# Kirishtan.com > Dedicated to the Christian Martyrs of Japan ## Posts - [A Winter Offering: The 53 Martyrs of Yonezawa](https://kirishtan.com/a-winter-offering-the-53-martyrs-of-yonezawa-2/): In January 1629, with hands bound and rosaries around their necks, this group of Catholic faithful were beheaded in Yonezawa, Japan. Anonymous, “The Christian Martyrs of Japan,” 17th century (photo: Public Domain) Luke O’Hara Blogs    January 29, 2022 Looking down from Heaven on frosty Yonezawa in the winter of 1629, one would have seen blooms of crimson spreading upon the white-blanketed earth below, for her mantle of virgin snow was being baptized with Christian blood. Although Yonezawa, in north-central Japan, was home to many Catholics, it seems to have escaped shogunal scrutiny for some years. Perhaps because its ruler, Uesugi Kagekatsu, […] - [Saint Marina of Omura, a Holy Martyr of November](https://kirishtan.com/saint-marina-of-omura-a-holy-martyr-of-november-2/): November the Eleventh marks the martyrdom of Saint Marina of Ōmura, canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 18, 1987. I first learned of her story on seeing her statue in the courtyard of the Kako-machi Catholic Church in Ōmura, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan—a lady in black-and-white Dominican habit clutching a crucifix to her breast and standing atop a crown of flames that would send her straight to Heaven, her face aglow with faith and hope and love—and superhuman strength. In 1626, entering the Dominican Order as a Tertiary, or lay Dominican, she had dedicated her life and her virginity […] - [The Galleon, the Tyrant and the 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki](https://kirishtan.com/the-galleon-the-tyrant-and-the-26-martyrs-of-nagasaki-3/): The air was electric with a holy silence, all Nagasaki dumb with grief, as the parade of martyrs marched past toward the hilltop where their crosses waited. Wolfgang Kilian, “The Martyrs of Nagasaki,” 1628 (photo: Public Domain) Raked by frothing waves and howling wind, the galleon San Felipe rode the merciless Pacific bereft of mainmast and rudder, her battered old hull the merest plaything of the tempest. Aboard her were a litany of friars — Franciscan, Dominican and Augustinian — clinging for their lives to whatever handholds the creaking old behemoth could provide and praying for deliverance, if not for […] - [1 November 1622: Fr. Pietro Paolo Navarro, Jesuit Martyr](https://kirishtan.com/1-november-1622-fr-pietro-paolo-navarro-jesuit-martyr/): This story begins on Christmas Day in the Year of Our Lord 1560, when the town of Laino Borgo in Cosenza, Italy was graced with the birth of a boy of noble blood. Eschewing the life of privilege that could have awaited him, the boy chose instead to serve his God and save the souls of his fellow men in a foreign land. View of Laino Castello, near Laino Borgo. Photo by Mboesch (Creative Commons. see license link below) Pietro Paolo Navarro entered the Society of Jesus at Nola (Kingdom of Naples) in 1579, the very year that Father Alessandro […] - [21 October 1633 – Father Julian Nakaura: Priest, Samurai and Martyr](https://kirishtan.com/21-october-1633-father-julian-nakaura-priest-samurai-and-martyr-2/): The jumbled boulders of Nakaura lie brooding on the shore, defying the sea to do its worst.  Behind them squats a hill clothed in bamboo, its giant knees of rock protruding through the trees.  A continent of charcoal cloud looms over the coast, yet the sun blazes triumphantly in the distant west, riding high above the Gotoh Islands:  it burns one’s face, even in the tail-end of winter. Julian Nakaura was born here.  They honor him with a memorial that overlooks the village:  a pony-tailed boy in bronze pointing out at the sea, towards the Rome the real boy visited.  […] - [16 October 1634: Santa Magdalena of Nagasaki](https://kirishtan.com/16-october-1633-santa-magdalena-of-nagasaki/): Thirteen days and a half she hung in the pit, singing hymns and blessing the names of Jesus and His mother: no other human being in all the dark history of Japan’s persecution of Christ’s Church ever withstood the torturers’ cruelties so long. Yet, in the end, it was not the cruelties of the Shōgun’s minions that ended her life; rather, it was the merciful Hand of God that gently took holy Magdalena home. A young woman of extraordinary beauty and refinement, Magdalena so enthralled the diabolic Governor of Nagasaki, Takenaka Uneme, that he tried to dissuade her from seeking […] - [Father Camillo Costanzo, S.J., Blessed Martyr (15 September 1622)](https://kirishtan.com/father-camillo-costanzo-s-j-blessed-martyr-15-september-1622/): A ‘Sanctus’ for the Ages           Calabria in Italy has produced some remarkable warriors for Christ, men of insuperable courage and faith, yet even among these titans, Fr. Camillo Costanzo stands tall. Born in 1571 in Bovalino, a village perched on the Ionian Sea under the boot of Italy, young Camillo Costanzo must have glimpsed eternity awaiting him across that fabled sea, for he would live out his life as if the promise of Heaven were always before his eyes. Having studied law at the University of Naples and served as a soldier in Flanders, Camillo finally found his vocation […] - [How 26 Men and Boys Conquered a King](https://kirishtan.com/how-26-men-and-boys-conquered-a-king/): On the morning of February 5, 1597, twenty-six crosses lined the brow of Nishizaka, the western slope of the mountain overlooking Nagasaki Bay. Below, the mountainside was blanketed with Christians awaiting the spearmen’s coups de grâce. Perhaps, amid the muffled sounds of weeping, they heard the mournful creaking of the ships in the harbor—that gateway to the West that had spawned this most Catholic of Asian cities. But above all else, they heard a preacher’s voice ringing out atop the slope.   “All of you here, please hear what I have to say,” he sang out. Read the rest of this […] - [6 February 2024: The 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki](https://kirishtan.com/6-february-2024-the-26-martyrs-of-nagasaki/): Four hundred twenty-seven years have passed since Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Taikō of Japan, crucified the 26 Martyrs atop Nishi-zaka, the steep western slope of the mountain overlooking Nagasaki Bay. Although all of them experienced great suffering during their 27-day via crucis from Kyoto to Nagasaki, each one of them held in his heart the bright promise God gave them through Saint Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians: But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love […] - [December 8th, 1941: Birth, Death, Eternity](https://kirishtan.com/december-8th-1941-birth-death-eternity-2/):  The fourth angel poured his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire; they were scorched by the fierce heat, but they cursed the name of God, who had authority over these plagues, and they did not repent and give him glory.    Revelation 16:8-9   December 8, 1941: a day that has lived in infamy for 82 years. What? December 8th? Americans remember Pearl Harbor on the 7th of December, but it was already December 8th in Japan when 353 of the Japanese Imperial Navy’s carrier-based fighters, dive bombers and torpedo bombers hit our ships […] - [December 3rd: St. Francis Xavier and the Divine Wind That Brought Christ to Japan](https://kirishtan.com/december-3rd-st-francis-xavier-and-the-divine-wind-that-brought-christ-to-japan/): Thus began the reign of Christ in Japan, carried on the wings of his own almighty wind. Joaquín Sorolla, “St. Francis Xavier,” 1891 (photo: Public Domain) Luke O’Hara Blogs August 17, 2022 “There is only one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and His Son Jesus Christ. He is not a foreign God. No, He is the God of all the world.” — Robert M. Flynn, S.J., The Martyrs of Tsuwano Japan is a land of mystery and paradox — a bright, shining promise at first sight, but a puzzling perplexity on deeper study. St. Francis Xavier would find […] - [October 7th, 1613: The Eight Martyrs of Arima](https://kirishtan.com/october-7th-1613-the-eight-martyrs-of-arima/): The Eight Martyrs of Arima Proclaimed the Name of Jesus to the End “Behold the faith of Arima’s Christians. For the honor and glory of the Lord and as a testimony to our faith we now die, knowing that there is no salvation other than through Jesus Christ.” Anonymous, “The Christian Martyrs of Japan,” 17th century (photo: Public Domain) Luke O’Hara Blogs October 8, 2021 In 1613, the castle-town of Arima in southwestern Japan held a remarkable procession on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, one surely witnessed in breathless silence by all the host of Heaven.  Arima […] - [The Galleon, the Tyrant and the 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki](https://kirishtan.com/the-galleon-the-tyrant-and-the-26-martyrs-of-nagasaki-2/): The air was electric with a holy silence, all Nagasaki dumb with grief, as the parade of martyrs marched past toward the hilltop where their crosses waited.   Luke O’Hara Blogs February 5, 2022 Raked by frothing waves and howling wind, the galleon San Felipe rode the merciless Pacific bereft of mainmast and rudder, her battered old hull the merest plaything of the tempest. Aboard her were a litany of friars — Franciscan, Dominican and Augustinian — clinging for their lives to whatever handholds the creaking old behemoth could provide and praying for deliverance, if not for themselves, then at […] - [November 1, 1622: Father Pietro Paolo Navarro, S.J.](https://kirishtan.com/november-1-1622-father-pietro-paolo-navarro-s-j/): This story begins on Christmas Day in the Year of Our Lord 1560, when the town of Laino in Cosenza, Italy was graced with the birth of a boy of noble blood, Pietro Paolo Navarro. Eschewing the life of privilege that could have awaited him, Pietro chose instead to serve his God and save the souls of his fellow men in a foreign land. Pietro Paolo Navarro entered the Society of Jesus at Nola (Kingdom of Naples) in 1579, the very year that Father Alessandro Valignano, the great Italian Jesuit, entered Japan at the port of Kuchinotsu to remake the […] - [7 October 1613: the Eight Martyrs of Arima](https://kirishtan.com/7-october-1613-the-eight-martyrs-of-arima-2/): Faithful Catholics martyred on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary    In the mid-16th century, Japan was a mishmash of feudal domains unfettered by any central authority. Civil war was common, with peace to be had only intermittently or in remote outposts of calm. One such outpost, at least for a time, was the little domain of Arima, ensconced on a peninsula southeast of Nagasaki. On the Feast of the Assumption of 1549, Saint Francis Xavier arrived in Japan with two fellow-Jesuits and three lay helpers to sow the Gospel seeds that would soon sprout throughout that fertile […] - [A Ladder to Heaven](https://kirishtan.com/a-ladder-to-heaven/): A Ladder to Heaven, Part I It all started in 1620 with some Japanese Catholics, bereft of their pastor, pleading for his return to Nagasaki to console them in their sufferings and their needs. After Tokugawa Ieyasu’s expulsion of all Catholic clergy from Japan in 1614, Augustinian Friar Pedro de Zúñiga had stayed on to minister to his flock in secret, his survival in that deadly task being due in large part to the connivance of Hasegawa Gonroku, the Shogunal Governor of Nagasaki. Gonroku had succeeded the former governor, his uncle Sahioye, in 1615 — but, unlike him, had no […] - [The Great Martyrdom of Nagasaki, 10 September 1622](https://kirishtan.com/the-great-martyrdom-of-nagasaki-10-september-1622/): The Great Martyrdom, 10 September 1622 Depiction of the Great Martyrdom by an anonymous Japanese artist. Credit: By Japanese artist, unknown [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons             Below I have transcribed an account of the Great Martyrdom of 1622 from an English translation (1705) of Jean Crasset’s Histoire de l’Eglise du Japon (History of the Church of Japan), published in Paris in 1689. I have changed only the archaic capitalizations (in the original, all nouns were capitalized) and the inaccurate or non-standard renderings of Japanese names. Otherwise, the translator’s spellings and punctuation remain. *******              We begin this book [The […] - [St. Francis Xavier and the Divine Wind That Brought Christ to Japan](https://kirishtan.com/st-francis-xavier-and-the-divine-wind-that-brought-christ-to-japan/): Thus began the reign of Christ in Japan, carried on the wings of his own almighty wind.  