January 2026

Also this year, at Shinmeizan, we began the new year with the celebration of the Eucharist followed, at daybreak, by the ritual, so dear to the Japanese, of watching the first sunrise of the year, with prayer, hymns and… silence!

Among the more than forty guests who visited us this month (some of them stayed with us for several days, like Sr. In Kazuko and Rev. Thomas Plant, an Anglican Priest from England) we wish to mention in a special way Samuel and Oliver Oike (from Australia) and Fr. Nuno D’Lima (from Portugal) and Fr. José Ramon (from Spain) both working as missionaries in Osaka.

In the field of interreligious dialogue, the most important event has been the participation of Sr. Maria De Giorgi in the meeting of the National Committee for Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue of the Japanese Bishops’ Conference, held in Nagasaki on January 25-26, and in the ecumenical encounter, held on January 25, the final day of the yearly week of prayer for the unity of all Christians, at the Baptist church in Nagasaki.