Martyrs of Japan · Feast: 6 February
Open in the Daily Word app“May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Galatians 6:14
The Gospel came to Japan with St Francis Xavier in 1549, and within a few decades there were many thousands of Japanese Catholics. Paul Miki was born in the 1560s into a well-to-do Japanese family and was baptised as a child. He was educated by the Jesuits, entered the Society of Jesus in the 1580s, and became known as a gifted preacher who could speak to Buddhists about Christ. He was close to ordination as a priest when he was arrested.
The ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi had issued a decree against the missionaries in 1587, though at first it was not strictly enforced. In 1596 a Spanish ship, the San Felipe, was wrecked on the coast of Japan, and suspicion grew that missionaries were preparing the way for foreign conquest. In December of that year arrests began at Kyoto and Osaka.
Twenty-six were condemned: six Franciscan missionaries led by St Peter Baptist, three Japanese Jesuits including Paul Miki, and seventeen Japanese lay people, among them catechists, a doctor, craftsmen and boys as young as twelve or thirteen. Part of each one's left ear was cut off, and they were led through the towns on a journey of about a month to Nagasaki in the depth of winter, as a warning to Christians. They encouraged one another and those who came to see them, and they prayed along the way.
On 5 February 1597, on a hill overlooking Nagasaki, they were tied to crosses and pierced with lances. Paul Miki preached from his cross and forgave those who killed him. They were beatified in 1627 and canonised by Pope Pius IX on 8 June 1862. Fierce persecution followed for over two centuries, and priests could not stay in the country. The site of their death, Nishizaka, is now a place of pilgrimage. Because 5 February is the feast of St Agatha, the Roman calendar keeps their memory on 6 February.
Paul Miki went on preaching Christ while he was dying.
Like Jesus, he forgave his killers.
Priests and lay people, foreigners and Japanese, adults and children died together.
Parents and catechists kept the faith alive without priests for generations.
An eyewitness account, read in the Roman Office on this day, says that Paul Miki told the crowd he was dying because he had preached Christ, that he forgave those who put him to death, and that he hoped his blood would fall on his people as fruitful rain.
Accounts of the martyrdom tell of the youngest of them, Louis Ibaraki, a boy of about twelve. Offered his life if he would give up his faith, he refused. He is said to have run to his cross and asked which one was his.
In March 1865, soon after a Catholic church was opened in Nagasaki, a group of Japanese people came quietly to the French priest Bernard Petitjean and told him that they shared his faith. They asked him where the image of Holy Mary was. Their families had kept the faith in secret for over two hundred years without priests, by baptising and praying at home.
The only reason for my being killed is that I have taught the doctrine of Christ. After Christ's example I forgive my persecutors. I do not hate them. I ask God to have pity on all, and I hope my blood will fall on my fellow men as a fruitful rain.
St Paul Miki, from a contemporary account of the martyrdom, in substance
They walked to Nagasaki unashamed of Christ (Galatians 6:14).
Paul Miki's last sermon.
The hidden Christians kept the faith for two centuries.
Dear friends, imagine the road to Nagasaki in the winter of 1597. Twenty-six Christians walk for about a month, wounded and watched by crowds, with boys among them. Those who sentenced them wanted to frighten the Christians of Japan. Instead the martyrs sang and preached along the way, and their road became a witness to Christ.
St Paul writes: May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 6:14). Paul Miki made this his own. Tied to his cross, he told the people that he was dying because he had taught the doctrine of Christ. Then he said what is hardest of all: he forgave those who were killing him, and he hoped that his blood would fall on his people as fruitful rain.
That rain did fall. For over two centuries there were no priests in Japan. Yet when a French priest opened a church at Nagasaki in 1865, people came to him who had kept the faith in secret. Parents had baptised their children, taught them the prayers, and told them that one day priests would return. Mothers and fathers kept the Church alive.
We can come to the Holy Mass / Holy Qurbana without fear. Let us not take that for granted. Let us pray for Christians who suffer for their faith today. Let us teach our children to pray at home, so that faith does not depend only on what happens in church. And when someone wounds us, let us remember Paul Miki on his cross and ask for the grace to forgive. Amen.
O God, strength of all your saints, you called St Paul Miki and his companions through the cross to eternal life. Through their prayers, grant that we may hold firmly to our faith until death and forgive those who hurt us. Amen.