Luke O’Hara Blogs August 17, 2022 “There is only one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and His Son Jesus Christ. He is not a foreign God. No, He is the God of all the world.” — Robert M. Flynn, S.J., The Martyrs of Tsuwano Japan is a land of mystery and paradox — a bright, shining promise at first sight, but a puzzling perplexity on deeper study. St. Francis Xavier would find that out as he labored to plant Christ in […] - [Two Sixths of August, 333 Years Apart](https://kirishtan.com/two-sixths-of-august-333-years-apart-2/):           Seventy-seven years ago, on August 6, 1945, B-29 Superfortress number 82 dropped an enriched-uranium bomb called Little Boy over its designated bull’s eye, the T-shaped Aioi Bridge in downtown Hiroshima. The pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, plunged her into a dive to pick up speed and turned to get as far as possible from the bomb before it exploded. Forty-three seconds after the weapon’s release, its shock wave hit the Superfortress, which “cracked and crinkled from the blast,” although it had sped eleven and a half miles distant by then. That blast smashed the city below like a titanic anvil […] - [Another Fourth of July](https://kirishtan.com/another-fourth-of-july/): He who receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true.                  John 3:33 (Ignatius Bible)      Enduring hell to gain Heaven: what better declaration of freedom could mortal man make than testifying to the truth of Christ in one’s own death? This is the essence of martyrdom, and thus does ‘martyr’ derive from Greek μαρτύριον (martyrion), i.e., testimony, proof.      Meet the scion of a Catholic family, a samurai youth who saw the dayspring from on high on the remotest shore the Church had ever reached and pledged to Him his life and breath and blood. He […] - [An April Holocaust in Shimabara](https://kirishtan.com/an-april-holocaust-in-shimabara/):           In the Japanese village of Minami Arima, every spring at cherry-blossom time, two mortal foes march their little armies up the castle road. One is a leathery old samurai in battle armor and the other a pony-tailed teenager in a flowery red cape with his face painted up like a geisha’s. The man is the shogun’s general; the boy is the rebels’ leader, Amakusa Shiro. At road’s end, atop the mountain, their armies will have mock combat, eliciting laughs from the crowd as cherry-blossom petals flutter to earth among them. Statue of Amakusa Shiro on the grounds of the […] - [A Lenten Sacrifice in Shimabara](https://kirishtan.com/a-lenten-sacrifice-in-shimabara/):   Paulo Uchibori sat fixed like leaden ballast, straining to see beyond the horror before him and glimpse Eternity, for nothing else would stanch the pain. Ignacio, his five-year-old, was hanging from the torturers’ ropes naked, mutilated, blue with the frigid wind and sea; being dangled above the waves until they saw fit to sink him into the deep. Ignacio must die, for he, like his father, was an unflinching Christian, a terror to the lord of Arima, who had sold his soul to the Shogun Iemitsu. Matsukura Shigemasa had once been sympathetic to the Catholics in his domain; after […] - [Serpents under Heel](https://kirishtan.com/serpents-under-heel/): Exactly when or where the words escaped my lips I can’t recall—perhaps after a miraculous First Saturday rosary at a certain Nagasaki church. At any rate, I vowed to the Mother of God that I would pray Her rosary at every Catholic church in Nagasaki. Nagasaki Prefecture, that is, not just the city. At the time I didn’t realize how much landscape that promise encompassed, nor how many churches—some prominent, some tucked away in hidden nooks, and others, historical gems, almost crumbling away. It would be an ongoing, step-by-step pilgrimage. One step of which I’ll now recount. In my guide […] - [Why are we Slaughtering the Healers?](https://kirishtan.com/why-are-we-slaughtering-the-healers/):       “It is the little ones who heal us,” said Father Leonard, from out of the blue.  I had been confessing some now-forgotten sin when out came this treasure from the store-room of his heart.       It came to me some days later that the face of God must have something in it of the face of a child.  This would explain why Jesus said, “In heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 18.10)  That is, the faces of the angels’ appointed little ones, untainted as yet by actual sin, […] - [28 February 1627: Paulo Uchibori and Companions](https://kirishtan.com/28-february-1627-paulo-uchibori-and-companions/): A glowering, scar-faced volcano named Unzen reigns over the Shimabara Peninsula in southwestern Japan. Atop it, bubbling, sulfurous hot springs vomit out white crud and belch acrid steam. They call this place “Unzen Hell.” In the 1600s, the daimyo of Shimabara found the biggest of its caustic, skin-eating pools perfect for torturing Christians. Photo © 2007 by Luke O’Hara Most tourists connect Unzen’s boiling fury only with the posh spas that ring her “Hell”; almost unknown is the history that lies buried within that smoking netherworld–a tale of superhuman heroism and epic tragedy. Unzen transfigured this land and laid bare […] - [The Galleon, the Tyrant and the 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki](https://kirishtan.com/the-galleon-the-tyrant-and-the-26-martyrs-of-nagasaki/): The air was electric with a holy silence, all Nagasaki dumb with grief, as the parade of martyrs marched past toward the hilltop where their crosses waited.   Luke O’Hara Blogs February 5, 2022 Raked by frothing waves and howling wind, the galleon San Felipe rode the merciless Pacific bereft of mainmast and rudder, her battered old hull the merest plaything of the tempest. Aboard her were a litany of friars — Franciscan, Dominican and Augustinian — clinging for their lives to whatever handholds the creaking old behemoth could provide and praying for deliverance, if not for themselves, then at […] - [A Winter Offering: The 53 Martyrs of Yonezawa](https://kirishtan.com/a-winter-offering-the-53-martyrs-of-yonezawa/): In January 1629, with hands bound and rosaries around their necks, this group of Catholic faithful were beheaded in Yonezawa, Japan. Luke O’Hara Blogs    January 29, 2022 Looking down from Heaven on frosty Yonezawa in the winter of 1629, one would have seen blooms of crimson spreading upon the white-blanketed earth below, for her mantle of virgin snow was being baptized with Christian blood. Although Yonezawa, in north-central Japan, was home to many Catholics, it seems to have escaped shogunal scrutiny for some years. Perhaps because its ruler, Uesugi Kagekatsu, was a redoubtable warrior, the Shogun Hidetada ignored his […] - [Father Ambrósio Fernandes, 7 January 1620](https://kirishtan.com/father-ambrosio-fernandes-7-january-1620/): On the night of 6-7 January 1620, Father Ambrósio Fernandes, S.J. died in prison in Omura, east of Nagasaki, at age 69. His crime, of course, was being a missionary of Christ. He had been in Japan since 1579, the year that Fr. Alessandro Valignano arrived in Kyushu with broad papal authority to remold and revitalize the Church in Japan to suit the unique conditions of the country. Father Ambrósio remained in Kyushu until his death four decades later in a stinking hellhole of a prison where, malnourished, possibly poisoned, and exposed to the elements and the filthy infestations accruing […] - [Blessed Pietro Paolo Navarro, S.J.—a November Sacrifice, a December Reckoning](https://kirishtan.com/a-november-sacrifice-a-december-reckoning/): This story begins on Christmas Day in the Year of Our Lord 1560, when the town of Laino Borgo in Cosenza, Italy was graced with the birth of a boy of noble blood. Eschewing the life of privilege that could have awaited him, the boy chose instead to serve his God and save the souls of his fellow men in a foreign land. Pietro Paolo Navarro entered the Society of Jesus at Nola (Kingdom of Naples) in 1579, the very year that Father Alessandro Valignano, the great Italian Jesuit, entered Japan at the port of Kuchinotsu to remake the face […] - [The 52 Martyrs of Kyoto](https://kirishtan.com/the-52-martyrs-of-kyoto-2/): “It’s true! We die for Jesus! Blessed be Jesus!” Blogs  October 30, 2021 In October 1619, the Shogun Hidetada had just left Kyoto, the Emperor’s capital, when he was jolted by the news that the city’s jail held a great many Christians. Hidetada ordered that they all be burned alive, regardless of age, station or sex.  Kyoto had been visited by St. Francis Xavier back in January 1551. Hoping to meet and convert the Emperor, Padre Francisco had made a long, grueling winter’s trek much the length of Japan only to find that, without fine silk on his back and […] - [21 October 1633 - Father Julian Nakaura, Priest, Samurai and Martyr](https://kirishtan.com/21-october-1633-father-julian-nakaura-priest-samurai-and-martyr/): The jumbled boulders of Nakaura lie brooding on the shore, defying the sea to do its worst.  Behind them squats a hill clothed in bamboo, its giant knees of rock protruding through the trees.  A continent of charcoal cloud looms over the coast, yet the sun blazes triumphantly in the distant west, riding high above the Gotoh Islands:  it burns one’s face, even in the tail-end of winter. Julian Nakaura was born here.  They honor him with a memorial that overlooks the village:  a pony-tailed boy in bronze pointing out at the sea, towards the Rome the real boy visited.  […] - [The Eight Martyrs of Arima Proclaimed the Name of Jesus to the End](https://kirishtan.com/the-eight-martyrs-of-arima-proclaimed-the-name-of-jesus-to-the-end/): “Behold the faith of Arima’s Christians. For the honor and glory of the Lord and as a testimony to our faith we now die, knowing that there is no salvation other than through Jesus Christ.” Anonymous, “The Christian Martyrs of Japan,” 17th century (photo: Public Domain) Luke O’HaraBlogsOctober 8, 2021 In 1613, the castle-town of Arima in southwestern Japan held a remarkable procession on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, one surely witnessed in breathless silence by all the host of Heaven.  Arima was the seat of a fervently Catholic domain whose fervor was fueled and stoked by […] - [AUGUST 25TH, 1624: FIVE EXEMPLARS OF SUPERHUMAN FAITH](https://kirishtan.com/august-25th-1624-five-exemplars-of-superhuman-faith/):         On August 25, 1624, five Christian heroes were executed “by slow fire” for the crime of bringing Christ to the Japanese.  Burned at the stake in Ōmura, east of Nagasaki, were the Jesuit Father Miguel Carvalho, the Franciscan Fathers Luís Sotelo and Luís Sasada, the Dominican Father Pedro Vázquez, and Brother Luís Baba, a Lay Franciscan Japanese catechist who made his religious profession before his martyrdom.