Opening of Japan extraordinary visitation 2016

By Fr. Jacob Hamaguchi, SDB

Tokyo, Japan, 27 August 2016 -- Six years after the previous extraordinary visitation carried out by Fr. Andrew Wong in 2010 was commenced the 2016 visitation in Tokyo. We welcomed our Regional Councilor Fr. Václav Klement in the Provincial House of Yotsuya in the morning of August 27. He will journey with us until October 17, visiting all 14 canonical communities, he will meet personally all 95 Salesians and 8 numerous groups of the Salesian family. At present we are 76 priests, 13 brothers, 7 confreres in initial formation and two novices. Our average age is 60 years, there are about 20 aspirants in Yokkaichi and Chofu.

According the Road Map of the Rector Major for our Province (December 2014) we try to foster the communion and sense of belonging to our provincial and world community. During the two months of the visitation we expect encouragement and inspiration for the charismatic growth. In view of incoming 100th anniversary of Salesian presence in Japan (1926-2026) we embarked on a journey of reshaping our mission along the shared vision, with a special focus on vocation culture, youth ministry and lay mission partners involvement and formation.

In the context of decreasing population and only 444.000 Catholics in our country we aim to become a province focused on the poor young people (OPP – Provincial Chapter 2016) and invest into the formation of all confreres. The necessary reshaping of our presences means for us the way forward: conversion in our life style – to keep in touch with the poor youth, go out of our comfort zone in all our institutions (parishes with kindergartens, schools and social works).

Also the presence of numerous Catholic migrants in Japan does challenge our mission and vision.

First day of the visitation Fr. Klement spent in the provincial house, listening to the overall presentation, statistics, economy and getting familiar with the present situation our growing provincial community. He expressed his willingness to explore especially the recently developed elements in the province like SYM (Salesian Youth Movement), Federation of Don Bosco Past Pupils, DBK (provincial mission office) and meet all provincial commissions with the participation of many of our lay mission partners.

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