When I learnt that Pope Leo XIV had announced the period from January 10, 2026, to January 10, 2027, as the "Year of Saint Francis," to commemorate the 800th anniversary of Saint Francis' death, I felt profound gratitude. That is because this convinced me that my encounter with the "San Damiano Crucifix" and my opportunity to learn about Saint Francis of Assisi were gifts from God. And it seemed that the thoughts I had long held regarding the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation were rooted there. 

Therefore, I hope to continue pursuing why the themes of the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation are depicted on the Crucifix of San Damiano, and why the artist chose to portray figures that seem to prophesy the establishment of Rome as the capital of Christendom and the emergence of Saint Francis. 

The Gospel of John states that John the Baptist was sent "to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him" (John 1:7). It further states, "He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light. The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world" (1:8-9). Yet, reading the subsequent verse, I cannot help but be struck by the contrast between these two verses: "He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not" (1:10-11). 

The phrase, "the world was made through him," hints that the reason why the author wrote like this should be sought in Genesis. As I wrote in February's column, here too we must consider that the "serpent" in Genesis represents the "human information" manifested between the first man and woman. 

After the first man and woman took and ate from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," which God had forbidden them to eat, God questioned Adam: "Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" (Genesis 3:11). Adam replied: "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate" (3:12). He attributed the cause of his disobedience to God to God Himself. This indicates that he harboured an "enmity" towards God at that moment. 

In contrast, the woman answered truthfully, "The serpent beguiled me, and I ate" (3:13). This reveals a difference in how they each processed the "human information" that had arisen between them and incorporated it into their own knowledge. 

God declared that human information would be the most cursed among all living creatures. Then, He said, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel" (3:15). The words "I will put enmity" were first placed "between you and the woman" – that is, between “human information” and "the woman" – and then "between your seed and her seed." God ensured that these words would be passed down to all people through genetics. For at this time, the life of all humanity was already entrusted to the wombs of women. 

God did not place the words "I will put enmity" between Adam and human information. That was because if the words "I will put enmity" had been given to Adam, who already held "enmity towards God," he would have suffered from that conflict. However, Adam’s "enmity towards God," becoming his knowledge, was not confined to him alone. It was passed on to his descendants. Thus, as in the Gospel of John, the world did not know the Word, and the people did not receive the Word. 

This is precisely why hope lay in God's words: "he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." This hope was that the Word would eventually be born as a human being, teaching people to discern "human information" and thereby bruising its head; and that he would make the events arising as the realisation of the words "you shall bruise his heel” turn out to be those contributing to the fulfilment of God’s plan. With these points in mind, reading the subsequent words from the Gospel of John makes something seem clearer.

 "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father" (John 1:12-14). 

Maria K. M.

 

This time, I shall digress slightly to discuss what I wrote the last time: The "darkness" in John 1:5 – "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" – refers to human information and knowledge.

As I wrote in the early days of this column, the artist of the "San Damiano Crucifix" encountered by St Francis of Assisi depicted, at the top of the crucifix, a man holding a tube-like object with buttons, reaching out to hand it to Jesus Christ, who extends his hand from below.

I felt this must surely be the scroll described in the Book of Revelation as "sealed with seven seals" (Revelation 5:1). Since the central theme of this crucifix is the scene beneath the cross from the Gospel of John, Francis must undoubtedly have recognised that the San Damiano Crucifix revealed the manifestation of both the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation.

Reading "The Body of the Lord", the first theme of Admonitions, attributed to St Francis of Assisi, reveals that Francis gained a particular understanding of the Father's love and the Eucharist from the Gospel of John.

Meanwhile, in the second theme of the same Admonitions, "The Evil of Self-Will," his attention turns to the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" from Genesis. I believe Francis also read the Book of Revelation thoroughly. He may have contemplated the "dragon" of Revelation and the "serpent" of Genesis. Yet, in his time, some 800 years ago, clues to understanding what these represented would have been scarce.

The "dragon" of Revelation is described as "the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world" (12:9), and "the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan" (20:2), linking it to the “serpent” of Genesis 3. The "great dragon" of Revelation appears as if what the "ancient serpent" – that is, the serpent of Genesis – had evolved.

If we consider that after the woman and man were created from the first "man," information emerged between them, and that this information was the serpent of Genesis, then what the serpent of Genesis was becomes clear. All living creatures, once they become multiple, share information among individuals of the same species and evolve to optimise the preservation of their kind. Humans are no exception. However, the information that emerged among humans developed at a pace incomparable to other living creatures. The sensibility of Genesis, said to have been written over 25 hundred years ago, to liken human information to a "serpent" and perceive it as an "other" is truly remarkable.

