St. Paul Miki and Companions -

We celebrate the feast of the Japanese martyrs on February 6th.

Father Paul Miki, a Jesuit and twenty-five other Catholics sang the Te Deum as they were forced to walk 600 miles from Kyoto to Nagasaki, where they were crucified on February 5, 1597.  The concentration of Catholic Christians were then in Nagasaki, Japan.

It was thanks to Saint Francis Xavier that the Catholic faith was first brought to the Japanese people. It was from that time, the time of the Samurai until the late 1800's, that a small number of Catholics continued to preserve the faith.  Many times, this had to be done without the presence of a priest. This was the same place that many years later Saint Maximilian Kolbe would come to continue to spread the faith.  It was also the place where tragically, the Atomic bomb was dropped, devastating so many innocent lives as well as their beloved and historic cathedral.

In the book A Song for Nagasaki, Father Paul Glynn relates how the heroic Christians and martyrs in 1864 gave their lives for their Catholic faith.  These true stories of torture came hundreds of years after the twenty-six martyrs but it shows what the Catholics endured for the love of Jesus Christ.

Jinzaburo was the father of the old priest in Nagasaki whose family helped preserve the Catholic Faith.

In the bitterly cold winter Jinzaburo, (22 years old) and other Christians were plunged through the ice of a frozen pond, held under with hooked poles and fished out just in time to stay alive.  Then they were shoved close to a fire.  Then the process was repeated and the victims often passed out.

Yasutaro was a friend of Jinzaburo.

Twenty-six year old Yasutaro had died in a box too small for him to sit, stand or lie down.  He was nailed up in it and left there in the depths of winter until merciful death took him home to God, 20 days later.

When the commander and former samurai couldn't break Jinzaburo, he went after his 14 year old brother, Yujiro.

The lad was taken down a short distance from Jinzaburo's cell, stripped and whipped mercilessly.  He groaned in pain but held out.  He was tied up naked on a cross, jabbed with bamboo poles and taunted for belonging to a foreign superstition.  He was fastened onto bamboo slats that cut into his knees and ice-cold water was poured over him until he went blue.  For 14 days the lad endured such brutalities on a near starvation diet.  Finally, his body could take no more and he fell into unconsciousness.

There is no question about the cruelty of this commander in order to have the leader denounce his faith.  But God works in all circumstances, good or bad.  Even when there is evil in the works, God's hand guides.  The commander later had deep remorse for what he had done.  His son would later become a Catholic Brother, whose story must have impacted those unbelievers.

Our Catholic brothers and sisters in some parts of the world are experiencing this type of hatred and persecution.  Maybe they are being tortured even worse than the Japanese martyrs.  So we must continue to pray for the conversion of the Islamic terrorists and for the protection and strength for these persecuted followers of Christ.

I leave you with an animated film about a young Christian boy who loved Jesus deeply.  I found it while searching for the old movie. 26 Martyrs of Japan: Ware Yo ni Kateri

St. Paul Miki and Companions - Martyrs of Japan

Picture source

Picture source

In 1592 the persecution was renewed, and several Japanese converts received the crown of martyrdom. The emperor Tagcosama, one of the proudest and most vicious of men, was worked up into rage and jealousy by a suspicion suggested by certain European merchants desirous of the monopoly of this trade, that the view of the missionaries in preaching the Christian faith was to facilitate the conquest of their country by the Portuguese or Spaniards.

Three Jesuits and six Franciscans were crucified on a hill near Nangasaqui in 1597. The latter were partly Spaniards and partly Indians, and had at their head F. Peter Baptist, commissary of his order, a native of Avila, in Spain. As to the Jesuits, one was Paul Miki, a noble Japanese, and an eminent preacher, at that time thirty-three years old. The other two, John Gotto and James Kisai, were admitted into the Society in prison a little before they suffered. Several Japanese converts suffered with them. The martyrs were twenty-six in number, and among them were three boys who used to serve the friars at mass; two of them were fifteen years of age, and the third only twelve, yet each showed great joy and constancy in their sufferings. Of these martyrs, twenty-four had been brought to Meaco, where only a part of their left ears was cut off, by a mitigation of the sentence, which had commanded the amputation of their noses and both ears. They were conducted through many towns and public places, their cheeks stained with blood, for a terror to others. When the twenty-six soldiers of Christ were arrived at the place of execution near Nangasaqui, they were allowed to make their confession to two Jesuits of the convent in that town, and being fastened to crosses by cords and chains about their arm. and legs, and an iron collar about their necks, were raised into the air, the foot of each cross falling into a hole prepared for it in the ground. The crosses were planted in a row, about four feet asunder, and each martyr had an executioner near him with a spear ready to pierce his side; for such is the Japanese manner of crucifixion. As soon as all the crosses were planted, the executioners lifted up their lances, and at a signal given, all pierced the martyrs almost in the same instant; upon which they expired, and went to receive the reward of their sufferings. Their blood and garments were procured by Christians, and miracles were wrought by them. Urban VIII ranked them among the martyrs, and they are honoured on the 5th of February, the day of their triumph.

EWTN

Detail of the Twenty-six Japanese Martyrs relief pictured below.

The three photos above were from a wonderful blog maintained by Japanese Jesuit priest Father Hiroshi Katayanagi. You can visit Father's blog here.   Among his beautiful photos are those of a recent pilgrimage he made in Nagasaki. One photo that struck me was the one of the Catholic physician Dr.Takashi Nagai whose spiritual book Song for Nagasaki recounts the impact the Nagasaki bombings had on his family, himself and his faith.

So on this, the feast of St. Paul Miki, Jesuit priest who died at the same age as our Lord, and in the same manner of death,  and along with his companion, let us hold them as models for our own Christian life. They walked hundreds of miles to their place of execution. They were killed for their faith but never did they despair. They instead praised God with recitations of the psalms and prayers as they were being martyred. They died steadfast and strong because of their deep faith.