< Previous Page

Satoko Kitahara
Japan
1929 - 1958

Ari no Machi no Maria - Mary of Ants Town


By the summer of 1945 the last Japanese rifle on Okinawa was silenced. 110,000 Japanese soldiers and 75,000 Okinawa citizens had died. Half of the city of Tokyo was destroyed. 13 million Japanese people were homeless. B-29s devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a powerful new bomb. August 15, 1945, the Emperor broadcast to the nation; all Japan was stunned to hear the voice from the Chrysanthemum Throne telling them to "bear the unbearable." Unconditional surrender! 46% of the citizens of Tokyo had lost their homes and tens of thousands lived like rats in lean-tos made of scorched beams and pieces of tin. The food ration was less than two small cups of rice a day. 

In 1948, the wealthy, well educated young Satoko Kitahara visited a friend in Yokohama, a girl with whom she often discussed weighty thoughts on the meaning of life. They took a walk through the Western area of the city and came to the Church of the Sacred Heart, which they entered. Neither had ever been inside a Christian church before. Here they saw a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, made of plaster and hardly a work of art. Yet the statue touched something deep inside of Satoko. Later she wrote, "This was the very first time I had seen a statue of the Blessed Mother. Drawn, I know not why, to enter that church, I gazed on the statue, sensing the presence of a very attractive force that I could not explain." As is the case for many others, the Virgin seemed to call Satoko Kitahara. The loving mother tugged at her daughter, pulling her ever deeper into the love of Christ.

Satoko became a Catholic and in the freezing winter of 1950, under the influence of the Polish Franciscan Brother Zeno, a friend and co-worker of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, she was introduced to the settlement of bataya (ragpickers) on the bank of the Sumida. The settlement had been begun by a man named Ozawa. A construction worker in Manchuria, when he returned to Tokyo after the was he was horrified at the numbers of people homeless with no prospect of a job. A shrewd business man, he moved into an abandoned building in the public park Sumida and began employing the homeless people to bring scrap which he sold for recycling. He was joined in the work by Tooru Matsui, a young writer turned attorney., who helped Ozawa establish the ragpickers as a legal entity which they named Ants Town because "ants work hard, anywhere at all, and gain strength from community." 

After visiting the ragpickers, Satoko wrote, "I lay down in bed but could not get to sleep. Br. Zeno, a man without formal education, unable to read Japanese, had bridged a chasm separating two nations and two cultures. He had discovered a part of Japan I did not know existed, where thousands lived in unbelievable destitution. Many of them lived less than a kilometer from my home! I had lived in the pampered, educated ignorance of an over-sophisticated world while this unlettered foreigner worked without thought of self in the world of painful reality... I lived surrounded by carpets and gas stoves while he went without even an umbrella into the terrible twilight world of destitution." Satoko had been led to the world of the Gospels and she had been trying hard to live them, but chapters like Matthew 25 disturbed her. For months she had been uneasy and had prayed for guidance. Were the things she saw on Brother Zeno's tour God's answer to her prayers?

Satoko began to work with the children of Ants town. Then, she developed tuberculosis. "Remember how generous the Lord Jesus was; though rich, he became poor to make you rich through his poverty." Through her crucible of suffering, she began to understand the gospel ideal and with blind trust she put everything in God's hands.

One beautiful spring day, she testifies, "With a start of realization, I stood up. In my pride and insensitivity I had not seen what God was trying to show me. I had thought I was a great Christian because I condescended to dole out some free time, helping Ants children with their homework! To save us, God sent His only Son to be one of us... He really became one of us! It hit me now. There was only one way to help those ragpicker children: become a ragpicker like them!" Satoko gave up her life of wealth and ease to chose a life of voluntary poverty, living the Gospel among her beloved ragpickers until her early death of tuberculosis at the age of twenty nine. The people acclaimed her Ari no Machi no Maria - the Mary of Ants Town.