[i]  A decade had passed since the “retired” Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu had promulgated his ironclad Anti-Christian Edict, and all five of the holy martyrs knew full well that a grisly death awaited anyone […] - [A TALE OF TWO EASTERS IN JAPAN](https://kirishtan.com/a-tale-of-two-easters-in-japan/): Miguel Kuroda       In the years before the great Tokugawa persecution of the Catholic Faith, a beautiful cross of cedar stood on a mountaintop in the town of Akizuki in the domain of the Kuroda clan in northern Kyushu. It had been planted there by the lord of Akizuki, a Christian samurai named Kuroda Sōemon Naoyuki, christened Miguel at his baptism in the town of Nakatsu (in modern Ōita Prefecture).      Naoyuki became Miguel on Easter Sunday of 1587. He took that name in good faith, a commitment he embraced with all his heart and clung to unto death as […] - [March 21-25, 1643: Father Antonio Rubino holds out for the crown of glory](https://kirishtan.com/march-21-25-1643-father-antonio-rubino-holds-out-for-the-crown-of-glory/): Humankind—as well as all creation—owes an immeasurable debt of gratitude to Father Antonio Rubino and his companions, fearless men of God who threw their very lives to the wind for the sake of Japan and its blessed people, to give the Japanese an example intended to lead them to freedom in aeternam. They had set out for Japan in 1642 from Manila in a ship secretly prepared for them by the Governor of the Philippines; they had traveled disguised as Chinese; but they died as public spectacles, proudly and fearlessly proclaiming the saving truth of Christ, the Faith they had […] - [Remembering the 26 Martyrs, Saint Paul Miki and Companions](https://kirishtan.com/remembering-the-26-martyrs-saint-paul-miki-and-companions/): “I do not want this religion:  a religion of love and union, which is therefore harmful for this kingdom.”   The Taikō Hideyoshi (Toyotomi Hideyoshi)            On February 5, 1597, twenty-six bloodied men and boys were crucified on a mountainside overlooking Nagasaki Bay for the crime of being Christian.  Being spat upon and ridiculed and otherwise abused, they had been marched for twenty-eight days through towns and villages and countryside toward their destination at the westernmost edge of Japan—for the Christian town of Nagasaki was, in the dictator’s eyes, the perfect place to make a show of his […] - [26 November: Remembering Domingo Hoshino Kanzo, the first Christian crucified in Hiroshima](https://kirishtan.com/26-november-remembering-domingo-hoshino-kanzo-the-first-christian-crucified-in-hiroshima/):                   In the Year of Our Lord 1616, a young samurai named Hoshino Kanzō returned to Fukushima Masanori’s castle-town of Hiroshima after some years’ absence to care for his father, who was mortally ill. The young man’s return must have been bittersweet, since his father, egged on by his Jezebel of a stepmother, had thrown him out of his home years earlier over his devotion to Christ. Perhaps his very baptismal name, Domingo, set her teeth on edge. On his eviction, Domingo Hoshino had made his way to Nagasaki to seek spiritual […] - [Why are we Slaughtering the Healers?](https://kirishtan.com/slaughtering-the-healers-3/):       “It is the little ones who heal us,” said Father Leonard, from out of the blue.  I had been confessing some now-forgotten sin when out came this treasure from the store-room of his heart.       It came to me some days later that the face of God must have something in it of the face of a child.  This would explain why Jesus said, “In heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 18.10)  That is, the faces of the angels’ appointed little ones, untainted as yet by actual sin, […] - [An April Holocaust](https://kirishtan.com/an-april-holocaust/):         In the Japanese village of Minami Arima, every spring at cherry-blossom time, two mortal foes march their little armies up the castle road. One is a leathery old samurai in battle armor and the other a pony-tailed teenager in a flowery red cape with his face painted up like a geisha’s. The man is the shogun’s general; the boy is the rebels’ leader, Amakusa Shiro. At road’s end, atop the mountain, their armies will have mock combat, eliciting laughs from the crowd as cherry-blossom petals flutter to earth among them.     Beyond the cherry trees, overlooking the sea, stands a very […] - [28 February 1627: the First Martyrdom at Unzen Hell](https://kirishtan.com/28-february-1627-the-first-martyrdom-at-unzen-hell/): Paulo Uchibori and Sons, Martyrs of Arima A glowering, scar-faced volcano named Mount Unzen looms over the Shimabara Peninsula in southwestern Japan. Atop it, bubbling, sulfurous hot springs vomit out white crud and belch acrid steam: they call this place “Unzen Hell.” From 1627 onward, the local ruler found the biggest of its caustic, skin-eating pools perfect for torturing Christians.  In the hands of the Catholic ruler Arima Harunobu, this peninsula, known as Arima, had once been the Christian bulwark of Japan. In 1612, though, the de-facto shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu condemned Harunobu to death and entrusted Arima to Harunobu’s spineless heir Naozumi. […] - [The Twenty-Six Martyrs, San Felipe, and the Tyrant](https://kirishtan.com/the-twenty-six-martyrs-san-felipe-and-the-tyrant/): On a brisk February morning in the Year of Our Lord 1597, 26 haggard men and boys were marched up a steep slope called Nishi-zaka toward a terrace of land that overlooked Nagasaki Bay. There they would find a row of crosses laid out on the ground awaiting them. The scene might have looked restful to the condemned men and boys as they surveyed those crosses, for this was the end of a 28-days’ winter marathon. With their left ears mutilated and their hands trussed up tight behind their backs, they had been herded like cattle half the length of […] - [December 28th: In Honor of the Holy Innocents](https://kirishtan.com/december-28-in-honor-of-the-holy-innocents/): Slaughtering the Healers   “It is the little ones who heal us,” said Father Leonard, completely out of the blue.  I had been confessing some now-forgotten sin  when out came this treasure from the store-room of his heart. It came to me some days later that the face of God must have something in it of the face of a child.  This would explain why Jesus said, “In heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 18:10)  That is, the faces of the angels’ appointed little ones, untainted as yet by actual sin, […] - [27 December 1613: Orders Arrive to Register all Christians](https://kirishtan.com/27-december-1613-orders-arrive-to-register-all-christians/): 27 December 1613: Orders Arrive to Register all Christians                         Two days after Christmas of 1613, Tokugawa Ieyasu’s orders arrived in Kyoto, Fushimi, Osaka and Sakai, the major population centers at the core of Honshu Island: lists were to be made of all Christians (i.e. Catholics), both foreign and Japanese, residing in those cities. This was the prelude to roundup and deportation, the order for which would arrive on 27 January.               The news of December 27, 1613 was but the merest subterranean rumble portending the eruption soon to come: an explosion of […] - [Yatsushiro Martyrs, 8 and 9 December 1603](https://kirishtan.com/yatsushiro-martyrs-8-and-9-december-1603/):      On 8 December 1603, two Catholic samurai of Yatsushiro were beheaded for refusing to renounce Christ, and the following day all the remaining members of their immediate families were crucified for clinging to their convictions too.  The youngest of these martyrs was seven-year-old Ludovico (his baptismal name).        On his mother’s instructions, this child-martyr kept repeating the holy names of the Lord and the Blessed Virgin— Iézusu! Maria! —as he hung on his cross awaiting the spear-thrust that would pierce his heart, gouging into him through his right kidney and out through his left shoulder.  His mother was hanging […] - [December 8th, 1941: Birth, Death, Eternity](https://kirishtan.com/december-8th-1941-birth-death-eternity/): December 8, 1941: a day that has lived in infamy for 78 years. What? December 8th? Americans remember Pearl Harbor on the 7th of December, but it was December 8th in Japan when the Japanese Imperial Navy’s dive bombers hit our bases in Hawaii.  December 8th also marks the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin in the Roman Catholic Church. Mere coincidence, one might imagine, but here’s another “coincidence”:  the Emperor’s surrender proclamation was broadcast to his astonished nation on August 15, 1945.  The 15th of August marks the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, […] - [Three Jesuits, Two Eras](https://kirishtan.com/three-jesuits-two-eras/):   Given the whirlwind of troubles afflicting the Church today—the worship of pagan idols at the Amazon Synod, the ongoing cover-up of clerical sex crimes, the theft of half a billion dollars from Peter’s Pence—some of the faithful might be tempted to throw up their hands, drop all pretense of being truly Catholic, and join the gulled masses on their merry ride to hell. Thank God we have the witness of the martyrs. In the final week of November 2019, Pope Francis was treading soil baptized with Catholic blood in one of history’s cruelest persecutions. While visiting Tokyo, Hiroshima, and […] - [Domingo Hoshino, 26 November 1616: Crucify him!](https://kirishtan.com/domingo-hoshino-26-november-1616-crucify-him/):                   In the Year of Our Lord 1616, a young samurai named Hoshino Kanzō returned to Fukushima Masanori’s castle-town of Hiroshima after some years’ absence to care for his father, who was mortally ill. The young man’s return must have been bittersweet, since his father, egged on by his Jezebel of a stepmother, had thrown him out of his home years earlier over his devotion to Christ. Perhaps his very baptismal name, Domingo, set her teeth on edge. On his eviction, Domingo Hoshino had made his way to Nagasaki to seek spiritual […] - [Saint Marina of Omura, a Holy Martyr of November](https://kirishtan.com/saint-marina-of-omura-a-holy-martyr-of-november/): November the Eleventh marks the martyrdom of Saint Marina of Ōmura, canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 18, 1987. I first learned of her story on seeing her statue in the courtyard of the Kako-machi Catholic Church in Ōmura, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan—a lady in black-and-white Dominican habit clutching a crucifix to her breast and standing atop a crown of flames that would send her straight to Heaven, her face aglow with faith and hope and love—and superhuman strength. In 1626, entering the Dominican Order as a Tertiary, or lay Dominican, she had dedicated her life and her virginity […] - [An October Martyr: Santa Magdalena of Nagasaki](https://kirishtan.com/october-martyr-santa-magdalena-of-nagasaki/): Santa Magdalena of Nagasaki, the Perfect Bride       In October of 1634 throughout a fortnight of hell she hung in the pit, singing hymns and blessing her God: no-one else ever withstood the torturers’ cruelties so long. In the end, though, it was not those cruelties that ended her life: it was God’s gentle Hand that took pretty Magdalena home.      The orphaned daughter of Catholic martyrs, Magdalena of Nagasaki was a bilingual prodigy who consecrated her virginity to Our Lady of the Rosary and became an Augustinian tertiary at age 15. She worked tirelessly for two Augustinian friars until […] - [October 21, 1633: Father Julian Nakaura Gives his Life for Christ](https://kirishtan.com/october-21-1633-father-julian-nakaura-gives-his-life-for-christ/): Today, October 21st, all Christians would do well to remember the heroic sacrifice of Father Julian Nakaura, Catholic samurai, Ambassador to Rome, and holy martyr.  