed from that of his superiors.  From 1620 till 1633, he ministered in the Fukuoka area, till he was arrested in 1633 in Nagasaki. He was one of the first, if not the first, to suffer the terrible torture of the pit. It was in the pit that he gave his most powerful sermon. When his torturers asked him if there was anything he regretted in his life, Nicholas answered: “Yes, I regret very much that I was not able to lead all the Japanese people, beginning with the shogun, to Christ.” Nicholas died after three days in the pit, significantly on the morning of the feast of St. Ignatius, 31 July 1633.

Having done my fair share of evaluations of Jesuits over the years, the story of Blessed Nicholas Fukunaga is both humbling and inspiring. After all, it was the Jesuit Provincial, Cristobal Ferreira, who apostasized, not this ordinary Jesuit, whose apparent deficiencies kept him from being ordained, and whose final vows were constantly postponed. The preface of the Mass of Martyrs says it most powerfully: “You choose the weak, and make them strong in bearing witness to you.”

Nicholas’ story is, to me, a striking reminder about the limits of human judgments—or a testimony to the limitlessness of God’s power at work in us.  It invites me to be careful in making and trusting human judgments, and at the same time, calls me to be daring in my hope and trust in God’s surprisingly creative grace.

"The man who would not give in": Blessed Peter Kibe, SJ

I first heard about Pedro Kibe during GC 35. One of the delegates from Japan, the 42-year old Argentianian Jesuit Renzo de Luca, who is director of the Shrine of the Japanese Martyrs in Nagasaki, shared Kibe’s amazing story during a homily. 

Last November 24, 2008, in the presence of a crowd of 30,000, Pedro Kibe, a Jesuit priest who was martyred in 1639, was beatified, along with 187 other Japanese martyrs, among them, three other Jesuits. It was Kibe’s name, however, that was chosen to lead the group of martyrs; and I was happy to read in the accounts of the beatification that the ceremonies began with my friend Renzo carrying the relics of Pedro Kibe to the altar. I can only imagine how happy he was.

Who was Pedro Kibe? He was born in 1587, in what is now the Oita Prefecture on the island of Kyushu. At the age of 14, he studied under the Jesuits and learned Japanese, Latin and religion. By the time he was 19, he had become a dojoku, a lay catechist who accompanied the Jesuits in their missions. He felt in his heart, however, that God was calling him to become a Jesuit priest. What he endured in order to fulfill what he believed was his vocation is truly astounding.

In 1614, when he was 27 years old, he was expelled from Japan along with 115 Portuguese Jesuits, Japanese priests, seminarians, and dojoku. In Macau, he continued his studies, but was not admitted to the Society. Instead of giving up, in 1617, he took a ship to Goa, the site of Francis Xavier’s first Asian mission, to seek admission there, only to be refused again. 

Undeterred, he decided to do the impossible. He would go to Rome to ask the Jesuit General himself. Traveling along the paths of the famed Silk Road, he went by foot, through India and Pakistan, through Persia and Arabia, finally arriving in Jerusalem two years later, in 1619. (He was thus the first Japanese to ever visit the Holy Land.) From there, he was finally able to board a ship for Venice, and arrived in Rome in May of 1620.

The General was impressed by Kibe’s astonishing determination and fortitude, and arranged, first for his ordination, on November 15, 1620, at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, and secondly, for his admission to the Society of Jesus. On November 20, 1620, at the age of 33, Kibe entered the Jesuit Novitiate in Sant’Andrea al Quiranale. Kibe was fortunate to be in Rome to witness the canonization of St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Xavier, on March 12, 1622.

It took years for Kibe to reach Rome and enter the Society. It would take years again for him to return to Japan. In 1623, in the company of other Jesuits, he left Lisbon to return to Goa. His goal was to return to Japan, to provide spiritual encouragement to the beleaguered Japanese Christians. It took him seven years of traveling around Southeast Asia before he could find a way to return. From Goa, he went to Macau, then to Thailand, and finally, in 1629, ended up in Manila.