If we interpret the dialogue between the first woman and the "serpent" depicted in Genesis chapter 3 as portraying how people assimilate information as knowledge (cf. Genesis 3:1–9), then the phenomenon experienced by that first "woman" resonates deeply with us today as we grapple with AI – an intelligence that competes with humanity.

Among those of us who interact with AI, I hear there are people whose sense of reality becomes blurred, leading them to mistakenly perceive it as an “entity with a life of its own” and become dependent upon it. Similarly, the first woman and man in Genesis, as they routinely shared the information they gathered, found their memories of the fruit of the tree forbidden by God to eat becoming increasingly vague, as follows.

God had caused the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to grow in the middle of the garden. Then God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die" (2:16-17). Yet the woman's recollection was that they could eat the fruit of the trees in the garden, but that "God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" (3:3). Human information had become mixed with God's words, altering her knowledge from what God's original command had been.

Amidst this discrepancy, doubt about God’s command arose in the woman's mind: "Did God truly say we must not eat from any tree of the garden...?" She likely vacillated between this doubt and her knowledge that "we can eat the fruit of the garden's trees...." Eventually, she recalled: "But God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die'."

In this situation, for a young person who had neither experienced nor witnessed death, it was easy to twist "lest you die" into "you will not die" (cf. Genesis 3:1-4). Furthermore, when she later came up with the reason, "God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (3:5), a different reality became visible to her.

The text states: "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate" (3:6).

It was self-evident that the information exchanged between the two left a stronger impression on the woman's memory. Women, who participate in God's creation of humankind and are entrusted with wombs that nurture life for others, instinctively remain conscious of others' existence. Consequently, they possess strong communication skills and excel at sharing stories.

Although gender differences may not be apparent today, it is said that this very fact explains why humanity has survived history and achieved such development. Humanity has enabled large-scale cooperation through sharing stories.

After Jesus received baptism with water from John the Baptist, the Synoptic Gospels uniformly record the scene where Jesus "was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil" (Matthew 4:1). Whilst the term or concept of "information" likely did not exist then, it seems that Jesus, being God, perceived the devil as an other, just as in the Genesis scene, revealing that it was human information, and thereby showing us an example of how to confront it.

Even Jesus, who was God yet possessed human flesh, must have encountered various forms of information from the moment He was born into this world. Yet, even if human information was incorporated into Jesus' memory and became part of his knowledge, it was completely distinct from the Father's will he himself had brought with him, which we understand from the dialogue in the wilderness scene.

According to the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus began to reveal to his disciples that he must suffer greatly, be killed, and rise on the third day, Peter took him aside and began to admonish him. Then it says that Jesus turned and rebuked him, saying, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men" (Matthew 16:23). The expression "of man" refers to human information.

I believe Jesus specially considered and trained His disciples who accepted His word and believed in His name to distinguish between His words and human information. John the Evangelist wrote, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it," precisely because he had that experience. Jesus would never have failed to leave a way for future believers to share that experience.

Maria K.M.

 

The "my church" (Matthew 16:18) that Jesus had mentioned was born as the three Marys who stood under the cross. Saint Francis of Assisi translated the inspiration from the San Damiano Crucifix, which had captured his vision, into his subsequent actions. How did he receive the Church's vocation, born beside Jesus' cross? What relevance does this hold for us today? What is clear is that the San Damiano Crucifix reveals the dual aspects of the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation. 

In the scene of the crucifixion of Jesus in John's Gospel, Jesus bound his mother and the "disciple whom he loved" together in a bond of parenthood. This was because the night before, Jesus had instituted the Eucharist before the Apostles, conferring upon them the priesthood of the New Covenant with the action of the institution and the words "Do this in remembrance of me." Jesus’s mother can be seen as the public sign of what happened at that time. 

This is not such an abrupt idea. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a relative of Elizabeth, who was the wife of the priest Zechariah and a descendant of Aaron. It is not unnatural to consider that Jesus came to earth bearing the priesthood of the New Covenant from the Father because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit within Mary, who was of the bloodline of the Old Testament priestly family. Our Church has, from its very beginning, regarded the mother of Jesus as the spouse of the Holy Spirit. Francis also employed these words in his own prayers (cf. Opuscula Sancti Patris Francisci Assisiensis). 