John Ziang-bai Nien
China
1922- 1959

The Fragrant Cypress


The elderly Chinese farmer trudged slowly and wearily along the mountainous path of Chun Ta Ping. The warmth of his breath made white puffs in the frigid air. The peaceful blanket of snow covering the ground was beautiful, but the beauty could not stem the rumbles of hunger inside the farmer's stomach. This winter of 1960 was a winter of hunger; for two years a terrible famine had ravaged all of China. Hunan was hard hit and many were starving to death. The government, the so-called People's Commune, had not helped. 

Ahead of him, the farmer noticed what he first took for a bundle of rags alongside the road. Perhaps he would find something of value there. On approaching, however, he realized it was the dead body of the prisoner who had been sent there by the police in Yuanling the year before. When the police left him in the custody of the village, they told the people he was a reactionary, an American Spy, an enemy of the Communist party and a great danger to the rule of the Chinese government. There was no food to feed the prisoners, so the villagers were to guard against his escape and were told they should have no pity for him. The prisoner's life in Chun Ta Ping had been difficult. He had no home nor any land to grow food for himself. He found a natural shelter in a cave to shield himself from the cold of winter and the heat of summer, and he was reduced to begging, here and there, for food. Some kind hearted local people gave him their leftover food during his first year, but when the famine got worse, everyone in the area was suffering from hunger and nobody had any extra to give him. At last he had died of starvation, here along this mountain road, cold and alone.

Looking about to make certain there was no one to notice him, the kind old farmer rolled the body in a light quilt and dug a shallow hole to bury it. As he worked, the farmer began to notice a sweet odor as of fragrant flowers. Deep in the dead of winter, no blossoms were to be found on this frozen mountain countryside. And yet the odor was powerful. At last the elderly Chinese realized that the smell was coming from the body of the reactionary who, by all the signs, had been dead for several days. Confused, the old man kept silent about the strange sweet smell. In fact, for some time, he told no one he had buried the revolutionary there by the side of the road.

In reality, the body was that of Nien Ziang-bai, the first native priest of of the Yuanling Diocese. Educated in the United States, he returned to serve his people. In October of 1949, the Chinese Communists took over the government and immediately began to persecute the Christian churches.

Foreign missionaries were placed under house arrest, forbidden to contact their flocks. The only exceptions were the two native priests, Fathers John Nien and Bede Zhang. They were still allowed to move about the area, ministering as they could to their little flock. Father Nien was constantly questioned about the activities of the Catholic community. Matters became more critical as the Korean War developed with the invasion of South Korea in which the American Government was involved. Father Nien was questioned again and again. 

In a letter of July 4, 1950, Father Nien wrote to the Sulpician provential in Maryland, "The Godless faces are everywhere, but under God's protection we struggle and continue our works. Things here in general are fine except a fair part of most of the missions of this diocese are taken by the Communists. They are living with us right in the same compound! The people fare worse than the mission.... The rich become poor and the poor starve, although the new party says and propagates that they are the people's party, especially for the working class and for the poor."

Some time in November or December of 1950, Father Nien was arrested and held in parts unknown. At his disappearance, his mother Monica went to the Bishop. She said she would get a peddler's pack and hawk her wares wherever it was rumored that there were prisoners until she found her son. Monica was an old-fashioned Chinese woman whose feet had been bound as a child. This practice which was later forbidden by the government resulted in the women having deformed feet and made it very painful to walk. Just like St. Monica, this humble Chinese Monica suffered terribly for her son. Posing as a fruit peddler, she hobbled from town to town for nearly seven months.. She was outside Ta-Kiang-K'ou prison, near Supu, when the prisoners were led out for road work. She looked up to find herself staring into her son's eyes. He was ill clad and tied hand and foot to other prisoners. Neither mother or son gave any sign of recognition, but Monica hastened back to Yuanling to inform the Bishop. 

For six years Father Nien was in jail, forbidden to have any visitors and, in spite of threats, he consistently refused to speak against the bishop or the mission priests. 

