Sacred Heart Remembers

By Fr. Jack Lau, OMI

Oakland’s Sacred Heart Church, Pax Christi Northern California, and the Oblate community gathered for a Mass of memory and remorse on the 79th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

After the morning Mass the community of over 30 people gathered on the sidewalk in front of the Hiroshima Peace Garden at Sacred Heart. At the center of the garden is a “hibakujumoku,” a descendant of a surviving tree from Hiroshima. Our tree is a seedling from a camphor tree found in the Shirakamisha Shrine 490m from the epicenter of the bombing.

We had an opening prayer, incense sticks were lit, origami cranes were tied to the peace poles, and then we sat in silent prayer/meditation for 15 minutes as the people and cars passed us by. At the end of the service, we reflected upon a quote from the pastoral letter by Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, “Living in the Light of Peace”.  Afterwards we gathered for green tea and Japanese cookies and cherries.