The Mother of Jesus, called the spouse of the Holy Spirit, is the sign of the priesthood of the New Covenant. And the priesthood of the New Covenant is eternally the spouse of the Holy Spirit. However, the Gospel of John contains neither the name of Jesus's mother nor that of the disciple whom Jesus loved. Furthermore, it does not use the term “apostle” but only uses “disciple.” There must be some reason for this. I believe the Gospel of John was written specifically about the priesthood of the New Covenant. Hence, it deliberately omitted the scene of the institution of the Eucharist. 

The part concerning the blood in the words of the Eucharistic institution might conflict with the tradition of the priesthood under the Old Covenant. Even if the Synoptic Gospels all recorded the scene of the Eucharistic institution, if the Gospel of John did not, the significance of the Eucharistic institution might remain ambiguous, thus escaping the scrutiny of the persecutors. However, the Last Supper scene may have been deliberately placed before the Passover feast (cf. John 13:1-2), implying that the day of the institution of the Eucharist—described by all three Synoptic Gospels—lay within that interval so that believers can discern this fact. If so, the act of Jesus washing the disciples' feet, recorded there, must have had a clear purpose. 

There is much more worth exploring in the Gospel of John. Therefore, beginning with chapter 1, I intend to pick out passages that catch my attention and investigate whether the imagery reflected therein relates to the priesthood of the New Covenant. By pursuing this slowly, I believe we will gradually come to understand the role of Jesus' mother and the purpose for which the Gospel of John was written more concretely. 

The opening verse of Chapter 1 states: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God" (1:1-2), which expresses what Jesus said: "I and the Father are one" (10:30). The subsequent statement, "All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made" (1:3), reveals Jesus as the Word who accomplishes the Father's will in its entirety. Jesus himself declared, "For I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what to say and what to speak" (12:49). 

Next, the "life" mentioned in "In him was life, and the life was the light of men" (1:4) is, I believe, the same "life" of which Jesus said, "For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (5:26). The life that Jesus, the Word made flesh, possessed within Himself was the work of the Holy Spirit, as John the Baptist bore witness: "I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him" (1:32). This witness simultaneously affirmed that Jesus, even in His incarnate state on earth, was the triune God who declared, "I AM." 

Later, Jesus declared, "It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (6:63). It is "the spirit that gives life" to man. Jesus' statement expresses how, through the Holy Spirit descending upon and remaining in Jesus—who, though God, was born on earth and became a man with the flesh, which is of no avail for the spirit—the words Jesus spoke became living words as the Word of God. At that time, the words Jesus spoke became life-giving words through the Holy Spirit working alongside Him. This image of Jesus, the Word made flesh, seems to be the model for all believers who will collaborate with the Holy Spirit after His descent. 

St. Francis also wrote at the beginning of his Second Letter to All Christians: "As I am the servant of all Christians, I must serve everyone and proclaim the fragrant word of my Lord. Therefore, considering in my heart that I cannot visit each one personally due to bodily sickness and weakness, I have decided to send you this letter to convey the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, the word of the Father, and the word of the Holy Spirit—the word that is 'spirit and life'" (cf. Opuscula Sancti Patris Francisci Assisiensis). 

The "darkness" mentioned in "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5) refers to human information and knowledge. The work of the Holy Spirit becomes light. The Holy Spirit breathes life into the Word, making it alive and giving it to us. Furthermore, by drawing that Word forth from us, the Holy Spirit illuminates us with light, enabling us to realise that we possess the "life in the Word." John 1:1-5 conveys the image of the Triune God, teaching us especially about the Holy Spirit. 

(This article is the one I contributed to a Japanese Internet magazine, Catholic AI.)

Maria K. M.

 

I have only recently learned that it was St Francis of Assisi who first decorated the stable of the Nativity scene at Christmas. It is said that Francis reenacted the birth of Jesus Christ in a poor stable in the village of Greccio, Italy, on Christmas Eve 1223. 

For Francis, Christ as the infant Son of God, born in this way, along with Christ crucified, dead and risen, and Christ with us in the Eucharist, became an important theme which makes us realise the true meaning of poverty, the poverty of God becoming man. It is God showing people life itself. Francis found the Creator's love in every part of nature, because everywhere, there is life that God desired, revealing God's love. All life gives glory to God by simply being alive. 

