Footprints of Jurian Nakaura@No.4
In those days, Francisco Cabral was the 3rd mission leader in Japan following
Francis
Xavier and Cosme de Torres. Even though Cabral was the general director
for the mission
in Japan, unlike the original policy of the Society of Jesus which tried
to carry forward the
evangelization understanding and respecting Japanese culture, he did not
try to understand
Japanese culture and language sufficiently and just pressed forward European-led
mission.
It created many problems.
Under such circumstances, Supervisor Alssandro Valignano landed on Japan
in 1579. He
was sent by the Superior General of the Society of Jesus to make a inspection
of the
evangelization in Japan and supervise missionaries.
Vallignano saw problems with the missionary work of that time in Japan and undertook
many reforms.
First, he traded deals with Macau to secure the financial resources and
divided Japanese
parish into three. He encouraged to study Japanese language, culture and history and
began to establish educational facilities such as seminaryo, novitiate*
and collegio** to
equip Japanese to be able to preach the gospel themselves. Theological
seminaries called
seminaryos which were established to provide the Biblical education to Japanese boys
were built at Arima (present Minami-shimabara-city, Nagasaki prefecture)
and Azuchi
(present Azuchi town, Shiga prefecture). Moreover he had an audience with Nobunaga Oda
to make sure that Nobunaga would protect Christianity.
*Novitiate: training school to be a member of the Society of Jesus
**Collegio: special school for those who plan to be a priest
Arima Seminaryo was opened in 1580. That is two years after Jurian moved
to Omura.
Vallignano recruited new students also in the territory of Sumitada Omura.
Lord Omura chose Maruchino Hara and Jurian, and ordered them to study at
Arima.
20 other boys were gathered and all 22 boys had studied as the member of
the inaugural
class. Among them, there were Mansho Ito and Migeru Chijiwa.
The study at the Seminario was like this;
They get up at 4:30 am in the morning, then have a service and a prayer
meeting every day,
then study Latin, Japanese, and church singing and practice musical instruments and so on.
They did nothing but studied until 8:00 pm at night which was the time
to go to bed.
Thus Jurian, a thirteen years old boy, had a great oppotunity to train
his faith as well as
to study theology at Seminaryo.
(The Kyoto Glory Church Translation Committee is
responsible for the wording of this article.)
(Alessandro Valignano)