Takashi Nagai

Takashi Nagai (永井 隆) was a Japanese Catholic physician specializing in radiology, an author, and a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

His subsequent life of prayer and service earned him the affectionate title "saint of Urakami".

Takashi (meaning "nobility") Nagai had a difficult birth that endangered his and his mother's life.

His family was highly educated.

His father, Noboru Nagai, was trained in Western medicine; his paternal grandfather, Fumitaka Nagai, was a practitioner of traditional herbal medicine; and his mother, Tsune, was the descendant of an old family of samurai.

Nagai was born in Matsue and grew up in the rural area of Mitoya, raised according to the teachings of Confucius and the Shinto religion.

He met with a priest, Father Matsusaburo Moriyama, whose father had been deported to Tsuwano (Shimane Prefecture) for his faith, along with many other Christian villagers in Urakami by the Government of Meiji Japan from the 1860s to the 1870s (Urakami Yoban Kuzure).

Eventually, Nagai's spiritual progress took a decisive turn when he thought about Pascal's words:"'There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition.'"

In 1920, he commenced his secondary studies at Matsue High School boarding at his cousins' home close by.

He became increasingly interested with the surrounding atheism but was curious about Christianity.

In April 1928, he joined the Nagasaki Medical College where he joined the Araragi, a poetry group founded by Mokichi Saito and the university basketball team (he measured 1.71 m and weighed 70 kg).

In 1930 his mother died from a brain haemorrhage, which lead him to ponder the works of philosopher and scientist Blaise Pascal.

He began to read the Pensées which influenced his later conversion to Christianity and boarded with the Moriyama family, who for seven generations had been the hereditary leaders of a group of Kakure Kirishitans in Urakami.

Takashi learned that the construction of the nearby Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Nagasaki was financed by poor Christian farmers and fishermen.

From 1931 to 1936, Father Maximilian Kolbe lived in a suburb of Nagasaki, where he started a monastery.

Takashi met Kolbe through involvement with his parish St. Vincent de Paul Society in Nagasaki.

He graduated in 1932 and was supposed to deliver an address at the ceremony.

However, five days before he became intoxicated at a farewell party and had returned home completely soaked with water from the rain.

He slept without drying himself and found the next morning that he had contracted a disease of the right ear (signs of meningitis), which made him depressed and partially deaf.

He could not practice medicine and agreed to turn to radiology research.

On 24 December, Sadakichi Moriyama invited Nagai to participate in a midnight Mass.

In the cathedral, Takashi was impressed by the people in prayer, their singing, their faith and the sermon.

He would later say:

The next night, Sadakichi's daughter Midori was struck down by acute appendicitis.

Nagai made a quick diagnosis, telephoned the surgeon at the hospital and carried Midori there on his back through the snow.

The operation was successful; Midori survived.

Upon his return from Manchuria, he continued his reading of the Catholic catechism, the Bible, and the Pensées of Blaise Pascal.

In January 1933, Takashi began his military service with the 11th Infantry Regiment (Imperial Japanese Army) of Hiroshima.

In Manchuria, Nagai cared for the wounded and served in the sanitary service as a medic.

He was strongly shaken in his faith in Japanese culture when saw for himself the exactions of the Japanese soldiers and their brutality towards the Chinese civilian population.

While serving in Manchuria, Nagai had received a Catholic Catechism as a gift from his to-be wife Midori.

The book immediately raised concerns with his commanding sergeant, who had it examined for "subversive ideas."

Though his sergeant found the Catechism to make no sense to him, he determined that it was not "particularly socialist," returning the book to Nagai.

On 9 June 1934, Nagai received baptism in the Catholic faith.

He chose the Christian first name Paul and proposed to Midori.

Takashi received the sacrament of confirmation in December 1934.

Midori was president of the association of the women of the Urakami district.

Takashi became a member of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (SSVDP), discovered its founder, Frédéric Ozanam, and his writings, and visited his patients and the poor, to whom he brought assistance, comfort and food.

They married in August and had four children: a boy, Makoto (誠, born 3 April 1935 – 4 April 2001), and three daughters, Ikuko (郁子, born 7 July 1937 – 1939), Sasano who died shortly after her birth, and Kayano (佳也乃, born 18 August 1941 – 2 February 2008).

On 7 July 1937,  the same day as the birth of his first daughter Ikuko, the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out and he was mobilized as a surgeon in the service in the Medical Corps of the 5th Division.