Japanese Church Hails Pioneering Female Missionaries
By Marie
The head of the Japanese bishops’ conference has hailed the Congregation of the Sisters of the Infant Jesus for their outstanding pastoral and missionary works as the nuns marked the 150th anniversary of their arrival in the country.
“The church is thankful to Infant Jesus nuns for the pastoral care they have provided to the church in Japan,” said Archbishop Tarcisius Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo, Radio Veritas Asia (RVA) reported on June 26.
Archbishop Kikuchi gave his remarks during a Thanksgiving Mass at St. Ignatius Church in Tokyo on June 24, which concluded the 150th-anniversary celebrations of the congregation’s arrival in Japan.
Archbishop Leo Boccardi, Apostolic Nuncio to Japan, Sister Brigitte Flourez, superior general of the Infant Jesus Sisters, local government officials, priests, nuns, and lay leaders attended the event. Students from the Inaba Gakuen School led the choir during the Mass.
The Sisters of the Infant Jesus is a religious institute founded by the Blessed Nicholas Barré in Paris, France, in 1666.
The primary mission of the congregation is teaching especially the poor and underprivileged communities.
In a Facebook post, the Tokyo archbishop stated that “the number one male missionary sent to Japan was Francis Xavier, but the number one female missionary was from the Sisters of the Infant Jesus.”
Saint Francis Xavier, a Spaniard and co-founder of the Society of Jesus, was the first missionary to arrive in Japan.
Saint Mathilde Raclot (1814–1911), a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Infant Jesus, was the first female missionary to arrive in Yokohama, Japan.
Sister Raclot brought the first group of French nuns to Japan in 1872 and established a hospice and homeless shelter where they assisted underprivileged mothers and children. The sisters provided education to girls regardless of their social standing.
She and her fellow nuns had arrived just before Japan lifted the ban on Christianity in 1873.
In her address to the gathering at the Mass, Sister Flourez pointed out that the work that began in Japan in 1873 took time to adapt to the ground realities of the nation and had borne “very beautiful fruit.”
“The seed that came from our founder, Blessed Nicolas Barré, brought to your Japanese land by our first sisters, had to become acclimatized,” Sister Flourez said.