As dependable as the swallow’s returning to Capistrano in March, there will be more debate and revisionist history in August about the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan in World War II.
I can neither add nor subtract from this debate, but what I can do is bring to your attention the book “A Song for Nagasaki” (Ignatius Press, $6.83) by Paul Glynn, SM. The subtitle of the book is “The Story of Takashi Nagai: Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb.”
Before you finish this book, you may want to add the modifier of saint to this remarkable man’s life. The book is not great as biographies go — I found the language stilted, a little too saccharine. For the most part, it comes off sounding like a “faith-based” movie with a limited theatrical release.
It is the subject of the book that matters. Those who need to read this book are people of faith looking for modeling, people of no faith who may be looking for answers, and people who have suffered immeasurably and want solace.
Though the book is anchored to a cataclysmic event from August 1945, the story is timeless on so many levels. And we Catholics in the United States today, who spend too much time debating every syllable of past councils and quarrel over which direction the priest should be facing at Mass, could use the reminder found in this book about what exactly we are supposed to mean by “thy will be done.”
Nagai grew up in a conventional Japanese family. God was encapsulated more in ancient ceremony or social and familiar obligations than he was carved into anyone’s heart on a deeply personal level. He grew up at a time when Japan had chosen to go “all in” with becoming a “Westernized” power to be reckoned with. At the beginning of the 20th century, architecture in Tokyo mimicked New York.
Japanese men wore pinstriped suits and Brooks Brothers shoes while city-dwelling Japanese women wore their hair like Hollywood movie queens and ensembles showcasing the latest Saks Fifth Avenue fashion. The old ways never went away, of course, and the traditional dress and worship of Buddhism and Shinto left little room for Catholicism.
But as the Church has demonstrated so often throughout history, she does not need a lot of room to lay down roots and bloom. In medieval Japan, the powers that controlled the island nation tried to eradicate all Western influence, especially that of the strange faith brought to their shores by Jesuits. They did a good job of it too, hunting down priests and anyone else exposed as a believer, dispatching them with a variety of brutal deaths.
By the time Nagai was a young medical school student, though, those harsh days were behind Japan. It was a country on the move, diving headfirst into Western medical, economic, and militaristic models. And that strange faith that was martyred to the brink of extinction was still there.
Catholics were no longer under threat of death in 20th-century Japan, but Japanese Catholics were still suspected of not being authentically Japanese. Nagai was too busy with his studies and pursuit of a career as a premier radiologist to give the Catholic faith much thought. He did not believe in his native faith either, and considered himself a man of science and not superstition. But he began reading Western philosophers, most notably Pascal, and he began to have doubts about his doubts.
When the young medical student rented a room from a Catholic family, things changed. He met and fell deeply in love with a devout Catholic member of this family. Between Pascal and the rosary his future wife Midori was never without, Nagai never stood a chance.
Midori and Nagai married — Nagai’s father eventually came to terms with his son’s conversion — and they began a family. Nagai’s career was on the fast track. He was pioneering radiological research, and he could not have been happier. Despite the war, Nagai’s radiology research continued, as did his charitable work.
On Aug. 9, when the second atom bomb was dropped on its “secondary” target, Nagai was at the hospital working, while his children were up in the hills above the city with their grandparents, and Midori was at home — at ground zero.
His city was gone. His hospital was gone. His own health was already failing due to years of exposure to gamma radiation during his medical research. Even his beloved cathedral in Nagasaki was obliterated, except for the blackened statue of the Blessed Mother.
Nagai found his children and in-laws alive. What he found of his beloved wife Midori fit inside a water bucket, which he used to transport her remains for burial.
It would have been completely understandable if Nagai had thrown two fists in the air and cursed God for letting this happen or screamed obscenities upward at every B-29 that flew overhead. But Nagai did nothing like that. He organized the remains of his hospital to be functional as soon as possible. He rebuilt his tiny home and homes for others. He helped rebuild the cathedral so his fellow Catholics could gather and praise God.
He wrote books and continued his medical research as long as his terminal illness allowed. And whether it was through his writings or through his work in his community, the overriding message remained the same: radical forgiveness.
It is one of the hardest teachings Jesus left us as he hung on that cross. For many of us, it remains theoretical, but some, like Nagai, are tested. I think the evidence is in, and he passed the test. May we all get the same grade when our time comes.
