Author’s Biography

Luke O’Hara lived 23 years in Japan and, by dint of miracles, was there converted to the Faith.  The steps of his ongoing conversion eventually led him to a study of the Shimabara Rebellion and set him on the road to Shimabara as well, site of the iconic Shimabara Rebellion, where visions of a historical novel began to assail him.  After many years of study and pilgrimages to many sites of Japanese martyrdoms, visits to Kirish’tan history museums, countless hours of prayer and study, and occasional visits to Nagasaki to consult with Japan’s leading authority on the Kirish’tan martyrs, he banged out a primordial version of the novel in an old apartment overlooking Fujisaki-cho in the west end of Fukuoka, in blessed Kyushu.

      Of Love and Union: a Saga of Christ in Japan

is a historical novel tracing the rise of Christendom in early modern Japan and its suppression by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu.  The Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan, Saint Francis Xavier, and Arima Harunobu are central characters in this, the first in a series of novels which will chronicle the glorious martyrdoms of Japan’s forgotten Kirish’tan faithful.

Samurai of Light: the Real Martyrs of Silence

is a collection of the stories of many of the martyrs whose names bless this website, the fearless heroes of the Faith who seeded the islands of Japan with their sacred blood, proclaiming by their self sacrifice Christ’s message of victory over evil through absolute faith in Him and their joyous, all-conquering hope of eternal life.