Homily: Feb 6 - Saint Paul Miki & Companions - 26 Japanese Martyrs

Saint Paul Miki and his 25 companions suffered martyrdom on February 5, 1597 on a hill overlooking Nagasaki, Japan, on what is now called the Holy Mountain.  The group was comprised of 6 Franciscans from Spain, Mexico, and India and 3 native Japanese Jesuits.  Among the 17 lay Catholics martyred there were catechists, doctors, simple artisans and servants, old men and innocent children.

After being forced to march 600 miles from Kyoto to Nagasaki, they were all hung on wooded crosses with ropes and chains and then put to death by the thrust of a lance. 

Paul Miki had joined the Jesuits as a young man and become known for his eloquent preaching.  He helped many Buddhists embrace Christianity.  Now many of the people that he had helped to convert were being crucified along with him.

There would be more persecutions in the years to follow.  Many would be forced to publically renounced their faith.  The Japanese Catholics would did not apostatize would undergo some of the most severe torture in this history of the Church.

While hanging upon a cross, Paul Miki preached to the people gathered for the execution: “The only reason for my being killed”, he said, “is that I have taught the doctrine of Christ… I thank God it is for this reason I die… 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.”

For nearly two hundred years, priests, religious, and Christians missionaries, Catholic and Protestant, were banned from Japan.  And, when missionaries returned to Japan in the 1860s, at first they found no trace of Christianity. Yet, soon they discovered thousands of Christians living around Nagasaki. They had secretly preserved the faith that Paul Miki and his companions died for two hundred years.

The spread of Christianity in the Far East is slow and difficult.  Today, Christians in Japan comprise only 2.5% of the population.  Yet, there is far less government interference in Japan than there is in say China or certainly North Korea.

When John Paul II visited Nagasaki in 1981, he said, “In this holy place, people of all walks of life gave proof that love is stronger than death. They embodied the essence of the Christian message, the spirit of the Beatitudes, so that all who look up to them may be inspired to let their lives be shaped by unselfish love of God and love of neighbor.”

May we like Paul Miki and his companions be found faithful in witnessing to the unselfish love of God and neighbor, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.