Silence

Their plan was to make their way into Japan in the throes of persecution in order to carry on an underground missionary apostolate and to atone for the apostasy of Ferreira which had so wounded the honor of the Church.

“In that stricken land the Christians have lost their priests and are like a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Someone must go to give them courage and to ensure that the tiny flame of faith does not die out.”

Every day we keep praying that [Santa Marta’s] health may be restored as soon as possible. But he makes no progress. Yet God bestows upon man a better fate than human knowledge could possibly think of or devise […] Perhaps God in his omnipotence will make all things well.

You know well that the early Christians thought of Christ as a shepherd […] And then in the Eastern Church one finds the long nose, the curly hair, the black bear. All this was creating an oriental Christ. As for the medieval artists, many of them painted a face of Christ resplendent with the authority of a king.

Never have I felt so deeply how meaningful is the life of a priest. These Japanese Christians are like a ship lost in a storm without a chart. I see them without a single priest or brother to encourage and console, gradually losing hope and wandering bewildered in the darkness.

These people who work and live and die like beasts find for the first time in our teaching a path in which they can cast away the fetters that bind them. The Buddhist bonzes [monks] simply treat them like cattle. For a long time they have lived in resignation to such a fate.

This was the splendid martyrdom I had often seen in my dreams. But the martyrdom of the Japanese Christians I now describe to you was no such glorious thing. What a miserable painful business it was! The rain falls unceasingly on the sea. And the sea which willed them surges on uncannily—in silence.

I called out to the young man at the oars, asking him for water; but he made no answer. I began to understand that ever since that martyrdom, the people of Tomogi regarded me as a foreigner who had brought disaster to them all—a terrible burden to them.

No! No! I shook my head. If God does not exist, how can man endure the monotony of the sea and its cruel lack of emotion? […] From the deepest core of my being yet another voice made itself heard in a whisper. Supposing God does not exist…

This was a frightening fancy. If he does not exist, how absurd the whole thing becomes.

This story was well known. Its moral was that a priest does not exist to become a martyr; he must preserve his life in order that the flame of faith may not utterly die when the church is persecuted.

If it is not blasphemous to say so, I have the feeling that Judas was no more than an unfortunate puppet for the glory of the drama which was the life and death of Christ.

All those Christians and missionaries who had been tortured and punished—had they heard the gentle voice of persuasion prior to their suffering?

“Father, we are not disputing about the right and wrong of your doctrine. In Spain and Portugal and such countries it may be true. The reason that we have outlawed Christianity in Japan is that, after deep and earnest consideration, we find its teachings of no value for the Japan of today.”

Stupefied, [Rodrigues] gazed at the old man [Inoue] who, naïve as a child, returned his gaze still rubbing his hands. How could he have recognized one who so utterly betrayed all his expectations? The man whom Valignano had called a devil, who had made the missionaries apostatize one by one—until now he had envisaged the face of this man as pale and crafty. But here before his very eyes sat this understanding, seemingly good, meek man.

On the day of my death, too, will the world go relentlessly on its way, indifferent just as now? After I am murdered, will the cicadas sing and the flies whirl their wings inducing sleep? Do I want to be as heroic as that? And yet, am I looking for the true hidden martyrdom or just for a glorious death? Is that I want to be honored, to be prayed to, to be called a saint?

“You look upon missionary work as the forcing of love upon someone?”

“Yes, that’s what it is—from our standpoint.”

He had come to this country to lay down his life for other men, but instead of that, the Japanese were laying down their lives one by one for him.

Yes, crouching on the ashen earth of Gethsemane that had imbibed all the heat of the day, alone and separated from his sleeping disciples, a man had said: “My soul is sorrowful even unto death.” And his sweat became like drops of blood. This was the face that was no before [Rodrigues’s] eyes. Hundreds and hundreds of times it had appeared in his dreams; but why was that only now did the suffering, perspiring face seem so far away? Yet tonight he focused all his attention on the emaciated expression on those cheeks.”

“[Ferreira’s] translating books of astronomy and medicine; he’s helping the sick; he’s working for other people. Think of this too: as the old bonze [monk] keeps reminding Chuan, the path of mercy means simply that you abandon self. Nobody should worry about getting others into his religious sect.”

This guard did not possess any aristocratic cruelty; rather was it the cruelty of a low-class fellow toward beasts and animals weaker than himself. [Rodrigues] had seen such fellows in the countryside in Portugal, and he knew them well. This fellow had not the slightest idea of the suffering that would be inflicted on others because of his conduct. It was this kind of fellow who had killed that man whose face was the best and most beautiful than ever one could dream of.

“You make yourself more important than them. You are preoccupied with your own salvation. If you say that you will apostatize, those people will be taken out of the pit. This will be saved from suffering. And you refuse to do so. It’s because you dread to betray the Church. You dread to be the dregs of the Church, like me.”

[Rodrigues] will now trample what he has considered the most beautiful thing in his life, on what he has believed most pure, on what is filled with the ideals and the dreams of man. How his foot aches! And then the Christ in bronze speaks to the priest: “Trample! Trample! I more than anyone know of the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men’s pain that I carried my cross.”

Yet the face was different from that on which the priest had gazed so often in Portugal, in Rome, in Goa and in Macao. It was not a Christ whose face was filled with majesty and glory; neither was it a face made beautiful by endurance of pain; nor was it a face filled with the strength of a will that has repelled temptation. The face of the man who lay at his feet was sunken and utterly exhausted.

“Lord, I resented your silence.”

“I was not silent. I suffered beside you.”

“But you told Judas to go away: What thou dost do quickly. What happened to Judas?”

“I did not say that. Just as I told you to step on the plaque, so I told Judas to do what he was going to do. For Judas was in anguish as you are now.”