I recently discovered that Toyohiko Kagawa autographed my father-in-law’s Bible in 1941.
Known as the St. Francis of Japan, the Japanese Ghandi, and other similar monikers, Kagawa was a Japanese theologian, peace activist, evangelist, friend of the poor, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Seminarian Joe Davis wrote a thumbnail sketch of his life, as well as a creative “celestial conversation” with him, if you want to know more about this great man, whose life example places him among the likes of Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. So, beyond the personal “wow!” of discovering his signature in my father-in-law’s Bible, I invite the church at large to discover the legacy of Toyohiko Kagawa.
Words of Advice to Faith-Inspired Activists
By Thomas Merton
The Big Results Are Not in Your Hands
Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.