In 1956, Father Nien was released briefly. In 1957, all Hunan clergymen were forced to take a course in "correct political thinking," and told that future Chinese bishops would be elected, instead of being promoted by the Holy See. In 1958, they were again gathered and told to sign a written declaration making a complete break with the Holy See. Father John, forced to attend, refused to sign the betrayal. On his return to Yuanling, the local government launched a "popular movement" against him, and one of the instigators slapped him in the face publicly. Father John responded mildly, "You can treat me as you please." He was then immediately re-arrested and "disappeared"; none of his friends knew where he was jailed. At his sentencing, he was referred to as a "stubborn running dog of the American imperialists," and a "diehard counter-revolutionary." 

Eventually, friends discovered that he had been exiled to a lonely mountain village, placed in the custody of the villagers as a criminal. Although assured of freedom if he denied the Holy See, Father John preferred the difficult exile which led to his death of hunger and cold in the bitter winter of 1960. The final chapter of Father Nien's life, his death in the odor of sanctity, was not made known until it was secretly carried out of China in the mid 1980's. 

Annie Zelikova
Czechoslovakia
1924-1941

Young Apostle of the Smile


Lying on her bed of pain, young Annie Zelikova told her visitor, "I must smile to my last breath. Ah, all I can give God now are my heartbeats and my smile. Nothing is left to me except love and trust."

A short time later on the night of September 10, 1941, Annie's mother realized that the end was near. She, along with the priest's housekeeper, kept vigil with her teenage daughter, praying the rosary as the last vestiges of life slipped from the body of the seventeen year old tuberculosis patient. Just before dawn in the age old custom of the Moravian people, she placed the Candlemas candle in her daughter's hands, supporting both her girl and the candle. Annie's beloved Jesus had granted all that she asked of him, to do only with her as He willed, surely he would not deny her last wish - to die with a smile. Her face broke out with one of her beautiful smiles and slowly she spoke, "How beautiful.. it all is... I wouldn't ... trade places... with anyone. My heart... is beating.. for Jesus. I love Him so much. " Her last audible statement was a weak but definitive "I trust." As the Angelus began to chime, Annie's head fell back upon her pillow. The smiling eyes which in life sought only to give pleasure to Jesus and to gain souls, fluttered gently and closed.

Annie was the daughter of a Czech farm couple. As a young child, she was often headstrong and willful. From the time of her First Communion, however, she seemed to gain a spiritual maturity which was far in advance of the norm for her age. Her spiritual growth was rapid, possibly because she was to have so little time in this world.

Annie developed a deep spirituality that was an incarnational one; she would not miss a single touch of God's love in all that happened. Hers was a practical love and in many ways it was based on the Little Way of her beloved St. Therese. She wrote, "Every instant it's possible to give him [Jesus] much - all of one's work, every movement, every word can be uttered with great love. Let us do as much as we can, and when we are unsuccessful in something, let us remain peaceful. It's not so much dependent on the fruit of our work and effort, but rather on the love which led us to that task." She explained how we are called to make our surroundings better: "In the midst of the world we can live like in heaven. Everything around us always mirrors God. And the less the world thinks of him, so much greater is our duty to let our thoughts be attentive only to him. To let resound the words: I am God's, I belong to heaven. How our neighborhood is depends on us - always. We have to change it, at least where we are; we have to produce heaven."

Just as in the lives of many saints, Annie Zelikova passed through a dark night of the soul. A week before her death she wrote, "It is enough that God sees that everything that happens to me I accept with a smile?" 

The Communists took over Moravia in 1939. Although those who knew her already considered her a saint, her story was not known outside her region for over twenty years. It was not possible to initiate the process of her Beatification until the break-down of the Communist regime. The diocesan process was completed in 1995. If one day she is accorded the honors of the altar, it will provide a resounding "yes" to her question, and will prove that teenage holiness is possible as shown in the life of the ever-smiling Annie Zelikova.

< Previous Page