Read his story here: Julian Nakaura: Samurai, Ambassador, and Martyr           The jumbled boulders of Nakaura lie brooding on the shore, defying the sea to do its worst.  Behind them squats a hill clothed in bamboo, its giant knees of rock protruding through the trees.  A continent of charcoal cloud looms over the coast, yet the sun blazes triumphantly in the distant west, riding high above the Gotoh Islands:  it burns one’s face, even in […] - [The Eight Martyrs of Arima: October 7, 1613](https://kirishtan.com/the-eight-martyrs-of-arima-october-7-1613/): Faithful Catholics martyred on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary    In the mid-16th century, Japan was a mishmash of feudal domains unfettered by any central authority. Civil war was common, with peace to be had only intermittently or in remote outposts of calm. One such outpost, at least for a time, was the little domain of Arima, ensconced on a peninsula southeast of Nagasaki. On the Feast of the Assumption of 1549, Saint Francis Xavier arrived in Japan with two fellow-Jesuits and three lay helpers to sow the Gospel seeds that would soon sprout throughout that fertile […] - [Anatomy of a Martyrdom: for Love of Souls](https://kirishtan.com/anatomy-of-a-martyrdom-for-love-of-souls/):       While combing the narrow streets of Nagasaki in the autumn of 1629, the Shogun’s police grabbed themselves a coveted prize: a Japanese Jesuit priest, an heir of Saint Francis Xavier’s hope, born eighty years earlier, to fill all Japan with Christ. By 1629, under the Shogun Iemitsu’s persecution, that hope was all but smashed under the tyrant’s heel, and yet a rare breed of intrepid men still clave to that hope as if it were their very life and breath, despising their own mortal lives to save immortal souls for Christ.        Father Antonio Ishida, […] - [August 25th, 1624: Five Heroic Men who Withstood Hellfire for Their Faith](https://kirishtan.com/august-25th-1624-five-heroic-men-who-withstood-hellfire-for-their-faith/):      On 25 August 1624, five Catholic heroes faced hellish deaths for having brought Christ to the people of Japan. Burned at the stake in Ōmura, east of Nagasaki, were Father Miguel Carvalho, S.J., Fathers Luís Sotelo and Luís Sasada, Franciscans, Father Pedro Vázquez, Dominican, and Franciscan Brother Luís Baba.      Padre Miguel Carvalho, the Jesuit, had entered Japan in 1622 on a Portuguese trading-ship, having disguised himself as a soldier. The three Franciscans had been sent from Japan as private ambassadors to King Philip III of Spain and the Vatican, only to be arrested on their return. Fray Pedro […] - [July 25, the Feast of Saint James the Greater](https://kirishtan.com/1194-2/): Saint James the Greater by Guido Reni, ca. 1636-1638           Today, July 25, is the Feast of Saint James the Greater, the first of Christ’s Apostles to suffer martyrdom. He and his brother Saint John the Beloved were nicknamed “Sons of Thunder” by Jesus for their audacious faith and desire for glory.           Perhaps it was audacious, thunderous preaching of the Word of God from out of the mouth of Saint James, that Son of Thunder, that drove King Herod Agrippa to order his beheading in A.D. 44—a year that also saw the death of Herod himself while he was on a visit […] - [Antonio Ishihara Magoemon: Warrior, Merchant, Martyr](https://kirishtan.com/antonio-ishihara-magoemon-warrior-merchant-and-martyr/): (アントニオ石原孫右衛門) Antonio Ishihara Magōemon: Warrior of Bizen, Merchant of Sanuki, and Faithful Samurai of Christ July 16, 1617                                                  Ikoma Masatoshi         It all started with a lust for vengeance burning in the heart of a certain man of Sanuki who had been the loser in a certain lawsuit. Digging for dirt with which to destroy the victor, he heard that his opponent was harboring a Christian uncle in his home and reported this to […] - [THE KIRISHITAN HOLOCAUST OF 12 APRIL 1638: AMAKUSA SHIRO AND THE FALL OF HARA CASTLE](https://kirishtan.com/the-kirishitan-holocaust-of-12-april-1638-amakusa-shiro-and-the-fall-of-hara-castle-2/) - [5 February 1597: I do not want this religion ...of Love and Union](https://kirishtan.com/5-february-1597-i-do-not-want-this-religion-of-love-and-union/): Toyotomi Hideyoshi Photo: Public Domain (PD-Japan)  “I do not want this religion:  a religion of love and union, which is therefore harmful for this kingdom.”                                                                            The Taikō Hideyoshi On February 5, 1597, twenty-six bloodied men and boys were crucified on a mountain overlooking Nagasaki Bay for the crime of being Christian. For twenty-eight days they had been marched through towns and villages and countryside, being spat upon and ridiculed and otherwise abused along the way to their destination, Nagasaki, at the westernmost edge of Japan—for the Christian town of Nagasaki was, in the dictator Hideyoshi’s eyes, the perfect place to […] - [Of Love and Union, a Saga of Christ in Japan](https://kirishtan.com/of-love-and-union-a-saga-of-christ-in-japan/): If you’re interested in the stories of the Japanese martyrs, you might want to read my historical novel on that subject, available here: - [A February Conversion](https://kirishtan.com/a-february-conversion/):     It was the first of June, Octave of Corpus Christi, in the Year of Our Lord 1617. On the virgin soil of an offshore islet in Ōmura Bay, three brothers in faith were on their knees awaiting the executioner’s blade. Two were foreign priests, the other a Japanese Catholic layman.      The layman, surnamed Tanaka, had been christened Leo at his baptism. Leo Tanaka had lately been laboring as assistant and host to Padre João Machado, a Jesuit martyred just ten days before on the orders of Ōmura Sumiyori, the apostate daimyō of the Ōmura domain. This ruler of […] - [17 October 1637: Father Marcello Mastrilli, in Memoriam](https://kirishtan.com/17-october-1637-father-marcello-mastrilli-in-memoriam/): Father Marcello Mastrilli, S.J. is a martyr credited in his lifetime with countless miracles, an intrepid warrior for Christ whose dream was to convert the Emperor of Japan to the Faith or die martyred as a testimony to its absolute truth. Twice he testified to that truth with his lifeblood, first on a parchment signed in his own blood and placed in the hand of Saint Francis Xavier’s corpse in its sepulchre at Goa, India. His second and final blood testament was his voluntary death by torture in Nagasaki, the fulfillment of his longing to atone for the apostasy of […] - [16 October 1634: Miraculous Magdalena of Nagasaki](https://kirishtan.com/16-october-1634-miraculous-magdalena-of-nagasaki/): Statue of Magdalena at the Basílica Menor de San Sebastián, Manila.           Photo by Ramon F. Velasquez (Wikimedia Commons) Santa Magdalena of Nagasaki, the Perfect Bride      Thirteen days and a half she hung in the pit, singing hymns and blessing the names of Jesus and His mother: no other human being in all the dark history of Japan’s persecution of Christ’s Church ever withstood the torturers’ cruelties so long. Yet, in the end, it was not the cruelties of the Shōgun’s minions that ended her life; rather, it was the merciful Hand of God that gently took holy Magdalena home. […] - [The Great Martyrdom of Nagasaki, September 1622](https://kirishtan.com/the-great-martyrdom-of-nagasaki-september-1622/): The Great Martyrdom, 10 September 1622 Depiction of the Great Martyrdom by an anonymous Japanese artist. Credit: By Japanese artist, unknown [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons             Below I have transcribed an account of the Great Martyrdom of 1622 from an English translation (1705) of Jean Crasset’s Histoire de l’Eglise du Japon (History of the Church of Japan), published in Paris in 1689. I have changed only the archaic capitalizations (in the original, all nouns were capitalized) and the inaccurate or non-standard renderings of Japanese names. Otherwise, the translator’s spellings and punctuation remain. *******              We begin this book [The […] - [Double Martyrdom at Kori, 22 May 1617](https://kirishtan.com/double-martyrdom-at-kori-22-may-1617/): Two Heroic Priests: Friar Pedro de la Asunción and Father João Machado 22 May 1617 In 1617 the Shōgun Hidetada (above) discovered that Ōmura Sumiyori, the daimyō of Ōmura, was conniving at the hiding of Catholic priests in his domain in Kyūshū, the westernmost of the four home islands of Japan. The Shōgun’s sledgehammer came down on this daimyō’s head: he had to expunge the priests from his domain at once. Ōmura Sumiyori, christened Bartolomeo, had been born and raised a Catholic; his grandfather, the illustrious Bartolomeo Ōmura Sumitada, had been the very first Japanese daimyō to receive baptism and had remained a […] - [A Novel by Luke O'Hara](https://kirishtan.com/a-novel-by-luke-ohara/): If you’re interested in the stories of the Japanese martyrs, you might want to read my historical novel on that subject, available here: - [Under the Fallen Cherry-Blossoms, Buried History](https://kirishtan.com/under-the-fallen-cherry-blossoms-buried-history/):   Amakusa Shiro as depicted in sculpture on the grounds of the vanished Hara Castle                    Under the Fallen Cherry-Blossoms, Buried History       In the Japanese village of Minami Arima, every spring at cherry-blossom time, two mortal foes march their little armies up the castle road.  One is a leathery old samurai in armor and the other a pony-tailed teenager in a flowery red cape, with his face painted up like a geisha’s. The man is the Shogun’s general; the boy is Amakusa Shiro. At road’s end their armies will have mock combat, eliciting laughs from the crowd. […] - [March 21st: Father Antonio Rubino and the True Story behind Martin Scorcese’s “Silence”](https://kirishtan.com/march-21st-father-antonio-rubino-and-the-true-story-behind-martin-scorceses-silence/): Humankind—as well as all creation—owes an immeasurable debt of gratitude to Father Antonio Rubino and his companions, fearless men of God who threw their very lives to the wind for the sake of Japan and its blessed people, to give the Japanese an example intended to lead them to freedom in aeternam. They had set out for Japan in 1642 from Manila in a ship secretly prepared for them by the Governor of the Philippines; they had traveled disguised as Chinese; but they died as public spectacles, proudly and fearlessly proclaiming the saving truth of Christ, the Faith they had […] - [February 6th: Saint Paul Miki and Companions](https://kirishtan.com/february-6th-saint-paul-miki-and-companions/): Today, 6 February, the Church marks the martyrdom of Saint Paul Miki and Companions, also known as the 26 Martyrs of Japan.   Here is their story: “I do not want this religion:  a religion of love and union, which is therefore harmful for this kingdom.”   The Taikō Hideyoshi (Toyotomi Hideyoshi)            On February 5, 1597, twenty-six bloodied men and boys were crucified on a mountainside overlooking Nagasaki Bay for the crime of being Christian.  Being spat upon and ridiculed and otherwise abused, they had been marched for twenty-eight days through towns and villages and countryside toward their destination […] - [7 October 1613: The Eight Martyrs of Arima](https://kirishtan.com/7-october-1613-the-eight-martyrs-of-arima/):           In the Year of Our Lord 1613, the domain of Arima was in the hands of Arima Naozumi, the son of Arima Harunobu, longtime stalwart patron and protector of the Church in Japan. After Harunobu’s execution in 1612,  Naozumi had apostatized on the orders of the de-facto Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu and received lordship of his dead father’s domain on condition that he do his utmost to exterminate the very Faith that he had from his childhood espoused.                  