In Manila, along with another Japanese priest, he was able to make arrangements for a termite-ridden sailboat to make the dangerous trip to Japan. Aware of the perils involved in traveling in such an untrustworthy vessel, Kibe decided to entrust himself to divine Providence. Leaving Manila finally in May of 1630, Kibe’s boat found itself caught in a violent typhoon, which ultimately destroyed the vessel. Kibe and his companion priest only survived because they were rescued by natives of Southern Kyushu.

From there, Kibe, finally in Japan after seven years, walked to Nagasaki, where he found, to his dismay and sadness, that the persecution of Japanese Christians had become more intense and violent in the years of his absence. Three years later, in 1633, Kibe moved to an area north of Tokyo, where he ministered to the suffering Christians for six years.

Finally , on March 17, 1639, Kibe was arrested along with two other Jesuit priests, Frs. Porro and Shikimi. They were sent to Edo (Tokyo), and met there by the prize of the Japanese persecutors: the former Jesuit Provincial Cristobal Ferreira, who had apostasized while in the pit, under the cruel handling of the master inquisitor and torturer Inoue. Ferreira tried to persuade Kibe and his companions to apostasize. Eventually, unable to bear the rigors of the pit (the same torture Lorenzo Ruiz had to endure, in which one is hung upside down in a pit of excrement, with one’s face cut to prolong the agony), Frs. Porro and Shikima apostasized.

Showing the same kind of tenacity and perseverance that marked his whole life, however, Pedro Kibe refused to deny his faith. Finally, his persecutors, frustrated by what they saw as his obstinacy, removed him from the pit and killed him. Accounts of his death differ: one Portuguese account describes how red-hot metals were applied to his body till he died; another account speaks of wood piled on his bare stomach and set afire there; still another account speaks of his being disemboweled by his torturers. He died in July, 1639, 52 years old, 19 years a priest and Jesuit.

Inoue, the chief torturer, sent back the best account of Kibe: Kibe, he wrote the Shogun, was “the man who would not say, ‘I give in.’”

There is a Greek word found often in the New Testament. The word is hupomonē. It is difficult to translate. Some translate it as “patient endurance” or “fortitude” or “strength to persevere.” In Filipino, we might say hupomonē is pagtiyatiyaga, pananatiling tapat sa gitna ng kahirapan at mga pagsubok. It is the virtue of staying the course, of not giving up even when one is discouraged or tired, of continuing the journey, even if it means just putting one weary foot in front of the other. 

When I think of Kibe—of his amazing three-year trek across the Silk Road, his seven-year search through Asia for a way to return to Japan, his six years of dangerous ministry in Sendai, his ten days of cruel torture—I think of the word hupomonē. And I remember that the secret of hupomonē in the New Testament is a secret that anyone who cares for someone else understands: for those you love, you are willing to endure difficulty; and if your love is deep, you are willing to endure anything.

A constant theme of Fr. General in his talks and letters is the spiritual depth Jesuits today need. I know all too well, from my own life, what the fruit of superficiality in love and faith is: a tendency to complain too often, to be discouraged too easily, and to give up too quickly. This Advent then, Kibe is an inspiration and invitation to pray for a share of the depth of love, the intensity of passion for Christ, that makes fortitude and perseverance in the face of life's difficulties possible.

A Tomb and a Letter: the Passion and Freedom of Francis Xavier

Francis Xavier was always depicted as a man with a burning heart: a man on fire with passion. Today, on the feast of this great and beloved Jesuit saint, father of so many of us who have gone to schools carrying his name, or who have sought to follow his missionary path, I thought I would share two excerpts from previously given talks that focus on two "relics" of Xavier. The first reflects on his empty tomb in Shangchuan, which I had the privilege of visiting in 2006; the second contains an excerpt from the letter Xavier wrote to his friend Ignatius, before embarking on the journey that would separate them forever, which was read during the close of GC 35.