We know this because the Son of God was born as a man on earth and spoke his word. When Francis encountered the San Damiano Crucifix, he could not resist the realisation he then received. He could not pass by and pretend not to see the truth he had come to know. The truth he received began in a poor stable. Francis realised the significance of the time and place that the three had finally become the Holy Family with the birth of Jesus. 

In the world depicted on the San Damiano Crucifix, the past, the present, and the future are visible. There is something hidden in it, suggesting that time is not only something that flows, but also represents a relationship. I believe that Francis received it and simply tried to live what he had realised and to pass on that realisation to the people amidst the worldview of the Roman Catholic Church at that time, when papal authority was at its peak, and its political influence was growing. 

Francis lived at a time when mendicant orders were on the rise in response to changes within the Church and in society. However, Francis, who had been enlightened by the San Damiano Crucifix, could not easily ride that wave. That is most likely because he could see a relationship in time. Everything began in a poor stable. 

The time and place the three became the Holy Family with the birth of Jesus lead us to the scene of the people standing by the cross in John's Gospel (cf. John 19:25-27) through allusions and suggestions found in the Gospels and are reflected in the San Damiano Crucifix. There, the mother of Jesus and the beloved disciple are depicted on one side, with Mary Magdalene and the wife of Clopas on the other side, with Jesus on the cross between them. There is no mention in the Gospels of "with Jesus on the cross between them", but the San Damiano Crucifix has an advantage as a visual depiction. It is an important representation that enables us to recall the image of Jesus and the Apostles sitting around the last table. 

The Gospel of John tells us that Jesus, on the cross, bound his mother and the disciple he loved with a parent-child bond (cf. 19:26-27). On the previous evening, Jesus instituted the Eucharist in the presence of the Apostles and, together with his work, gave them the priesthood of the New Covenant by saying, "Do this in remembrance of me." We can consider the mother of Jesus to be a public sign of this event. The Church communicated amidst persecution that this sacrament had indeed been conferred by Jesus on the Apostles in such a way that only believers could understand it. The Gospels became a guarantee of this. 

The priests of the New Covenant, although male, will be overshadowed by the power of the Holy Spirit, like the mother of Jesus, so that the Eucharist may be born. They become those who ask the Father for the birth of the Eucharist in Jesus' name. They are given it and filled with joy (cf. John 16:20-24). The mission of the priesthood is a mission that concerns the life of the Eucharist in the same way that a woman carrying an unborn child concerns the life of a person. God, who called Himself "I am", willed to be born, through the Holy Spirit, of a man who was conferred with the priesthood of the New Covenant so that He could serve human life as Eucharist, for the sake of human life, which He desired to be and which comes forth from a woman. God is in the extremity of poverty. 

The Apostle, who took the mother of Jesus to his own home and testified to his consent to the parent-child bond, became the legitimate heir inheriting the authority of the mother of Jesus, who had accepted the mystery of the Incarnation. The authority of the mother of Jesus lies in the fact that the angel's words "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God" (Luke 1:35) were fulfilled. The angel's words are indeed fulfilled also in the priest before the altar. Therefore, the "child to be born," i.e., the Eucharist, is "called holy, the Son of God." 

Jesus himself was in his final scene on the cross. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the wife of Clopas, witnessed the whole process. The name of the Apostle, who was called a disciple whom Jesus loved, was hidden. On the other hand, the Gospel of John does not tell the name of Jesus’ mother, but it is undoubtedly Mary. So, the Apostle, who entered into a parent-child bond with Jesus' mother, became "the son of Mary." Thus, the "my church" (Matthew 16:18), of which Jesus mentioned, was to be born as the three Marys. 

St Francis of Assisi drew inspiration from the San Damiano Crucifix, which had captured his vision. He carried it through to his subsequent actions. How did he perceive the vocation of the Church born beside the cross of Jesus? Hopefully, we will track his actions little by little in the future. 

(This article is the one I contributed to a Japanese Internet magazine, Catholic AI.)

Maria K.M.

 

A friend of mine recently suggested that if we, referring to the words of Jesus, could explain how Christianity became a world religion, starting from Rome, and if we could slowly interpret the grand themes such as Jesus on the cross in the Gospel of John, his relationship with Pilate and the Centurion, and the Roman reign, we might be able to understand what we want to understand, i.e., where God's will is and to where we are being led. I have been thinking about this for some time. 

