TOKYO (AsiaNews), December 4, 2008:
By Pino Cazzaniga
The PIME missionary from Italy died at the end of November after 54 years in Japan. During his long stay in that country he successfully grasped the local worldview and culture. In his last years he lived among the sick in a Catholic-inspired hospital in Kurume.
Bishop Dominic Miyahara did not hesitate to compare Father Riccardo’s character to that of the 188 Japanese, who were beatified last 24 November. Fr Riccardo Magrin passed away on 26 November at the age of 84.Hundreds of people filled Kurume Church (Fukuoka, Kyushu) to pay their last respect to the Italian missionary. Most of those present were hospital officials, doctors and nurses; some came from the “Sei Maria Byoin’, the big ‘Santa Maria’s Hospital” where Father Riccardo spent his last seven years as chaplain.
Father Magrin was born in 1924 in S. Pietro in Gu (Padua Province). In 1954 he was assigned to the missions in Japan where he remained until his death, working in the small towns of Saga, one of Japan’s least known prefectures. In 2001 he decided to retire and leave his posting in the Catholic church of the city of Tosu and return home to rest and devote his remaining years to contemplation. But Dr Nichio Ide, director of the Kurume Hospital, asked him to become its chaplain, which Father Magrin did.
Some months later he wrote a letter to his superior. “By mysterious ways Providence directed me here to spend the last years of my life. For me it is a new life full of spiritual and physical initiatives,” the letter said. He was 77-years-old. “Suffering often brings people closer to God. I am finding out every day how important it is to bring solace and hope.”
Kurume’s Santa Maria Hospital was founded about 90 years ago by Dr Ichiro Ide from Nagasaki, to serve the poor who could not afford adequate medical care. The small health facility of the early years is now an impressive clinic, with a hospice for the elderly with impairments and a renowned university-level nursing school. At the entrance three ideograms encapsulate what it stands for: “Faith, Hope, and Charity.”
When 30 years ago the bishop of Fukuoka decided to rebuild the cathedral, the director of the ‘Santa Maria’ asked that the old church be moved and rebuilt inside the hospital compound. Father Riccardo spent mornings visiting “patients that I knew,” and through “them I got to know many others.” This way consolation walked out of the door of the small church like a small but lively “river of hope.”
In a letter he wrote at the start of this new job he said: “I did not have a clue about hospital matters. But as a man I’d like to be close to those who like me work in hospital; I’d like to share with them joy and sorrow. We all have happy moments and others that are no so happy. I would like to see the people who work in the hospital feel free to talk to me, when they are unhappy, so that I might be for them a light that brings hope.”
And he was increasingly so towards the end of his life after doctors found a tumour in his lungs. Conscious that he only had a few months to live he did not resign himself to his fate but continued instead to bring solace to the elderly patients in the hospice.
During the funeral, Bishop Miyahara said “our grief is justifiable since we lost a great life.”
Fr Ferruccio Brambillasca, current PIME Superior in Japan, said that Father Riccardo led a fruitful and successful life. Father Magrin was a missionary who did not ‘waste’ even a second of his life, and for this reason he has left fond memories to one and all. Even when Father Magrin was sick he never stopped his apostolate but continued instead to visit the sick with care and dedication.”
European in Japan
Globalisation is not built on computers, financial systems and even less on military force, but on dialogue between people from different cultural background. For a Western diplomat or businessman living in a Japanese metropolis is not hard. This is not the case for a European who chose to live for 54 years in an area of Japan where Europeans and Americans are rare. Finding one’s place and life in such an environment means sharing the existence of ordinary people, speaking their language and adopting their customs. If people in Saga Prefecture learnt anything about European culture, it was not through TV shows but by observing the life of a small and humble missionary.
Copyright © 2003 AsiaNews