Both capture the passion and freedom of Xavier: his passionate commitment to mission, that led him halfway around the world, to so many different cultures, climes and tongues, to share with those different from him what was, to him, the most precious gift in the world: the Gospel; and his passionate love for the brothers and friends he left behind, a love that led him to say, in all simplicity and sincerity: "Society of Jesus--Society of love." 

Both the icon of McNichols and the painting of Murillo depict, in different ways, the source of Xavier's passion for mission and his brother Jesuits: the love of Christ, depicted in the icon with the image of the Pelican, ancient symbol for Christ, because of the way the pelican feeds its young from its very blood.

From an article written in November 2006:

Off the southern coast of China, there is a small island called Shangchuan. Four hundred years ago, it was a quiet fishing village. Today, it is still little more than that, a striking contrast to the booming cities that are sprouting up so quickly in today’s hectic, development-driven China. A few kilometers out of the modest commercial center, on a hillside fronting the sea is a rundown chapel with an empty tomb. Here, we believe, was the place, where Francis Xavier, at the age of 46, died and was laid to rest for a few years, before parts of his body made their way all around the world again.

        When I visited that tomb last July with the other Provincials of East Asia, we found ourselves spontaneously drawn to silent and prolonged prayer. I was moved at the pathos of Xavier’s last moments. Here he died alone, half a world away from home, without his friends in Europe even knowing that he was in extremis. Here he died, after years of pioneering work of bringing the Good News to Asia: after baptizing till his arms ached with weariness in India; after traveling through the steaming jungles of Malacca; after enduring humiliation because of his appearance, his wretched Japanese, and his strange doctrine in Japan. And he died here, on this lonely island, precisely because, in order to win the peoples of Asia for Christ, he was convinced he had to do the impossible: enter the great and mysterious Empire of China and preach the Gospel there. He died with an unfulfilled dream, a longing unrequited.

That tomb is the image for me of Xavier’s gift: his burning and intense Passion. Only that passion—for Christ, for the peoples of Asia, for service—could explain why Francis Xavier, scion of a noble family who grew up in a castle in Navarre, died alone and with arms outstretched toward China on desolate Shangchuan.  Only that passion makes sense of Xavier’s constant, almost driven pushing beyond familiar boundaries into new territories. It was that passion that enabled him to endure physical hardships, cultural disorientation, piercing loneliness, frustrations and persecutions—and not give up.

From a homily preached in May 2008:

On the last day of GC 35, at the start of our final session after more than two months of being together as a discerning community, an older member of the General Curia read a remarkable passage from a letter of Francis Xavier to Ignatius, written by Xavier as he was about to leave Lisbon for India. Let me share what he read:

            We ask you, Father, and repeatedly entreat you in our Lord, because of our intimate friendship in Jesus Christ, to write to us and to advise us on how we may better serve God our Lord . . . In addition to your usual remembrance, we ask you to be particularly mindful of us in your prayers, since our long voyage and new contacts with gentiles together with out own inexperience will require much more help than usual. . . . There is nothing more to tell you except that we are about to embark. We close by asking Christ our Lord for the grace of seeing each other again in the next life; for I do not know if we shall ever see each other again in this, because of the great distance between Rome and India and the great harvest to be found there . . . Whoever will be the first to go to the other life and does not there find his brother, whom he loves in the Lord, must ask Christ our Lord to unite us all there in his glory.

  As he read this letter, that senior Jesuit’s voice broke, and soon, many of the delegates of the Congregation found ourselves in tears. I think many of us wept because we were moved by the poignant relevance of the letter as we were about to part. But now I see that what also moved me was that, at that moment, I was granted a glimpse of the inner truth, if you wish, of the Society of Jesus, what it was from its beginnings in our first fathers and what it is even to this day: a company of flawed, fallible, foolish men, it is true; but, at its best, and because of God’s goodness, a company of true friends in the Lord, free to serve the Lord in dispersionem, but always united, despite distances, by the deepest bonds of friendship and love that have their source in God himself.

  May the prayers of St. Francis Xavier obtain for us a share of his passionate love and his freedom.