Abstract:
When Akiko and Fumiko, aged 28 and 23 respectively, arrived at the
Trappistine convent of Our Lady of Imari, they were not initiates to the
order, but they weren’t casual visitors either. They had set aside the following three months for a program in which
they would labor and live with the sisters as temporary members of the
community. The convent started this program as a way to give young people a
chance to make prayer the center of their lives, not only during their
stay but in their lives afterward. Prayer is like the pulse of this convent, which sits on a mountain
overlooking Imari Bay in Saga Prefecture, some 940km west of Tokyo. The
first prayers begin promptly at 3:50 am, and the day ends with a Marian
hymn at 7:40 in the evening. The traditional form of Christian devotion at Our Lady of Imari
focuses on the Mass and the daily “office”, or schedule of seven prayer
sessions. Akiko and Fumiko joined in this experience and devoted more
than four hours to prayer each day, in addition to three and a half
hours set aside for study and about three hours for manual labor.