The bomb destroyed Nagasaki and its surrounding area and killed 70,000 people, many of whom died without a trace.

Of these dead, 8,000 were Catholics from Urakami. Many of these, perhaps most, were descended from the hidden Christians, who had preserved their faith through almost 300 years of persecution.

Most of the survivors of the bomb were disfigured, burned, injured, or suffered the effects of radiation sickness. They lost suddenly and violently children, parents, spouses, and friends. All were faced with rebuilding their lives.

One of these survivors was Takashi Nagai. A Catholic of Urakami, he was not, however, a descendent of the hidden Christians. As a student at the University of Nagasaki, he had boarded at the home of Sadakichi Moriyama, whose great-grandfather had died for the Faith in a prison camp in 1856.

Nagai’s journey to God from the atheism typical of the science students of his day was a long and difficult one, but in the end he had embraced the faith of the family he lived with and eventually married their daughter, Midori.

When the atom bomb fell, Nagai was 35 years old, a doctor, a professor, and a researcher in the field of radiation. He was suffering from incurable leukemia, the result of his work with X-rays.

He and other survivors from the hospital worked day and night for two days rescuing what people they could from the rubble. Only when army and navy doctors arrived on the scene did he go and search for his own family.

His two small children were in the country and probably safe. But Midori? He rushed to the area that used to be his home and found what was left of her—little more than charred bones.

He gathered them into a bucket and buried them. Suddenly emotions that he had had to dam up burst out in full flood, and he wept uncontrollably. His physical stamina, too, sapped by leukemia, loss of blood from injuries, radiation, and the lack of proper food and sleep, now gave out. He passed out and lay unconscious for hours.

When he came to, he felt a great need to pray to Mary and slowly recited the rosary. He rose from his prayer, he later said, "refreshed in spirit."

As he walked away, a verse from Scripture took hold of his heart. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away (Mk 13:31, Lk 21:33). This was the answer to the horrors and sadness.

As he repeated the words again and again, in rhythm with his walking, he felt them flood his body, soul, and spirit. A consciousness grew that—deep down—everything was all right.

Midori had merely finished her work early and gone home to God. His own future? The war might end it soon… or peace might come, and he’d have to find a home for his children, work to rebuild the university and cathedral, and meet a painful death from leukemia in two or three years at the most.

Meeting that manfully would be his way home to God. An extraordinary sense of gratitude possessed him.

Of the rich summer greenery, there was left nothing. But one day Nagai discovered live ants, and then, earthworms. The wild rumors that all life would be impossible for 70 years were wrong! Like the ants, back to work again!

Helped by friends, he built a small hut by leaning charred beams against the stone retaining wall of his former house. He roofed it with pieces of heat-buckled tin.

He sent out a call to other survivors to rebuild the suburb. Some people responded and built huts around his. The remnants of the university staff set about planning a new university. Nagai joined them energetically.

What did the bombing mean? Nagai searched and prayed and questioned God. Then when the bishop announced plans for an open-air Mass for the dead on November 23rd, he asked Nagai to speak at it. Nagai intensified his search.

One day, sitting on a pile of rubble in the destroyed cathedral, he gazed at the broken altar—"the Lamb that was slain."

Suddenly he received a word on the redemptive value of suffering and death. The holocaust of Calvary had given meaning and even beauty to the holocaust of Nagasaki. This is what he said at the Mass:

"On the morning of August 9th, the Supreme Council of War was meeting in Tokyo to decide whether Japan would surrender or continue to wage war. On August 15th, Japan officially surrendered and the whole world saw the light of peace. August 15th, the great feast of the Assumption.

"The Christian flock of Nagasaki was true to the faith for almost 300 years of persecution. During the war we prayed ceaselessly for peace. Is there not a profound relationship between the annihilation of Nagasaki and the end of the war?

"Was not Nagasaki a chosen victim, the ‘Lamb without blemish’ slain as a whole burnt offering on the altar of sacrifice, atoning for the sins of all the nations during World War II?"

