Dear CLC Friends,
I really appreciate your prayer. I got much encouragement.
All events (retreat and work shop) in my retreat house were cancelled
because the public transportation system has not been stable. Many people
cannot come and go home. Tomorrow we plan to held a one-day retreat. I
do not know how many can come, but we would like to get together to pray to
stop disaster.
20,000 people are still missing. 450,000 people are forced to live in a
shelter. They lost everything, house, farm, company, car, and so on.
Most villages and towns along the coast were terminated completely by big
Tsunami.
Radioactive contamination is gradually getting wider. Many people are
really afraid of it.
It is difficult to get food (bread and milk), gasoline, and electricity.
A complicated logistics system do not work very well now.
When I looked at the scene of Tsunami disaster on TV, I understood the
realistic situation of this passage, "The one on the houses top must not go
down to take what is in house. The one in the field must not return back
to get a coat."(Mt 24: 17-18) It was really true that one who took refuge to
the roof of building was saved, but one who came back to one's house to get
a thing left behind was swallowed by big wave. And Mt 24: 38-41 tells the
similar situation. I felt the disastrous situation is really apocalyptic.
I have meditated Mat 24 and I asked God for pardon and for stopping harm.
This year we got many natural disasters, floods in Pakistan and Australia,
earthquake in New Zealand, and so on. I think we have to think reconciliation
with Nature more seriously. All people, especially people in the First
World need to repent and change our life style.
Eichan Hanafusa, s.j.
EA of Japan CLC