London: Talk on Midori and Takashi Nagai

What Never Dies - A talk by Maria and Martin Groos, on the lives of of Midori and Takashi Nagai will take place in Arrupe Hall, Farm Street Church, 114 Mount Street, W1K 3AH on Saturday 19 September at 7pm.

The lives of Dr Takashi Nagai and his wife Midori are an inspirational story of faith, courage and hope especially for our current times when life and world affairs can seem bleak.

The Friends of Takashi and Midori Nagai Committee and the John Henry Newman Cultural Society have collaborated to hold a talk and exhibition with the aim of sharing the heartening story of the Nagais while promoting the beatification and canonisation of Dr Paul Takashi Nagai and Marina Midori Moriyama. They have been declared 'Servants of God' by the Catholic Church.

The talk followed by the exhibition will be an opportunity to bring together themes of war and reconciliation along with peace and justice. Other elements include faith, perseverance, conversion, persecution, healing and hope.

The story of Dr Takashi and Midori Nagai is woven into the history of Christianity in Japan which has its core in Nagasaki.

The profoundly moving account of Dr Takashi Nagai's life, work as a doctor both in civil society and during the Second Sino-Japanese War, his conversion from atheism to Catholicism, tireless treatment of the people injured and affected by the atomic bomb despite his own leukaemia diagnosis, a celebrated author of multiple books and the dedication of his life to the promotion of true peace is an example to us all.

The devastation of Nagasaki is for Dr Takashi Nagai a new beginning in his search for 'That Which Never Dies', a journey to discover faith from which hope and life are reborn.

From this standpoint he begins the moral and material reconstruction of the city. Eighty-one years later, the Nagai couple's life story changes the lives of those of us who stumble upon their story.