People were shocked. Some were angry. Some walked out.

Nagai concluded his talk with the words of Job: The Lord has given. The Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21). Let us be thankful that through this sacrifice peace has been granted to the world."

The silence when he finished was profound.

Nagai decided that Japan needed a book about the A-bomb. The central idea and title for it was to come to him on Christmas Eve, 1945.

Before the bombing, the cathedral had had two large bells. One was cracked beyond repair, but the other had dropped straight down and was buried under brick, masonry, charred girders, and ashes. Nagai decided to dig for the buried bell. Several young men went to work on it and, by late morning, on December 24th, they could see the top of it.

As they cleared the sides, they found no cracks. They set up block and tackle and lifted the bell. By the time they had it hung securely, it was dark; almost 6 p.m. They decided to ring the Angelus.

At that moment, the Urakami Catholics, knowing nothing of this plan, were sitting down in drafty huts eating their skimpy suppers. There was nothing to look forward to but a drab midnight Mass in the burnt-out hall of St. Francis Hospital.

Then, suddenly, a miracle transformed the winter darkness. The sound of a bell! The Angelus!

It seemed to them that the cathedral had risen from the ashes to herald Christ’s birth. That night, the title of Nagai’s book was born: The Bells of Nagasaki. Its message would be that not even an atom bomb can silence the bells of God.

Nagai had a suggestion for his friends who had returned to Urakami. "Let us continue to live in our simple huts and spend our energies rebuilding St. Francis hospital, the nuns’ orphanage, the schools, and a wooden church."

So the Catholics of Urakami—those who were able-bodied—felled and dragged timber from the mountains, cut and dressed it, and built a church. It was the first public building to go up in the devastated suburb.

At time went on, Nagai’s leukemia progressed. But though he was more and more confined to bed, he continued to write. He received money from his writings but kept for himself only what was necessary for the barest essentials. The rest he gave away.

He knew that the poverty-stricken people of Urakami needed beauty. Accordingly, he spent a large sum of money to have a thousand cherry trees planted throughout the town of huts.

When his brother, who had been in a prison camp, arrived penniless with his wife and children, Nagai decided to move into a smaller hut and let the family have his old one. Now, according to the ancient tradition of the East, he could live alone in prayer and asceticism and be available to others.

In demoralized post-war Japan, The Bells of Nagasaki was an immediate success. The people were ready for a story about a man who had lost everything and yet continued to have hope and even enthusiasm for the future.

A movie was made from the book and it, too, enjoyed great popularity. The National Education Ministry recommended it for all schools and inserted sections about Nagai into the syllabus.

From the end of the war in 1945 until his death in 1951, Nagai wrote 20 books, a number of them bestsellers.

People from all over Japan, people facing every kind of suffering, wrote to him, and he answered their letters.

Visitors came from as far away as Tokyo, and many were non-Christians. They became so numerous that Nagai often had no daylight time left for writing; so he would write during the night. He saw the sleeplessness that accompanies leukemia as God’s way of allowing him to do so.

It was during this time that he wrote: "We have to gaze below the surface of things, search out the hidden beauty that is everywhere and discover the glorious things around us. Then each day becomes a haiku poem."

Nagai died on May 1, 1951, the first day of the month of the Mother he had so loved. His last words were simple: "Pray. Please pray." Some 20,000 people attended his funeral.

Nagai’s strong spirituality helped people look at and accept their primeval nakedness and helplessness and discover that the reality of the here-and-now, whatever it is, is not hostile. God is present in it.

With this discovery—ever ancient, ever new—one can taste peace and say with tranquil simplicity, "Give me today my daily bread."

Nagai’s message is not only for Japan.

—The information in this article is from: A Song for Nagasaki by Paul Glynn, Marist Fathers Books, 1 Mary St., Hunters Hill, N.S.W. 2110 – Australia – Fax: (02) 9817 1073.