Today's Ornament of Grace for Friday of the Fourth Week of Advent is Dr. Takashi Nagai.
Malachi 3:1-4, 23-24
Lo, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me … But who will endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like the refiner’s fire, or like the fuller’s lye. He will sit refining and purifying, and he will purify the sons of Levi, refining them like gold or like silver that they may offer due sacrifice to the Lord…
Today’s Scripture passage urges us to prepare the way for God’s coming into our hearts by our facing the metal refiner’s fire and cleansing with strong soap. Dr. Takashi Nagai emerged from fire and cleansing, shining with love and forgiveness.
Born in Matsue, Japan, in 1908, Takashi Nagai’s family was well-educated and raised him in the Shinto religion. In 1920, Takashi began higher studies at a boarding school and became interested in Christianity. Eight years later, he entered the Nagasaki Medical College. His mother died in 1930. This sadness prompted him to read Pascal’s works that focused on reasons for God’s existence. He boarded while in school with a joyful Catholic family, the Moriyamas, who led him to embrace Catholicism.
After a farewell party a few days before graduation from medical school in 1932, Takashi walked home in the rain and fell asleep soaking wet. The next morning, he had a severe infection which caused partial deafness, so he chose work in radiology since he could not use a stethoscope.
Beginning his required military service in 1933, Takashi cared for wounded soldiers in Manchuria, among other duties. Upon his return from the brutal war totally exhausted, he continued studying the Catholic faith. Baptized and confirmed a Catholic in 1934, he proposed to and married Midori Moriyama the same year. The couple eventually had four children.
Takashi joined the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, visiting not only his patients but the many poor in the area, bringing them food and whatever comfort he could. Food was scarce and conditions cramped in many places, so tuberculosis ravaged many. At this time, he met Fr. (later saint) Maximilian Kolbe who was living in a suburb of Nagasaki. War soon broke out between China and Japan, and Takashi was called back again to serve as surgeon. While in service, his father and daughter died. He returned home, grieving and weary, in 1940. He continued his demanding x-ray work and contracted leukemia from leaking radiation in the x-ray machines.
Japan declared war on the United States in December, 1941. On April 6, 1945, the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Takashi labored to serve the wounded. On April 9, the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, where Takashi was serving in the College Hospital Radiology Department, again caring for the wounded in spite of suffering a severe head wound himself.
On August 11, Takashi found his wife dead and his home destroyed. A few months later, he was near death due to the severity of his head wound. Praying through the intercession of his friend, Fr. Kolbe, unaware until later of the priest’s bravery in Auschwitz, Takashi received the strength to carry on his work for a little longer. He wrote a best seller, The Bells of Nagasaki, and used the money he made from it to plant hundreds of cherry trees to bring hope, saying, “… we pray to God: Grant that Nagasaki may be the last atomic wilderness in the history of the world.”
Confined to bed for his last five years, Dr. Nagai lived in his hermitage with
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