"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.

Mixed Blessings: A Thanksgiving Sermon

On Thanksgiving Day, I wanted to share excerpts from a beautiful sermon preached by Barbara Brown Taylor--to my mind, one of the finest preachers in the "business" today. How does one give thanks when events in the great world, and in the smaller world of one's own life, do not seem to lead one to gratitude? Taylor's faith-filled response to that question merits reflection.

Without too much etymological violence, Thanksgiving Day becomes Eucharist Day, a day when we are called to offer thanks to God for the whole of our lives.

Which is not always an easy thing to do.

Last week, I found a bumper sticker that summed it all up, an example of the laugh-until-you-cry school of humor. “Life is hard,” it says. “Then you die.” . . . As I was showing it around yesterday to great hilarity, one perceptive person declined to laugh, cocked her head, and asked, “Have you had a hard week?”

I have had a hard year, and not just me; the world has had a hard year.

Three thousand years ago the Jews formulated blessings—berakoth—for every circumstance of their lives. Come weal or woe, they had a blessing. If it were good news, then “Blessed be he who is good and does good.” If it were bad news, then “Blessed be the judge of truth.” As far as they were concerned, humankind has a duty to pronounce a blessing on the bad in life as well as the good, because all life came from God.

And when we gather for eucharist, for thanksgiving, what we toast is the whole of our Lord’s life, the defeats along with the victories, the gentle birth alongside the violent crucifixion, the sleepless night in Gethsemane alongside the empty tomb on Easter morning. Because, in retrospect, in faith, we believe that it is all a single tapestry and the removal of a single thread diminishes the whole creation.

Our challenge this Thanksgiving morning is to see our own lives the same way, to learn how to give thanks at this altar not only for the mixed blessings of Christ’s life but also for our own, to say “thank you” for the whole mess, the things we welcome as well as the things we risk our souls to escape.

“Thanks be to God,” we say, because we believe that God is somewhere to be found in everything that happens to us. “Thanks be to God,” we say, because we believe that the cords of God’s love are never severed, however dark or convoluted our path through life may sometimes be.

God is God, and our lives are our lives, and we can love them or leave them, give thanks for them or whittle them away with regret. Our dare this morning is to embrace all that we have ever been and done and haul it up upon the altar, and there to recognize our lives as sacraments, outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace.

So happy Thanksgiving. Happy Eucharist. Whether we leave this place to join friends and family or to dine alone . . . God goes with us, and there is no corner of our lives that he does not inhabit. Let us be on the lookout for him, and ready with our chorus: “Thanks be to God. Alleluia. Amen.”

A Joyful Giver: St. John Berchmans

There is a lot that a cynic could make fun of in the story of St. John Berchmans, who died at the age of 22 in Rome in 1621, and whose feast we celebrate today.

For one thing, one could say that he died as a martyr to studies and because of the imprudence or, at best, the obliviousness of his Jesuit superiors. During a terrible Roman summer, he had studied perhaps too intensely for his final exams in philosophy (today, we would call them his “comprehensives”), and as a result, he felt very weak. Although he had hoped to get some rest after his “comps,” his superiors didn’t give him a chance. They chose him to represent the Roman College at a disputation with the Greek College. The effort of all this study was just too much for the poor scholastic. He developed a fever and died a few days later.

Too much study, one could say, led to Berchmans’early death. About which one can make two further comments. First, that some things change: one doubts whether too many scholastics today are in danger of dying from too much study; and second, that some things don’t, like clueless superiors.

Berchmans was also known as a paragon of fidelity to the rules. As he lay dying, it is said that he asked for three things: his crucifix, his rosary, and the rule book. “These are the three things most dear to me; with them I willingly die,” he is reported as saying.

I wonder what Scholastic X or Scholastic Y of today would clasp to his chest in his dying embrace. Perhaps a cell phone and an MP3 player? The latter, of course, would be dear to him only because that it is what he used, of course, for prayer, aided perhaps by the “Pray as you go” podcast of the British Province.

