Jude Peirispulle, OMI – (Pastor of Toyohashi Catholic Church). To celebrate the Year of the Pilgrimage, on November 30th, 220 parishioners from Totohashi Church made a pilgrimage to Ogaki Catholic Church, Gifu Catholic Church, Nunoike Catholic Church (Cathedral), and Chikaramachi Catholic Church. We worked hard to prepare for this pilgrimage, and as a result we had a fruitful pilgrimage.
Our church has many foreign nationals, so most of the participants were foreign-born. Since Ogaki Catholic Church cannot accommodate 200 people, we split the group into two, visiting Gifu Church and Ogaki Church first. Over 100 of the participants were Filipino; a Tagalog mass was held at Gifu Church, led by Father Howard Tatel, OMI. Fr. Jude Peirispulle, OMI, offered a mass for the remaining Brazilian, Peruvian, Vietnamese, and Japanese participants at Ogaki Church, in Japanese. After the mass, everyone enjoyed lunch brought from their home and deepened their connections. Everyone gathered from the two locations at Nunoike Church, recited the Holy Year prayer in their respective languages, and then walked to Chikaramachi Church. When we arrived at Chikaramachi Church, there was a Peruvian mass, and our bishop, Matsura, was present, and we were very lucky to receive his blessing before we returned to our place.
Everyone who participated had a fruitful experience and received blessings, and I believe that this will strengthen all of us to move forward and become more empowered in our respective churches and lives.
Here I also include some ideas of what the group members felt of this pilgrimage.
*Our pilgrimage to three different churches was a meaningful and joyful journey and an experience. As a group, we shared moments of prayer, laughter, and togetherness that deepened our bond and strengthened our relationship with God. From sharing food to heartfelt conversations along the way, every part of the trip reminded us that our journey of faith is more beautiful when shared together. –Bhenie Igarashi, coordinator of Filipino community
*The Jubilee Year pilgrimage was a graceful pilgrimage that renewed our heart.
*It was a precious time for self-reflection in the presence of God’s mercy.
*It was also very important that this pilgrimage was done outside of our country.
*Our life here in Japan is not easy but coming to church and getting mixed with others, especially events like today give us lots of strength.
*On this day, I felt that, compared to the other groups, we were a little different when it came to lunchtime. Our members decided to bring food from our respective places, and we felt we had too much food and variety of food. Some also came prepared to cook there. It was a very happy time, and we shared our food with the other group members too. We felt as if we were experiencing a multitude of foods in the Gospel.
*We felt strongly that God is always with us and guiding us.
*We are grateful for this grace and want to nurture our faith carefully within our family and others. –Nguyễn Văn Duy, Coordinator for the Vietnam group.
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