by Fr Ando Isamu SJ
The 34th General Congregation inspired me to take the initiative to live in a low income workers’ area in maybe the poorest region of Tokyo where I was already doing pastoral social apostolate, while teaching at Sophia University. That wasn’t the “standard” life of Jesuits in Tokyo and provoked misunderstanding.
Fr Nicolás was our Jesuit provincial and one day phoned me asking whether there was any empty room in my apartment. Due to the construction of the new Church of St Ignatius, the provincial house was dismantled and although he had various options, he decided to come to live in the region where I was. We were there together for about four years. From the beginning he was greatly concerned about the situation of a large population of Filipino workers living and working in the region. A few months later, Fr Nicolás ended his term as provincial and dedicated himself to working in the Catholic Tokyo International Center (CTIC). At the same time, we did pastoral work together at a diocesan parish, taking care of a small Filipino community.
The parish, composed of about 90 local Japanese faithful, was soon overwhelmed with foreign workers and often reached, on Sundays, 600 Filipino workers that belonged to the El Shaddai Christian group. That created problems because every Sunday they used all empty facilities of the parish. Finally, the parish decided not to allow them to come to the church anymore.
I still remember that Sunday evening conversation with Fr Nicolás about the matter. In fact, he had become the chaplain of the El Shaddai group, convinced of the need to assist their members in their true and simple faith, and the daily difficulties facing them in Japan. We felt sad at remarks that the parish was losing the generous financial contributions provided by the El Shaddai community, which had been thrown to a religious exile.