Although his domain was far removed from Ieyasu’s castle-town up on […] - [The Fifty-two Martyrs of Kyoto: October 7, 1619](https://kirishtan.com/the-fifty-two-martyrs-of-kyoto-october-6-1619/):      Behold a heart-wrenching martyrdom in which whole families were burned together—including mothers with their infant children—just to satisfy the almighty Shōgun Hidetada’s ire.      In October of 1619, Hidetada was passing through Fushimi after a visit to Kyōto, the Imperial capital, when he heard that there were a great many Christians being held in Kyōto’s jail. The volatile Shōgun exploded into rage and ordered them all burned alive immediately, regardless of age, gender, or station. They were to be crucified and burned on their crosses as a mise-shime:  a lesson to recalcitrant believers.      Itakura Katsushige, Kyōto’s Shogunal Governor, […] - [The Kirishitan Holocaust of 12 April 1638: Amakusa Shiro and the Fall of Hara Castle](https://kirishtan.com/the-kirishitan-holocaust-of-12-april-1638-amakusa-shiro-and-the-fall-of-hara-castle/): Amakusa Shiro as depicted in sculpture on the grounds of the vanished Hara Castle               Under the Fallen Blossoms, Buried History            In the Japanese village of Minami Arima, every spring at cherry-blossom time, two mortal foes march their little armies up the castle road.  One is a leathery old samurai in armor and the other a pony-tailed teenager in a flowery red cape, with his face painted up like a geisha’s.  The man is the Shogun’s general; the boy is Amakusa Shiro.  At road’s end their armies will have mock combat, eliciting laughs from the crowd.             Beyond the […] - [23 March 1643: a Polish Jesuit dies in the Pit in Faithful Silence](https://kirishtan.com/23-march-1643-a-polish-jesuit-dies-in-the-pit-in-faithful-silence/): Father Albert Meczynski, S.J. was born of Polish nobility, the Poraj of Kurozwęki; his father (who, as best I can determine, was the Count of Kurozwęki) died when Albert was a boy. Sent to study at the Jesuit college in Lublin at age fourteen, Albert soon embraced a desire to join the Society of Jesus. His mother, outraged, sent him to school in Krakow to deter this ambition she thought unfitting a nobleman; there he studied medicine, which would later come in handy.        Despite parental opposition, Albert did eventually join the Society at Rome; he was ordained at […] - [Father Antonio Rubino and the True Story behind Martin Scorcese's "Silence"](https://kirishtan.com/father-antonio-rubino-and-the-true-story-behind-martin-scorceses-silence/):        Humankind—as well as all creation—owes an immeasurable debt of gratitude to Father Antonio Rubino and his companions, fearless men of God who threw their very lives to the wind for the sake of Japan and its harried people, to give the Japanese an example intended to lead them to freedom in aeternam.  They had set out for Japan in 1642 from Manila in a ship secretly prepared for them by the Governor of the Philippines; they had traveled disguised as Chinese; but they died as public spectacles, proudly and fearlessly proclaiming the saving truth of Christ, the Faith they […] - [The Glorious Silence of Thomas, an Unsung Korean Christian Martyr](https://kirishtan.com/the-glorious-silence-of-thomas-an-unsung-korean-christian-martyr/):           On March 21, 1643, a Christian hero whom we know only by the name of Thomas died in the pit on Nishi-zaka in Nagasaki. Born in Korea, he was a humble lay Catholic serving Catholic exiles at a Japanese church in Cambodia when he was chosen to accompany Father Antonio Rubino and his companions on a one-way self-sacrificial mission to Japan.             Like the brave Jesuit priests of Martin Scorcese’s Silence, Father Rubino offered his life up to God on a wildly reckless mission to sneak into Japan, find the apostate priest Christovao Ferreira, and convince him to recant […] - [February 5, 1597: the 26 Martyrs of Japan](https://kirishtan.com/february-5-1597-the-26-martyrs-of-japan/): “I do not want this religion:  a religion of love and union, which is therefore harmful for this kingdom.”   The Taikō Hideyoshi (Toyotomi Hideyoshi)            Four hundred and twenty years ago today—5 February 1597—twenty-six bloodied men and boys were crucified on a mountainside overlooking Nagasaki Bay for the crime of being Christian.  Being spat upon and ridiculed and otherwise abused, they had been marched for twenty-eight days through towns and villages and countryside toward their destination at the westernmost edge of Japan—for the Christian town of Nagasaki was, in the dictator’s eyes, the perfect place to make a show of his power.        […] - [The Life and Death of Father Marcello Mastrilli: An Atoning Sacrifice, a Shout to Earth and Heaven](https://kirishtan.com/the-martyrdom-of-father-marcello-mastrilli-an-atoning-sacrifice-a-shout-to-earth-and-heaven/):  The Life and Death of Father Marcello Mastrilli: An Atoning Sacrifice, a Shout to Earth and Heaven   Father Marcello Mastrilli, S.J. is a martyr credited in his lifetime with countless miracles, an intrepid warrior for Christ whose dream was to convert the Emperor of Japan to the Faith or die martyred as a testimony to its absolute truth. Twice he testified to that truth with his lifeblood, first on a parchment signed in his own blood and placed in the hand of Saint Francis Xavier’s corpse in its sepulchre at Goa, India. His second and final blood testament was his […] - [Martyrs of October: Father Julian Nakaura](https://kirishtan.com/martyrs-of-october-father-julian-nakaura/): Julian Nakaura: Samurai, Ambassador, and Martyr           The jumbled boulders of Nakaura lie brooding on the shore, defying the sea to do its worst.  Behind them squats a hill clothed in bamboo, its giant knees of rock protruding through the trees.  A continent of charcoal cloud looms over the coast, yet the sun blazes triumphantly in the distant west, riding high above the Gotoh Islands:  it burns one’s face, even in the tail-end of winter.       Julian Nakaura was born here.  They honor him with a memorial that overlooks the village:  a pony-tailed boy in bronze pointing out […] - [7 October 1619: 52 Christian Faithful of Kyoto Sent to Heaven by Fire](https://kirishtan.com/6-october-1619-52-christian-faithful-of-kyoto-sent-to-heaven-by-fire/):      Behold a heart-wrenching martyrdom in which whole families were burned together—including mothers with their infant children—just to satisfy the almighty Shōgun Hidetada’s ire.             In October of 1619, Hidetada was passing through Fushimi after a visit to Kyōto, the Imperial capital, when he heard that there were a great many Christians being held in Kyōto’s jail. The volatile Shōgun exploded into rage and ordered them all burned alive immediately, regardless of age, gender, or station. They were to be crucified and burned on their crosses as a mise-shime:  a lesson to recalcitrant believers.             Itakura Katsushige, Kyōto’s Shogunal Governor, […] - [7 October 1613: Eight Martyrs of Arima](https://kirishtan.com/7-october-1613-eight-martyrs-of-arima-2/):           In the Year of Our Lord 1613, the domain of Arima was in the hands of Arima Naozumi, the son of Arima Harunobu, longtime stalwart patron and protector of the Church in Japan. After Harunobu’s execution in 1612,  Naozumi had apostatized on the orders of the de-facto Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu and received lordship of his dead father’s domain on condition that he do his utmost to exterminate the very Faith that he had from his childhood espoused.                  Although his domain was far removed from Ieyasu’s castle-town up on […] - [The Twelfth of April 1638: The Shōgun's Horde Storms Hara-jō's Castle Keep](https://kirishtan.com/the-twelfth-of-april-1638-the-shoguns-horde-storms-hara-jos-castle-keep/):        12 April 1638 saw the gory finale of the months-long siege of Hara Castle, a finale that would expunge Christendom in all of Shimabara and Amakusa and drive it underground throughout the remaining scraps of Japan where Christians dared to cling to the Faith.  The excerpt below from “Amakusa Shiro and the Fall of Hara Castle: a Kirishitan Holocaust” describes the final assault and its aftermath.        The Shogun’s hour had finally arrived.  On the Eleventh of April 1638, his horde swarmed over the outermost wall of Hara Castle, having first sent down a rain of fire-arrows.  […] - [11 April 1638: Tokugawa Iemitsu’s Army Swarms over Hara Castle’s Outer Walls](https://kirishtan.com/11-april-1638-tokugawa-iemitsus-army-swarms-over-hara-castles-outer-walls-2/):                                                            Shōgun Tokugawa Iemitsu             The Eleventh of April marks the beginning of the end of the Shimabara Rebellion.  Matsudaira Nobutsuna, commanding officer of the Shogun Iemitsu’s massed armies, had planned for his general assault to begin two days earlier, but  a driving rain postponed his plans: matchlock guns would be useless in a rainstorm.  In the interim, a gaggle of about ten girls descended from Hara Castle, fleeing through the rain for their lives.  They astonished their captors as they were dressed in the finest silks, as if they had just alighted from palanquins coming out […] - [Saint Valentine's Day 1614: Tokugawa Ieyasu Bans the God who is Love](https://kirishtan.com/saint-valentines-day-1614-tokugawa-ieyasu-bans-the-god-who-is-love/):         Below: Tokugawa Ieyasu (top) and the aftermath of a Japanese crucifixion (bottom)     On 14 February 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu, “retired” Shogun and de-facto ruler of Japan, promulgated his Christian Expulsion Edict.  How ironic that he chose Saint Valentine’s Day to set in motion the juggernaut that would, like a steamroller, smash into oblivion every public, visible manifestation of Christianity—that “religion of love and union” that his predecessor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, had first attacked in 1587 with his own Expulsion Edict. Hideyoshi had decreed: “I do not want this religion: a religion of love and union, which […] - [November 11, 1634: Saint Marina of Omura](https://kirishtan.com/november-11-1634-saint-marina-of-omura/):              November the Eleventh marks the martyrdom of Saint Marina of Ōmura, canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 18, 1987.  I first learned of her story on seeing her statue in the courtyard of the Kako-machi Catholic Church in Ōmura, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan—a lady in black-and-white Dominican habit clutching a crucifix to her breast and standing atop a crown of flames that would send her straight to Heaven, her face aglow with faith and hope and love—and superhuman strength.            In 1626, entering the Dominican Order as a Tertiary, or lay Dominican, she had […] - [11 November 1634 : Seventy-one Christian Faithful Climb Martyrs' Hill](https://kirishtan.com/11-november-1634-seventy-one-christian-faithful-climb-martyrs-hill/): November 11, 1634: a day of infamy and glory. The train of martyrs led up Martyrs’ Hill was extraordinarily long. Two Dominican Friars on horseback, their hands tied behind their backs and hoops around their necks, led the procession; sixty-nine other Christians formed their train. The sixty-nine lay Catholics were destined for beheading or burning at the stake; the two priests would be hung upside-down in torture-pits to meet a slower, more excruciating sort of death. On the flat stretch of earth atop the steep slope called Nishi-zaka, all the martyrs found their allotted spots prepared, arrayed inside a stockade […] - [Santa Magdalena of Nagasaki: Spouse of Christ, Martyr, and One of God’s Greatest Miracles](https://kirishtan.com/santa-magdalena-of-nagasaki-spouse-of-christ-martyr-and-one-of-gods-greatest-miracles/):     Thirteen days and a half she hung in the pit, singing hymns and blessing the names of Jesus and His mother: no other human being in all the dark history of Japan’s persecution of Christ’s Church ever withstood the torturers’ cruelties so long. Yet, in the end, it was not the cruelties of the Shōgun’s minions that ended her life; rather, it was the merciful Hand of God that gently took holy Magdalena home.       