Lent 2025 Day 32

Takashi Nagai, Physician and Survivor
Romans 5:3-5 | John 11:45-57

Takashi Nagai (1908–1951) was a Japanese physician, radiologist, Catholic convert, and survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Born into a Shinto-Buddhist family, Nagai came to Christianity through an encounter with Catholic faith, influenced deeply by his wife, Midori, and the writings of Blaise Pascal. His conversion marked a turning point in his life—not a departure from science or logic, but a deeper surrender to mystery, suffering, and love.

On August 9, 1945, Nagai was working at the Nagasaki Medical College when the atomic bomb detonated. His wife died instantly at home; many of his colleagues and patients were killed. Nagai, severely wounded and suffering from radiation sickness, continued to care for the dying in the bomb’s aftermath. Though he was physically deteriorating, his spirit grew ever stronger. He spent his final years writing, praying, and calling for peace—not as a distant ideal, but as the fruit of suffering and redemption.

In Romans 5:3-5, Paul offers a paradoxical truth: that suffering can yield endurance, endurance can shape character, and character can give rise to hope. Takashi Nagai lived this truth. He did not glorify war or pain, but he bore witness to a God who could bring healing out of devastation. His writings—like The Bells of Nagasaki and Leaving These Children Behind—are not triumphalist, but deeply contemplative. They reflect the pain of loss, the cost of violence, and the presence of grace in even the darkest moments.

John 11:45-57 reminds us that love often provokes fear in those committed to power. After raising Lazarus, Jesus becomes a threat to the religious leaders. Their plan to execute him reveals the harsh reality that sometimes healing, resurrection, and truth are met with resistance. Nagai’s life echoes this Gospel tension—his peaceful resistance, his prayerful witness, and his calls for disarmament challenged the narratives of militarism and nationalism in post-war Japan.

Yet he did not give in to despair. As he wrote from his sickbed, surrounded by children orphaned by the war and cared for by Catholic sisters, he believed that peace must be built not with force but with prayer, science, and solidarity. For Nagai, Lent was not a season confined to forty days—it was the very shape of his life: sacrifice, sorrow, and persistent hope. In the ashes of Nagasaki, he found not only grief but God.

Reflection:

• Where have you seen suffering give birth to hope in your own life or community? 
• How does Takashi Nagai’s life challenge you to hold faith in the face of devastation? 
• What does it mean to seek peace in a world that often chooses violence? 

Breath Prayer: Inhale: Suffering produces hope… Exhale: …and hope does not disappoint.

May this Lenten season help us trust that even in destruction, God is planting seeds of peace.

Amen.