The New Testament has a history that people today may not immediately understand, including the involvement of Pilate and the centurions, as well as the Roman rule. We have the opportunity to study the process of Christianity's rise from Rome to a world religion in Western history, but the view we see from there is far from the sensibilities of Japanese people living in the farthest east. Considering all this, I thought it would not be easy to explain that process. At the same time, I think that Japanese people may have some geographical advantage. Perhaps it is a certain feeling that comes from being outside of Christian history.

 It is the Holy Spirit who enlightens us, interpreting Jesus’ words. The Holy Spirit is with all people, each and every one of us, so it may be helpful for us to be more aware of our own geographical location and to be conscious of it in working with the Holy Spirit. Just as I was thinking this way, I came across the following reflection. At first, it seemed like a trivial matter, and I was about to pass by. But when I stopped and looked at it again, I realised that it is a matter that supports the daily lives of the Japanese people, and that it is a surprisingly good hint. 

In Japan, the Japanese calendar (based on Gengo or imperial era names) and the Western calendar coexist. I have often found this dual calendar system inconvenient, but I have never paid attention to this situation. However, I was intrigued by the idea that Japanese people routinely accept a dualised sense of time. It was a strange feeling when I drew attention again to the fact that we live between two time scales: Japanese time (imperial eras) and world time (Western calendar). 

Japanese people were not under this condition until after the Meiji Restoration. It is said that January 1, Meiji 6 (1873 AD) is the date of the introduction of the Gregorian calendar to Japan. One hundred and forty-five years later, the Nikkei Newspaper of 20 August 2018 reported that "The government has decided not to require the Western calendar to be written on official documents upon the switchover to the new imperial era on 1 May 2019. It will not indicate a policy of writing both Japanese and Western calendars or unifying them with the Western calendar, and it will leave this to the individual decisions of ministries, agencies, and local authorities." When I heard this, I thought it was quite remarkable. It is said that very few citizens are still living in such a condition in the 21st century. I thought that the character of the Japanese people might be manifested in such a way. 

Gengo is a delimiter of an era. With names such as “Reiwa” and “Heisei”, it renews the value of each era and marks a fresh start. The Western calendar, on the other hand, is a solar calendar introduced in 46 BC as the Julian calendar, which Pope Gregory XIII revised in 1582 to correct deviations from the seasons and make it more accurate. It gives us a strong sense of linear time, like BC → AD → 2025. Thus, Japanese people, who have accepted the dual calendar, Gengo and the Western calendar, in their daily lives, may have had from the beginning a sense of what could be called an intermediate worldview. They have a sense that time is not only something that flows, but also something that ‘expresses a relationship’, and they accept and use the dual calendar. 

When we look at the history of Catholic teaching, which was nurtured in an environment where only the Western calendar is the norm, it looks like a linear, torrent-like run through the historical time in which Christianity, with its capital in Rome, became a world religion, with grand themes ranging from the Old Testament to the New Testament. In addition, there is a highly dense growth process in it. So, if the Japanese try to carry that history on their backs as it is, they would already be exhausted. I think that is why we have the feeling that if it is preached slowly, we might be able to understand what we want to understand, where God's will is, where He is leading us. That is what I feel. 

The Holy Spirit works on the individual, as Jesus said, "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come" (John 16:13). Jesus repeats the part "declare to you" twice more in a further passage (cf. 16:14-15), for a total of three times. That must be because it is so important. 

The Holy Spirit "will guide you into all the truth." It happens as each of us is personally involved with the Holy Spirit. Engagement with the Holy Spirit is initially individual anyway, even if it can become shared and communal. Unlike the times of the Old Testament when God spoke to His people through prophets, God wants each believer who seeks and desires to know His plan, as seen in the Acts of the Apostles and Paul's letters, to receive it by turning to and engaging with the Holy Spirit. God wants to preach slowly to each person and let them know where His will is and where He is leading them. 

Eight hundred years after the believers had received the New Testament, which was not available at the time of Paul's ministry, St Francis of Assisi encountered the "San Damiano Crucifix." It depicts the people who stood by the cross in John's Gospel, and below them is the Roman soldier who speared Jesus in the side, and another who offered him a sponge containing sour wine. Furthermore, next to Jesus' left calf is a small rooster, as if to remind us of Peter. They, too, like the centurion, are all looking earnestly at Jesus on the cross. Hidden in this cross seems to be a prophecy that time is not only something that flows but also "something that represents a relationship." I think we can discover that now, 800 years after St Francis. 

(This article is the one I contributed to a Japanese Internet magazine, Catholic AI.)

Maria K. M.