A young woman of extraordinary beauty and refinement, Magdalena so enthralled the diabolic Governor of Nagasaki, Takenaka Uneme, that he tried to dissuade her […] - [Martyrs of October: The 52 Martyrs of Kyōto](https://kirishtan.com/the-52-martyrs-of-kyoto/):             Behold a heart-wrenching martyrdom in which families were burned together—including mothers with their infant children—to satisfy the almighty Shōgun Hidetada’s ire.             In October of 1619, Hidetada was passing through Fushimi after a visit to Kyōto, the Imperial capital, when he heard that there were a great many Christians being held in Kyōto’s jail. The volatile Shōgun exploded into rage and ordered them all burned alive immediately, regardless of age, gender, or station. They were to be crucified and burned on their crosses as a mise-shime:  a lesson to recalcitrant believers.             Itakura Katsushige, Kyōto’s Shogunal Governor, was a […] - [Martyrs of October : Father Julian Nakaura](https://kirishtan.com/october-martyrs-father-julian-nakaura/):        Father Julian Nakaura withstood the torture of the pit while in his sixties, hanging on to the glorious end while those around him, notably the Jesuit Vice-Provincial and Vicar of Japan himself, were giving in to the torturers’ wiles. Unbearable were the agonies these experts in cruelty inflicted on captive Christians, agonies compounded by the noxious stench their victims were forced to breathe, hanging head-downwards inside those wretched holes loaded with filth and capped with wooden lids that crimped the captive’s waist. And then there were the torturers’ constant adjurations to apostatize—a temptation made all too sweet […] - [7 October 1613: Eight Martyrs of Arima](https://kirishtan.com/7-october-1613-eight-martyrs-of-arima/):             In the Year of Our Lord 1613, the domain of Arima was in the hands of Arima Naozumi, the son of Arima Harunobu, longtime stalwart patron and protector of the Church in Japan. After Harunobu’s execution in 1612,  Naozumi had apostatized on the orders of the de-facto Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu and received lordship of his dead father’s domain on condition that he do his utmost to exterminate the very Faith that he had from his childhood espoused.                     Although his domain was far removed from Ieyasu’s […] - [Blessed Adam Arakawa, Samurai Martyr, June 1614](https://kirishtan.com/blessed-adam-arakawa-samurai-martyr-june-1614/): Adam Arakawa: Samurai, Servant, and Martyr (One of the 187 Companions of Blessed Peter Kibe Kasui)          “Martyr” is a word much abused in our day; here’s one excellent definition from the mouth of Joseph Takami, the Archbishop of Nagasaki:  “True Christian martyrs forgive others.  Even while being killed by others, they forgive them.  They teach us the meaning of a death like Jesus’ death.” Take Adam Arakawa, for example, one of the 187 Companions of Peter Kibe, beatified en masse by Pope Benedict XVI on 24 November 2008:  “He was a man of prayer,” Jesuit historian […] - [11 April 1638: Tokugawa Iemitsu's Army Swarms over Hara Castle's Outer Walls](https://kirishtan.com/11-april-1638-tokugawa-iemitsus-army-swarms-over-hara-castles-outer-walls/):         The Eleventh of April marks the beginning of the end of the Shimabara Rebellion.  Matsudaira Nobutsuna, commanding officer of the Shogun Iemitsu’s massed armies, had planned for his general assault to begin two days earlier, but  a driving rain postponed his plans: matchlock guns would be useless in a rainstorm.  In the interim, a gaggle of about ten girls descended from Hara Castle, fleeing through the rain for their lives.  They astonished their captors as they were dressed in the finest silks, as if they had just alighted from palanquins coming out of the very Imperial Palace rather than […] - [Saint Valentine's Day 1614 in Tokugawa Ieyasu's Japan](https://kirishtan.com/saint-valentines-day-1614-in-tokugawa-ieyasus-japan/):         Below: Tokugawa Ieyasu (left) and one of the many fruits of his rule (right)                 On 14 February 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu, “retired” Shogun and de-facto ruler of Japan, promulgated his Christian Expulsion Edict.  How ironic that he chose Saint Valentine’s Day to set in motion the juggernaut that would, like a steamroller, smash into oblivion every public, visible manifestation of Christianity—that “religion of love and union” that his predecessor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, had first attacked in 1587 with his own Expulsion Edict. Hideyoshi had decreed: “I do not want this religion: a religion of love and union, […] - [February 5th: the Dictator Hideyoshi and the 26 Martyrs](https://kirishtan.com/february-5th-the-dictator-hideyoshi-and-the-26-martyrs-2/):      Four hundred and eighteen years ago —5 February 1597—twenty-six bloodied men and boys were crucified on a mountainside overlooking Nagasaki Bay for the crime of being Christian.  While being spat upon and ridiculed and otherwise abused, they had been marched for twenty-eight days through towns and villages and countryside toward their destination at the westernmost edge of Japan—for the Christian town of Nagasaki was, in the dictator’s eyes, the perfect place to make a show of his power.   (Toyotomi Hideyoshi)             He had proscribed the Faith a decade earlier, perhaps in the merest fit of pique fueled […] - [August 25th, 1624: Five Heroic Men who Faced Hellish Fire for their Faith](https://kirishtan.com/august-25th-1624-five-heroic-men-who-faced-hellish-fire-for-their-faith/):        390 years ago, on August 25, 1624, five Christian heroes were executed “by slow fire” for the crime of bringing Christ to the Japanese.  Burned at the stake in Ōmura, east of Nagasaki, were the Jesuit Father Miguel Carvalho, the Franciscan Fathers Luís Sotelo and Luís Sasada, the Dominican Father Pedro Vázquez, and Brother Luís Baba, a Lay Franciscan Japanese catechist who made his religious profession before his martyrdom.[i]  A decade had passed since the “retired” Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu had promulgated his ironclad Anti-Christian Edict, and all five of the holy martyrs knew full well that a […] - [Ōmura Sumitada, Champion of the Faith](https://kirishtan.com/june-23rd-omura-sumitada-champion-of-the-faith/):             June 23, 1587 is a noteworthy date in human history, for it marks the death of Ōmura Sumitada (above), the first Japanese daimyō received into Holy Mother Church.  To his dying breath he was a champion of the Faith: a staunch warrior for Christ and a selfless donor of land and fortune to the Kingdom of Heaven.  He donated the port of Nagasaki to the Church—soon to become Japan’s window to the world—and the port-town of Mogi, too, which faced the Shimabara Peninsula and still connects by ferry to the isles of Amakusa.  Amakusa: the home of […] - [The 400th Anniversary of Blessed Adam Arakawa's Heroic Martyrdom](https://kirishtan.com/the-400th-anniversary-of-blessed-adam-arakawas-heroic-martyrdom/): Adam Arakawa: Samurai, Servant, and Martyr (revised 9 June 2014)          “Martyr” is a word much abused in our day; here’s one excellent definition from the mouth of Joseph Takami, the Archbishop of Nagasaki:  “True Christian martyrs forgive others.  Even while being killed by others, they forgive them.  They teach us the meaning of a death like Jesus’ death.” Take Adam Arakawa, for example, one of the 187 Companions of Peter Kibe, beatified en masse by Pope Benedict XVI on 24 November 2008:  “He was a man of prayer,” Jesuit historian and pastor Father Diego Yuuki told […] - [Two Heroic Martyr-Priests, Part Two: Fray Pedro de la Asunción and Padre João Baptista Machado De Távora](https://kirishtan.com/two-heroic-martyr-priests-part-two-fray-pedro-de-la-asuncion-and-padre-joao-baptista-machado-de-tavora/): Tokugawa Hidetada in all his Finery              When Padre João Machado walked into the prison, he was met by the Franciscan Friar Pedro de la Asunción, in prison since 8 April. Fray Pedro—born in Cuerba, near Toledo, Spain—had been caught via a stratagem employed by the sheriff of Nagayo (a town in Ōmura-dono’s domain about 9 miles NE of the port of Nagasaki), who, feigning a desire to confess his sins, had lured Fray Pedro into a trap. Fray Pedro had arrived in Japan in 1608 and had for some years been Father Superior of the Franciscan convent in Nagasaki. […] - [Two Heroic Martyr-Priests, Part One: Fray Pedro de la Asunción and Padre João Baptista Machado De Távora](https://kirishtan.com/may-22-1617-fray-pedro-de-la-asuncion-and-padre-joao-baptista-machado-de-tavora/):         In 1617 the Shōgun Hidetada (above) found out that the daimyō of Ōmura, whose Christian name was Bartolomeo (like his heroic, departed grandfather), was conniving at the hiding of Catholic priests in his domain in Kyushu, the westernmost of  the four home islands of Japan.  The Shōgun’s sledgehammer came down on this daimyō’s head:  he must expel the priests from his domain at once.          There were some who would rather give their lives for their flocks than be expelled; among these eternal lights were Fray Pedro de la Asunción of the Franciscan Order and Padre João Baptista Machado de Távora, S. […] - [The Unzen Martyrdoms, Part One](https://kirishtan.com/the-unzen-martyrdoms-part-one/):        A scar-faced volcano called Mount Unzen looms over the Shimabara Peninsula, a land once known as Arima, a thoroughly-Catholic land. At the mountain’s summit, shrouded in acrid steam, sulfurous volcanic springs boil and bubble up gases that sting the nose and eyes.  Just as the volcano’s occasional eruptions would raze and sculpt the Peninsula’s terrain, its boiling, sulfurous springs would prove many a human spirit and, in the process, temper the spirit of Arima’s Catholic faithful at large—steeling Arima’s very soul.                Paulo Uchibori, a Christian samurai who in his superhuman death glorified God, was among […] - [Saint Valentine's Day 400 Years Ago in Tokugawa Japan](https://kirishtan.com/saint-valentines-day-400-years-ago-in-tokugawa-japan/):           Below: Tokugawa Ieyasu (left) and one of the many fruits of his rule (right)                                      On 14 February 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu, “retired” Shogun and de-facto ruler of Japan, promulgated his Christian Expulsion Edict.  How ironic that he chose Saint Valentine’s Day to set in motion the juggernaut that would, like a steamroller, smash into oblivion every public, visible manifestation of Christianity—that “religion of love and union” that his predecessor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, had first attacked in 1587 with his own Expulsion Edict.             Ieyasu’s 1614 edict declared: “the Kirishitan band […] - [February 5th: the Dictator Hideyoshi and the 26 Martyrs, Part II](https://kirishtan.com/x/): “I do not want this religion:  a religion of love and union, which is therefore harmful for this kingdom.”   The Taikō Hideyoshi (pictured below)              The 26 Martyrs started their death-march on the tenth of January, 1597.  