Stepping out in faith

...LETTING GO OF THE FAMILIAR AND SETTING OUT ONCE AGAIN ON THE NEXT STAGE OF AN EXCITING AND BLESSED MISSIONARY JOURNEY

By Fr. John Carten, S.F.M.
March 2002

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Last August I returned to Japan after a year’s sabbatical. I spent most of this time in Israel retracing the steps of Jesus. For eights months I was privileged to walk all over Jerusalem, Judah and Galilee, visiting sights connected to Jesus. I wandered around the hills and valleys where He walked, preached, lived, died and rose. I visited sights famous for their connection to Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Rachel, Saul, David and the prophets. I climbed Mount Sinai, visited the pyramids in Egypt and was amazed by the ancient cities of Petra and Gerash in Jordan.

Celebrating mass with members of the parish bible study group. Yuigahama Church. Japan. After 30 years in Japan, Fr. John Carten is returning to Canada to coordinate the work of vocation recruitment and education.
Photo Credit: Mike Traher, S.F.M.

On my return to Japan I found the re-entry difficult. I spent the first few months helping out in different parishes in Yokohama; however, I felt really lost.

Towards the end of October, I was appointed temporary pastor of Yuigahama Church. Once again my life took off. Nothing seems to give me greater joy than working in a parish and interacting with the people.

Yuigahama is part of the city of Kamakura on the outskirts of Yokohama. In a way it seems that my life in Japan has come a full circle. Thirty years ago, in September 1972 when I first landed in Japan, I came to Kamakura to begin two years of Japanese language studies. These were without a doubt the two most difficult years of my life. Studying the language in a strange land where I knew none of the local people, far from family and friends, unable to speak with Japanese people, and called upon to eat strange foods at every setting—it was like having a tooth pulled every time you turned around.

I am a lot different now from that skinny 24-year-old who came with a full head of hair and a heart filled with hope and zeal, ready to set the world on fire for Christ. The physical features are no longer recognizable. The biggest changes are not the physical ones though, but the deepening of faith, and the spirit of thankfulness and joy that has slowly developed within. For throughout these years Japan has become my home. The strange foods have become my delight and the culture a treasure house that continues to excite me.

Yet more than that, it is the people young and old who continue to touch me. The Japanese have become a part of me. I am filled with joy and thankfulness for the gift of this land and the gift of these people.

Within these few short months in Yuigahama, I have been blessed with a multitude of experiences. Although the parishioners are as a whole much older than people in other parishes where I have served, they, too, have responded with open arms.

It is great when a parishioner speaks of being given renewed hope by taking part in our Eucharistic celebrations. Or the older couple who say that they are glad I will be doing their funeral masses.

It is a joy to see faith come alive in non-Christians as they move towards baptism. Or how about the three-year-old, a special friend, who comes running up to the altar when I ask for a volunteer (from among the adults) to help during a baptism, Or the seven-year-old who shouts out an answer to a rhetorical question I ask in a sermon and his answer is better then what I was going to say. Or the lady who cries after making a confession for the first time in 20 years. Or the family I accompany through illness and death. All of these experiences have been a blessing.

Yet now it is time to move on once again. I have been asked by Scarboro Missions to return to Canada to appeal to others to become priest and lay missionaries.

In truth, I do feel that it is the direction that the Spirit is inviting me to follow in trust—to let go once again. Yet it is not easy. The same line of scripture that gave me strength when I first came to Japan 30 years ago is echoing within me again:

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains that and nothing more; but if it dies it bears a rich harvest.” (John 12:24)

At that time I had to let go of my own culture, language and family to be reborn here in Japan. Now the invitation is to let go of all I have come to know and love here in Japan and move the other way.

It is time to step out in faith once again. Who knows where the next stage of this exciting journey will lead? All I can say is that my life has been blessed. I have been enriched in ways impossible to express in words by these many years among the Japanese people. I pray that others will be blessed by the same experience.

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