Having given in to cynicism for a while, however, one looks at Berchmans brief life and finds things one cannot mock. Such as his youthful passion for and complete dedication to Christ. The other “boy saints,” Kostka and Gonzaga, came from noble families and gave up their privileged lives and promising futures. Berchmans was the son of a shoemaker. He was what we would call today a “working student”; more specifically, Filipinos would call him a “convento boy,’ doing menial jobs in a priest’s rectory in exchange for the chance to study. To follow what he felt was Christ’s call he had to turn a deaf ear to his parents’ entreaties that he help the family in their needs. I do not know who made the bigger sacrifice: the noble Gonzaga or the Berchmans the shoemaker’s son. But having encountered situations similar to that of Berchmans in scholastics today, and having seen the real, heartbreaking pain of their not being able to help their families in the latter’s needs because of their faithfulness to their Jesuit vocations, I am inclined to see Berchmans’ choice as involving the greater cost.

One can see Berchmans’ famous fidelity to the rules in the light of this complete, loving dedication. There was nothing, it seems, of servile fear, or currying favor with superiors, or scrupulous self-righteousness in Berchmans’ attitude towards the rules of common life. In a letter to his parents, very simply, he spoke of Jesus as his “beloved.” It was in the desire to give himself completely to his beloved, to respond to Christ’s love with generosity, in all the ordinary details of daily and communal life that one finds the meaning of Berchmans’ attitude.

Finally, what clearly emerges from his biographers is the attractive, winning personality of Berchmans, particularly his joy and gentleness. The children he taught catechism to when he was a novice were greatly attached to him, because of his kindness and joy. He was clearly beloved by his community, and in his illness, the entire community, his classmates, and even the General of the Society, came to visit him. When he died on August 13, 1621, he was deeply mourned by all. There seems to have been a luminous kind of simplicity, goodness and gladness that flowed effortlessly from him, an overflow, one surmises, of his closeness to Christ.

So, in the end, it is not cynicism that has the upper hand where Berchmans is concerned, but inspiration and gratitude for the gift of this young saint, whose spirit continues to live in many formands and formed members of the Society. The lovely opening prayer for the Mass of the feast of John Berchmans captures well the grace one can pray for today: “Lord our God, you invite us always to give you our love, and you are pleased with a cheerful giver. Give us a youthful spirit to be like St. John Berchmans, always eager to seek you and to do your will.”

A Leader for Dark Times: St. Joseph Pignatelli

Two of the darkest moments in Scripture are the Exile, suffered by Israel, and the final desolation of Jesus on the cross. Both were experiences of apparent abandonment by God.

The Exile was that traumatic period in Israel’s history, when everything that spoke to the chosen people of God’s love and election, everything that gave them security and identity as a people—the Temple, the Land, the King—was taken away from them.

And of course, on the cross, Jesus, who only wanted to help people experience the merciful nearness of the God he called Abba, cried out in profound desolation: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Everything he had built up in the three years of his ministry lay in ruins around him, and the absence of God mocked all his words and deeds. It is no wonder that later theologians conjectured that, on the cross, Jesus truly descended into hell, that he was “damned with the damned,” sharing the complete meaninglessness and lovelessness of the lost.

The experience of Israel in exile and Jesus on the cross, this sense of a familiar world collapsing all around one, of the loss of moorings, security, love, meaning, of abandonment by God, must have also been the experience of the Jesuits during the traumatic period of the Suppression.  One can only imagine the anguish and disorientation of the 600 Jesuits who, expelled from their home in Spain in 1767, had to travel for months to nearby Italy, and were refused safe haven repeatedly. With the stroke of a king’s pen, they had lost everything: their works, their home, their future.

What must they and all the 23, 000 other Jesuits have felt when after a few years of homelessness and exile, in 1773, they finally heard the decree of the Holy Father--the Pope they had promised special obedience to--dissolving the Society of Jesus? Again, one can only imagine their feelings: a gut-wrenching sense of having been betrayed by the Church; complete disorientation and senselessness as their world, their home, their identities collapsed; grief, disillusionment, despair, fear. How many Jesuits must have felt their faith in God tried almost to breaking point at that time.