They were marched from dawn till nightfall for twenty-seven days, paraded as criminals and outcasts through town after town.  The youngest of the martyrs was twelve, the oldest sixty-four.  Twelve-year-old Louis Ibaraki laughed when they clipped his ear, and thereafter marched along jauntily toward Nagasaki.  On their wintry road to Calvary Thomas Kozaki, fourteen, wrote to his mother, “You should not worry about me […] - [February 5th: the Dictator Hideyoshi and the 26 Martyrs](https://kirishtan.com/february-5th-the-dictator-hideyoshi-and-the-26-martyrs/):      Four hundred and eighteen years ago —5 February 1597—twenty-six bloodied men and boys were crucified on a mountainside overlooking Nagasaki Bay for the crime of being Christian.  While being spat upon and ridiculed and otherwise abused, they had been marched for twenty-eight days through towns and villages and countryside toward their destination at the westernmost edge of Japan—for the Christian town of Nagasaki was, in the dictator’s eyes, the perfect place to make a show of his power.   (Toyotomi Hideyoshi)             He had proscribed the Faith a decade earlier, perhaps in the merest fit of pique fueled […] ## Pages - [St. Francis Xavier and the Divine Wind That Brought Christ to Japan](https://kirishtan.com/st-francis-xavier-and-the-divine-wind-that-brought-christ-to-japan/): Thus began the reign of Christ in Japan, carried on the wings of his own almighty wind. Joaquín Sorolla, “St. Francis Xavier,” 1891 (photo: Public Domain) Luke O’Hara Blogs August 17, 2022 “There is only one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and His Son Jesus Christ. He is not a foreign God. No, He is the God of all the world.” — Robert M. Flynn, S.J., The Martyrs of Tsuwano Japan is a land of mystery and paradox — a bright, shining promise at first sight, but a puzzling perplexity on deeper study. St. Francis Xavier would find […] - [Saint Valentine's Day 1614: Tokugawa Ieyasu Bans the God who is Love](https://kirishtan.com/saint-valentines-day-1614-tokugawa-ieyasu-bans-the-god-who-is-love/):         Below: Tokugawa Ieyasu (top) and the aftermath of a Japanese crucifixion (bottom)     On 14 February 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu, “retired” Shogun and de-facto ruler of Japan, promulgated his Christian Expulsion Edict.  How ironic that he chose Saint Valentine’s Day to set in motion the juggernaut that would, like a steamroller, smash into oblivion every public, visible manifestation of Christianity—that “religion of love and union” that his predecessor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, had first attacked in 1587 with his own Expulsion Edict. Hideyoshi had decreed: “I do not want this religion: a religion of love and union, which […] - [The Great Martyrdom of Nagasaki, 10 September 1622](https://kirishtan.com/the-great-martyrdom-of-nagasaki-10-september-1622/): The Great Martyrdom, 10 September 1622 Depiction of the Great Martyrdom by an anonymous Japanese artist. Credit: By Japanese artist, unknown [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons             Below I have transcribed an account of the Great Martyrdom of 1622 from an English translation (1705) of Jean Crasset’s Histoire de l’Eglise du Japon (History of the Church of Japan), published in Paris in 1689. I have changed only the archaic capitalizations (in the original, all nouns were capitalized) and the inaccurate or non-standard renderings of Japanese names. Otherwise, the translator’s spellings and punctuation remain. *******              We begin this book [The […] - [June 1, 1617: Friars Alfonso Navarrete, Hernando de San José, and Faithful Layman Leo Tanaka](https://kirishtan.com/june-1-1617-friars-alfonso-navarrete-hernando-de-san-jose-and-faithful-layman-leo-tanaka/): It was the first of June, Octave of Corpus Christi, in the Year of Our Lord 1617. On the virgin soil of an offshore islet in Ōmura Bay, three brothers in faith were on their knees awaiting the executioner’s blade. Two were foreign priests, the other a Japanese Catholic layman. The layman, surnamed Tanaka, had been christened Leo at his baptism. Leo Tanaka had lately been laboring as assistant and host to Padre João Machado, a Jesuit martyred just ten days before on the orders of Ōmura Sumiyori, the apostate daimyō of the Ōmura domain. This ruler of tens of […] - [Serpents under Heel](https://kirishtan.com/serpents-under-heel/): Exactly when or where the words escaped my lips I can’t recall—perhaps after a miraculous First Saturday rosary at a certain Nagasaki church. At any rate, I vowed to the Mother of God that I would pray Her rosary at every Catholic church in Nagasaki. Nagasaki Prefecture, that is, not just the city. At the time I didn’t realize how much landscape that promise encompassed, nor how many churches—some prominent, some tucked away in hidden nooks, and others, historical gems, almost crumbling away. It would be an ongoing, step-by-step pilgrimage. One step of which I’ll now recount. In my guide […] - [Why are we Slaughtering the Healers?](https://kirishtan.com/why-are-we-slaughtering-the-healers/):       “It is the little ones who heal us,” said Father Leonard, from out of the blue.  I had been confessing some now-forgotten sin when out came this treasure from the store-room of his heart.       It came to me some days later that the face of God must have something in it of the face of a child.  This would explain why Jesus said, “In heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 18.10)  That is, the faces of the angels’ appointed little ones, untainted as yet by actual sin, […] - [Father Pietro Paolo Navarro, S.J. : a November Sacrifice, a December Reckoning](https://kirishtan.com/father-pietro-paolo-navarro-s-j-a-november-sacrifice-a-december-reckoning/): This story begins on Christmas Day in the Year of Our Lord 1560, when the town of Laino Borgo in Cosenza, Italy was graced with the birth of a boy of noble blood. Eschewing the life of privilege that could have awaited him, the boy chose instead to serve his God and save the souls of his fellow men in a foreign land. Pietro Paolo Navarro entered the Society of Jesus at Nola (Kingdom of Naples) in 1579, the very year that Father Alessandro Valignano, the great Italian Jesuit, entered Japan at the port of Kuchinotsu to remake the face […] - [AUGUST 25TH, 1624: Five Exemplars of Superhuman Faith](https://kirishtan.com/august-25th-1624-five-exemplars-of-superhuman-faith/):      On August 25, 1624, five Christian heroes were executed “by slow fire” for the crime of bringing Christ to the Japanese.  Burned at the stake in Ōmura, east of Nagasaki, were the Jesuit Father Miguel Carvalho, the Franciscan Fathers Luís Sotelo and Luís Sasada, the Dominican Father Pedro Vázquez, and Brother Luís Baba, a Lay Franciscan Japanese catechist who made his religious profession before his martyrdom.[i]  A decade had passed since the “retired” Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu had promulgated his ironclad Anti-Christian Edict, and all five of the holy martyrs knew full well that a grisly death awaited anyone caught in […] - [7 October 1613: the Eight Martyrs of Arima](https://kirishtan.com/7-october-1613-the-eight-martyrs-of-arima/): Faithful Catholics martyred on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary    In the mid-16th century, Japan was a mishmash of feudal domains unfettered by any central authority. Civil war was common, with peace to be had only intermittently or in remote outposts of calm. One such outpost, at least for a time, was the little domain of Arima, ensconced on a peninsula southeast of Nagasaki. On the Feast of the Assumption of 1549, Saint Francis Xavier arrived in Japan with two fellow-Jesuits and three lay helpers to sow the Gospel seeds that would soon sprout throughout that fertile […] - [Three Jesuits, Two Eras](https://kirishtan.com/three-jesuits-two-eras/):   Given the whirlwind of troubles afflicting the Church today—the worship of pagan idols at the Amazon Synod, the ongoing cover-up of clerical sex crimes, the theft of half a billion dollars from Peter’s Pence—some of the faithful might be tempted to throw up their hands, drop all pretense of being truly Catholic, and join the gulled masses on their merry ride to hell. Thank God we have the witness of the martyrs. In the final week of November 2019, Pope Francis was treading soil baptized with Catholic blood in one of history’s cruelest persecutions. While visiting Tokyo, Hiroshima, and […] - [Readers' Discussion](https://kirishtan.com/readers-discussion/): I would like to hear from the readers of Kirishtan.com.  Your questions and comments are welcome here. Luke O. - [The Twenty-Six Martyrs of Nagasaki](https://kirishtan.com/the-twenty-six-martyrs-of-nagasaki/):           Above a hilltop overlooking Nagasaki Bay floats a row of men and boys in bronze, frozen eternally in attitudes of joy. ‘Floats,’ I say, because they seem to hang suspended in mid-air along a wall of stone. These are the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan. Most of them have their hands folded in prayer, and all their mouths are open in praise. Like a halo around each martyr’s head, words are inscribed behind him in bronze relief. These are the last words each was heard to say or sing before being pierced with spears from below; this is how Japanese […] - [Dedication and Links](https://kirishtan.com/dedication-and-links/): This website is dedicated to the true heroes of old Catholic Japan, the Kirish’tan Martyrs. The Flag of the Hara Castle Kirish’tan, the followers of Amakusa Shiro; it was the erstwhile banner of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament.        On the Fifteenth of August in the Year of Our Lord 1549, St. Francis Xavier, Father Cosme de Torres and Brother Juan Fernandez landed in Kagoshima; their mission was to plant a seedbed of Christendom in Japan. Their labors and those of the many selfless men who followed their route to Japan to proclaim the Gospel would produce fruit in […] - [Antonio Ishihara: Samurai of Christ](https://kirishtan.com/antonio-ishihara-samurai-of-christ/): (アントニオ石原孫右衛門) Antonio Ishihara Magōemon: Warrior of Bizen, Merchant of Sanuki, and Faithful Samurai of Christ July 16, 1617                                                  Ikoma Masatoshi         It all started with a lust for vengeance burning in the heart of a certain man of Sanuki who had been the loser in a certain lawsuit. Digging for dirt with which to destroy the victor, he heard that his opponent was harboring a Christian uncle in his home and reported this to […] - [Domingo Hoshino: Crucify him!](https://kirishtan.com/domingo-hoshino-crucify-him/):                   In the Year of Our Lord 1616, a young samurai named Hoshino Kanzō returned to Fukushima Masanori’s castle-town of Hiroshima after some years’ absence to care for his father, who was mortally ill. The young man’s return must have been bittersweet, since his father, egged on by his Jezebel of a stepmother, had thrown him out of his home years earlier over his devotion to Christ. Perhaps his very baptismal name, Domingo, set her teeth on edge. On his eviction, Domingo Hoshino had made his way to Nagasaki to seek spiritual […] - [Anatomy of a Martyrdom: for Love of Souls](https://kirishtan.com/anatomy-of-a-martyrdom-for-love-of-souls/):          While combing the narrow streets of Nagasaki in the autumn of 1629, the Shogun’s police grabbed themselves a coveted prize: a Japanese Jesuit priest, an heir of Saint Francis Xavier’s hope, born eighty years earlier, to fill all Japan with Christ. By 1629, under the Shogun Iemitsu’s persecution, that hope was all but smashed under the tyrant’s heel, and yet a rare breed of intrepid men still clave to that hope as if it were their very life and breath, despising their own mortal lives to save immortal souls for Christ.            