Deepertruth: Stand In The Gap With Us And St. Paul Miki and Companions

Stand In The Gap With Us And St. Paul Miki and Companions 2/6/2024

Nagasaki, Japan, is familiar to Americans as the city on which the second atomic bomb was dropped, immediately killing over 37,000 people. Three and a half centuries before, 26 martyrs of Japan were crucified on a hill, now known as the Holy Mountain, overlooking Nagasaki.

Among them were priests, brothers, and laymen, Franciscans, Jesuits, and members of the Secular Franciscan Order; there were catechists, doctors, simple artisans, and servants, old men and innocent children—all united in a common faith and love for Jesus and his Church.

In the latter 1500's, Japan was mostly a Buddhist/Shinto nation when St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552) introduced the Catholic Faith in Japan near the middle-late 1540's. In a short period of time St. Francis converted over 200,000 converts despite the jealousy of the Buddhist priests who still maintained influence with the regional rulers.

 In Japan, Jesus again finds Himself competing with another Emperor claiming to be a god. In 1587 the Japanese Emperor ordered the banishment of all Christian religious and a persecution of the Church soon followed. The Church went underground as the religious went into hiding. Over 3,000 Christians were martyred.

On December 8, 1596, Twenty-six Jesuits, Franciscans, and laypeople to include alter servers were captured, but these the Emperor wanted to make a warning to all the Japanese what would happen to any who would follow in their footsteps. Of the twenty-six condemned, there were three Japanese Jesuits, six Franciscans, seventeen Japanese laymen, four of which were 10, 13, 16, and 19 years old. After being tortured, they were forced to march over 1,000 miles from Miako to Hagasaki in the toughest of times. They traveled through snow and ice and freezing waters making it unbearable.