Kin Tanabe rscj and Sueko Nomi rscj at the door of their home in Sanya. photos : Sanya community and Lolín Menéndez rscj

Living in Sanya

Tokyo, Japan

“Sanya” used to be the name of a town in a very old area of Tokyo. This name no longer exists officially but the place is known by this name as a town of the homeless. It has many little, simple inns where the day-laborers stay in order to work for constructions. When they have work, they can stay in those simple inns but if they cannot find any job for a certain length of time, they cannot afford to stay there. That is why they just overflowed into the streets. Probably because many people lived in the streets, homeless men from other parts of Tokyo or from other towns gathered there. It is not a particularly poor town. Ordinary people live and work there.There are many shops, little factories and houses and a normal life is being carried on, and at the same time the homeless men co-exist with them.

The province of Japan opened a little community inserted in Sanya in 1990. One of the RSCJs, Hasegawa Keiko, who had an extraordinary experience when she encounteried a man on the street, was convinced that we had to live in Sanya if we wanted to serve the homeless there. Commuting from elsewhere was not enough. Accepting her desire and charism, the Province rented a small Japanese-style house on one of the shopping arcades.Keiko H. formed a community with religious of other congregations for the first three years,  and then a community of RSCJs was formed. Keiko has been working since then at MAC (Maryknoll Alcoholic Center), assisting those who are in the process of rehabilitation with the AA (Alcoholic Anonymous) programme, as there are many alcoholics among the homeless, because drinking is the chief, and probably only, means for survival in that condition of living on the street. Those men have lost everything, not only work, possessions, their families but also the human dignity they deserve.

I joined the community of Sanya in 1995, when I finished the responsibility of the noviceship formation. One room was available in the house and I was very glad to move in. Since then I have been here, except the time when I worked for two Probation groups in Rome recently. Now we have three RSCJs in the community. I am not doing anything particular to help the homeless, except occasional help for the work the Brothers of the Missionaries of Charity organize. Living here, however, brings me in close contact with the reality of human poverty and injustice, in which countless people in today’s world are forced to live. Jesus is sure to be found among them. His Heart, compassionate and loving, remains open to those who are excluded and deprived. It is always a challenge for me to face this reality.  Although I cannot do anything, I dare to stay here with an aching heart. Living here obliges us to choose a very simple life-style and helps us to look at our reality honestly.  We, as a community, pray together and share our daily experiences and reflections.  We celebrate Eucharist daily together with a Franciscan priest, living also in Sanya, the Brothers of MC, a couple of our neighbors and one or two other friends. This group also shares, each one in turn, his/her reflections and experiences after the gospel reading. We also have breakfast together after the Mass and we consider this table-sharing as a part of Eucharist.  This daily praying as a community, committed somehow together in this particular place, gives us life.
   
There is a variety of ways to give shape to our spirituality of the Sacred Heart.  Living in Sanya, physically close to the global human reality of injustice and inhumanness, with an aching heart before our incapacity and our own misery, can be, I think, one of the expressions of our spirituality today.  For that, however, we have to keep deepening our contemplative attitude towards the Heart of Christ and the heart of humanity. It requires of us to cling to Christ with the Father, and to be guided by the Spirit in prayer and discernment. It is a constant call and challenge but the open Heart of Christ is with us in this complex reality.