Father […] - [CONTACT ME](https://kirishtan.com/contact-me/): You can contact the author of this website at : luke@kirishtan.com Thanks for reading. I welcome your questions and comments. - [Of Love and Union, a Saga of Christ in Japan](https://kirishtan.com/of-love-and-union-a-saga-of-christ-in-japan/): If you’re interested in the stories of the Japanese martyrs, you might want to read my historical novel on that subject, available  here: - [The Great Martyrdom of 1622](https://kirishtan.com/the-great-martyrdom-of-1622/): The Great Martyrdom, 10 September 1622             Below I have transcribed an account of the Great Martyrdom of 1622 from an English translation (1705) of Jean Crasset’s Histoire de l’Eglise du Japon (History of the Church of Japan), published in Paris in 1689. I have changed only the archaic capitalizations (in the original, all nouns were capitalized) and the inaccurate or non-standard renderings of Japanese names. Otherwise, the translator’s spellings and punctuation remain. Depiction of the Great Martyrdom by an anonymous Japanese artist. Credit: By Japanese artist, unknown [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons   We begin this book [The Sixteenth […] - [Two Heroic Priests: Friar Pedro and Father João, 22 May 1617](https://kirishtan.com/two-heroic-priests-friar-pedro-and-father-joao-22-may-1617/): Double Martyrdom at Kōri, 22 May 1617     In 1617 the Shōgun Hidetada (above) discovered that Ōmura Sumiyori, the daimyō of Ōmura, was conniving at the hiding of Catholic priests in his domain in Kyūshū, the westernmost of the four home islands of Japan. The Shōgun’s sledgehammer came down on this daimyō’s head: he had to expunge the priests from his domain at once. Ōmura Sumiyori, christened Bartolomeo, had been born and raised a Catholic; his grandfather, the illustrious Bartolomeo Ōmura Sumitada, had been the very first Japanese daimyō to receive baptism and had remained a dauntless champion of the Faith unto […] - [Saint Marina of Ōmura](https://kirishtan.com/saint-marina-of-omura/):              November the Eleventh marks the martyrdom of Saint Marina of Ōmura, canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 18, 1987.  I first learned of her story on seeing her statue in the courtyard of the Kako-machi Catholic Church in Ōmura, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan—a lady in black-and-white Dominican habit clutching a crucifix to her breast and standing atop a crown of flames that would send her straight to Heaven, her face aglow with faith and hope and love—and superhuman strength.            In 1626, entering the Dominican Order as a Tertiary, or lay Dominican, she had […] - [A Polish Jesuit dies in the Pit in Faithful Silence](https://kirishtan.com/a-polish-jesuit-dies-in-the-pit-in-faithful-silence/):       Portrait of Father Meczynski by an anonymous artist. Public Domain, from Wikimedia Commons   Father Albert Meczynski, S.J. was born of Polish nobility, the Poraj of Kurozwęki; his father (who, as best I can determine, was the Count of Kurozwęki) died when Albert was a boy. Sent to study at the Jesuit college in Lublin at age fourteen, Albert soon embraced a desire to join the Society of Jesus. His mother, outraged, sent him to school in Krakow to deter this ambition she thought unfitting a nobleman; there he studied medicine, which would later come in handy.        Despite […] - [Father Antonio Rubino and the True Story behind Martin Scorcese's "Silence"](https://kirishtan.com/father-antonio-rubino-and-the-true-story-behind-martin-scorceses-silence/):       Humankind—as well as all creation—owes an immeasurable debt of gratitude to Father Antonio Rubino and his companions, fearless men of God who threw their very lives to the wind for the sake of Japan and its blessed people, to give the Japanese an example intended to lead them to freedom in aeternam.  They had set out for Japan in 1642 from Manila in a ship secretly prepared for them by the Governor of the Philippines; they had traveled disguised as Chinese; but they died as public spectacles, proudly and fearlessly proclaiming the saving truth of Christ, the Faith they […] - [The Life and Death of Father Marcello Mastrilli](https://kirishtan.com/the-martyrdom-of-father-marcello-mastrilli-an-atoning-sacrifice-a-shout-to-earth-and-heaven/): An Atoning Sacrifice, a Shout to Earth and Heaven      Father Marcello Mastrilli, S.J. is a martyr credited in his lifetime with countless miracles, an intrepid warrior for Christ whose dream was to convert the Emperor of Japan to the Faith or die martyred as a testimony to its absolute truth. Twice he testified to that truth with his lifeblood, first on a parchment signed in his own blood and placed in the hand of Saint Francis Xavier’s corpse in its sepulchre at Goa, India. His second and final blood testament was his voluntary death by torture in Nagasaki, […] - [The Eight Martyrs of Arima](https://kirishtan.com/the-eight-martyrs-of-arima/):         In the Year of Our Lord 1613, the domain of Arima was in the hands of Arima Naozumi, the son of Arima Harunobu, longtime stalwart patron and protector of the Church in Japan. After Harunobu’s execution in 1612,  Naozumi had apostatized on the orders of the de-facto Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu and received lordship of his dead father’s domain on condition that he do his utmost to exterminate the very Faith that he had from his childhood espoused.                  Although his domain was far removed from Ieyasu’s castle-town up on the Pacific […] - [The 52 Martyrs of Kyōto](https://kirishtan.com/the-52-martyrs-of-kyoto/):           Behold a heart-wrenching martyrdom in which whole families were burned together—including mothers with their infant children—just to satisfy the almighty Shōgun Hidetada’s ire.             In October of 1619, Hidetada was passing through Fushimi after a visit to Kyōto, the Imperial capital, when he heard that there were a great many Christians being held in Kyōto’s jail. The volatile Shōgun exploded into rage and ordered them all burned alive immediately, regardless of age, gender, or station. They were to be crucified and burned on their crosses as a mise-shime:  a lesson to recalcitrant believers.             Itakura Katsushige, Kyōto’s Shogunal Governor, […] - [Santa Magdalena of Nagasaki, the Perfect Bride](https://kirishtan.com/santa-magdalena-of-nagasaki-spouse-of-christ-martyr-and-one-of-gods-greatest-miracles/): Thirteen days and a half she hung in the pit, singing hymns and blessing the names of Jesus and His mother: no other human being in all the dark history of Japan’s persecution of Christ’s Church ever withstood the torturers’ cruelties so long. Yet, in the end, it was not the cruelties of the Shōgun’s minions that ended her life; rather, it was the merciful Hand of God that gently took holy Magdalena home. A young woman of extraordinary beauty and refinement, Magdalena so enthralled the diabolic Governor of Nagasaki, Takenaka Uneme, that he tried to dissuade her from seeking […] - [Samurai Martyrs: Paulo Uchibori and Sons](https://kirishtan.com/samurai-martyrs-paulo-uchibori-and-sons/):          A glowering, scar-faced volcano named Unzen reigns over the Shimabara Peninsula in southwestern Japan.  Atop it, bubbling, sulfurous hot springs vomit out white crud and belch acrid steam.  They call this place “Unzen Hell.”  In the 1600s, the daimyo of Shimabara found the biggest of its caustic, skin-eating pools perfect for torturing Christians.    Photo © 2007 by Luke O’Hara           Most tourists connect Unzen’s boiling fury only with the posh spas that ring her “Hell”; almost unknown is the history that lies buried within that smoking netherworld–a tale of superhuman heroism and epic tragedy.  Unzen transfigured this […] - [5 February 1597: I do not want this religion ... of love and union](https://kirishtan.com/four-hundred-and-seven-years-ago-today-5-february-1597-i-do-not-want-this-religion-a-religion-of-love-and-union/): “I do not want this religion:  a religion of love and union, which is therefore harmful for this kingdom.”   The Taikō Hideyoshi (Toyotomi Hideyoshi)            On February 5, 1597, twenty-six bloodied men and boys were crucified on a mountainside overlooking Nagasaki Bay for the crime of being Christian.  Being spat upon and ridiculed and otherwise abused, they had been marched for twenty-eight days through towns and villages and countryside toward their destination at the westernmost edge of Japan—for the Christian town of Nagasaki was, in the dictator’s eyes, the perfect place to make a show of his power. […] - [Amakusa Shiro and the Fall of Hara Castle: a Kirishitan Holocaust](https://kirishtan.com/amakusa-shiro-and-the-fall-of-hara-castle/): Amakusa Shiro as depicted in sculpture on the grounds of the vanished Hara Castle                      Under the Fallen Cherry-Blossoms, Buried History            In the Japanese village of Minami Arima, every spring at cherry-blossom time, two mortal foes march their little armies up the castle road.  One is a leathery old samurai in armor and the other a pony-tailed teenager in a flowery red cape, with his face painted up like a geisha’s.  The man is the Shogun’s general; the boy is Amakusa Shiro.  At road’s end their armies will have mock combat, eliciting laughs from the crowd.             Beyond the […] - [Samurai Martyrs: Adam Arakawa](https://kirishtan.com/samurai-martyrs-adam-arakawa/): Adam Arakawa: Samurai, Servant, and Martyr          “Martyr” is a word much abused in our day; here’s one excellent definition from the mouth of Joseph Takami, the Archbishop of Nagasaki:  “True Christian martyrs forgive others.  Even while being killed by others, they forgive them.  They teach us the meaning of a death like Jesus’ death.” Take Adam Arakawa, for example, one of the 187 Companions of Peter Kibe, beatified en masse by Pope Benedict XVI on 24 November 2008:  “He was a man of prayer,” Jesuit historian and pastor Father Diego Yuuki told me. “When the last […] - [Kirish'tan Martyrs Blog](https://kirishtan.com/kirishtan-martyrs-blog-2/) - [Samurai Martyrs: Father Peter Kibe](https://kirishtan.com/samurai-martyrs-father-peter-kibe/): Father Peter Kibe:  Dauntless Priest and Unflinching Martyr            The Fourth of July marks not only the birth of American independence, but also the  anniversary of one of the most heroic declarations of freedom Man has ever made.  On 4 July 1639, Japanese samurai and Jesuit priest Father Peter Kasui Kibe refused to renounce Christ under the most grueling regime of torture ever devised by man or devil.  In the wake of Father Peter’s death, the Shogun’s master torturer dubbed him “the man who would not say, I give in.”—a perfect epitaph to his heroic life. He was the most international Japanese of his day, […] - [Samurai Martyrs: Father Julian Nakaura](https://kirishtan.com/samurai-martyrs-father-julian-nakaura/): Julian Nakaura: Samurai, Ambassador, and Martyr           The jumbled boulders of Nakaura lie brooding on the shore, defying the sea to do its worst.  Behind them squats a hill clothed in bamboo, its giant knees of rock protruding through the trees.  A continent of charcoal cloud looms over the coast, yet the sun blazes triumphantly in the distant west, riding high above the Gotoh Islands:  it burns one’s face, even in the tail-end of winter.       Julian Nakaura was born here.  They honor him with a memorial that overlooks the village:  a pony-tailed boy in bronze pointing out […] - [Bio](https://kirishtan.com/bio/): 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 […] [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)