In the midst of this darkness, Joseph Pignatelli was a light of hope. At the tender age of thirty, he was acting Rector and Acting Provincial of these lost and frightened men. With them, he suffered the trauma of suppression, of homelessness for almost forty years, as the Society of Jesus disappeared from the face of the earth (except in White Russia).And in the midst of this darkness, he did three things.

First, he abandoned himself  in faith to the incomprehensible will and Providence of God. Apparent abandonment by God led him to abandon himself to God, who is semper Maior: whose ways are not our ways, and whose plans are always greater than human beings can see or understand. What made his utter surrender to God so poignant and powerful was that Pignatelli sustained this trust in God’s mysterious Providence, not for a month or a year or even a decade, but for thirty years. Pignatelli knew how to wait, to endure and suffer in patience.

Second, he united, strengthened and encouraged his brothers. He provided leadership and sustenance for them during the initial years of expulsion. He invited them to see things through the eyes of faith, and with the spirit of Ignatian indifference and obedience. Throughout the long and dark years of suppression, he maintained contact, friendship, communication, hope.

Finally, he never lost faith in his Jesuit vocation.  As he wrote to his brother in 1767: “No reason will induce me to leave the Society, in which I have determined to live and die. . . . I implore you not to make any moves to have me transferred to another religious order. I should never accept such a proposal, even though I had to die a thousand times.”  And when, thirty years later, in 1797, the Society that was thought dead stirred slowly back to life in Parma, Pignatelli was ready to return home, to serve as novice master and later Provincial of Italy.

I pray to Fr. Pignatelli today on his feast, remembering all my brothers who, in different ways, might be experiencing something of the trauma of exile, something of the collapse of secure and familiar worlds, something of the pain of the apparent distance of God.  I think of young scholastics painfully struggling with disillusionment as they face for the first time the reality of the brokenness of the Society. I think of our missionaries, experiencing the shock of new cultures and languages, letting go of familiar ways and secure relationships, experiencing the lonely pain of rebirth in a new world. I think of Jesuits who worry about our falling numbers, about our apparent inability to attract a new generation to share our passion and our dreams, and who experience deep anxiety about the future of this least Society.

The prayer for the Feast of St. Joseph Pignatelli captures wonderfully my prayer for my brothers and myself:

“Lord God, in a time of trial, you gave St. Joseph courage and strength to unite his scattered companions. May we always receive support from our brothers, and remain faithful to our vocation in the midst of every change.”

The More Loving One

For the wedding of my friends Luigi Bernas and Luli Arroyo, I quoted in my homily two lines from a poem by W. H. Auden, which I had picked up from a novel by Alexander McCall Smith. Smith gently suggests through a character in his novel that the meaning of kindness is best captured by two lines of Auden:

If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me. 

Luigi emailed me today from Australia, asking for a copy of the poem—which I had never seen in its entirety. After finding the poem and reading it through, I now realize that while Smith aptly linked the two lines to kindness, in fact, they are not so much about kindness, but about the decision to love even if one is not loved in return. 

Here is the poem, written by Auden in 1957:

The More Loving One

by W. H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time. 


This is a sad and brave poem about accepting the suffering of unrequited love—an experience that Auden was apparently familiar with. In this poem, he makes his peace with his experience of “stars” whose beauty inspires such passion and longing, but which care nothing for him in return. 

Being treated with indifference is not so bad, Auden says, in the first stanza; there are worse things in life. To love, even if one is not loved back, is more than enough, he suggests in the second stanza. And, in the final two stanzas, Auden tells himself that even if that which one loves were to disappear from one’s life, one would survive the grief and the emptiness—even if, as he poignantly understates it in the last line, being reconciled with that loss may “take a little time.” 

A Prayer of St. Patrick (John Rutter)

There are many variations of the Prayer of St. Patrick but this one, in a lovely setting by John Rutter, is particularly beautiful. "Christ behind me, Christ before me" reminds me that just as Christ has been with me in the past, so He will be waiting for me in what lies ahead. "Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger" calls me to be grateful for the many times Christ has spoken to me through the love of friends, but also to trust that, even among strangers, He will speak.

A Prayer of St. Patrick (John Rutter)


Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ above me, Christ beneath me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.