Saints Paul Miki and Companions

6 FEBRUARY 2010. Today the Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Paul Miki, a Japanese Jesuit brother, and 25 others who were martyred in Nagasaki, Japan in A.D. 1597.

The first missionaries to Japan, including Saint Francis Xavier, arrived in 1549, and were welcomed by the Japanese people. Indeed, many Japanese converted to the faith because of the work of these missionaries. By A.D. 1587 there were more than 200,000 Japanese Christians. However, under the new leadership of Hideyoshi, who feared Christians would take over the government on the basis of a Spanish merchant's gossip, that year the missionaries were banished from Japan and many of the Catholic churches were destroyed. Following this purging, some missionary priests remained in Japan in hiding, dressing and living as Japanese, and continued to minister to the Christians there.

On 8 December 1596, Hideyoshi arrested and condemned to death the friars of Miako. These souls consisted of three Japanese Jesuit catechists, including Saint Paul Miki, six Franciscans (four of whom were Spanish and one Indian and one Mexican), and seventeen Japanese lay Christians, some of whom were children. The twenty-six men were tortured and made to march from Miako to Nagasaki through the snow and across frozen streams. On this spectacular journey meant to dissuade Japanese Christians from their faith, the martyrs sang psalms of praise and joy, prayed the rosary, and preached to those they passed. On 5 February the band of 26 Christians reached Nagasaki and found twenty-six crosses awaiting them on what is now called the Holy Mountain. Tradition tells that Saints Miki and his companions ran to their crosses. They were bound to the crosses by iron bands at the wrists, ankles, and the throat. Then, after being crucified, all of these Saints were stabbed with a lance as our Lord Jesus Christ was penetrated at His crucifixion. The blood-stained clothes of these martyrs were treasured by the Christian community in Japan and many miracles have been attributed to the intercessions of these saints.

Many people watched the crucifixion of Saints Miki and his companions. Hideyoshi and the government had hoped that this example of terrible execution would frighten the other Japanese Christians. Instead, the witness of these martyrs gave Christians in Japan the courage to profess their faith as Saints Miki and his companions had.

In A.D. 1858 Japan allowed Christian missionaries to return where they found many Christians still professing the faith, which they had carried on in secret in the more than two hundred years since the crucifixion of Saints Miki and his companions. 

At the time of his arrest Saint Paul Miki had completed his studies for the priesthood and would have become the first ordained Japanese priest. From his cross, tradition records that Saint Paul Miki forgave his executioners and told the assembled people to ask Christ to show them how to be truly happy. Saints Miki and his companions were canonized by Blessed Pope Pius IX in A.D. 1862.

Prayer
(From the Liturgy of the Hours)

God our Father,
source of strength for all your saints,
you led Paul Miki and his companions
through the suffering of the cross
to the joy of eternal life.
May their prayers give us the courage
to be loyal until death in profession our faith.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, you Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

IMAGE: Unknown Artist (from Women for Faith & Family (St Louis: Women for Faith & Family, 2010 http://wf-f.org/StPaulMiki.html)).

Saint Francis de Capillas, Blessed Alfonsus Navarrete, and Companions, Martyrs

6 NOVEMBER 2009. Today we celebrate the memorial of Saint Francis de Capillas, Blessed Alfonsus Navarrete, and Companions, Martyrs of The Far East.

Saint Francis, Blessed Alfonsus, and their companions were robed with the white robe of martrydom for trying to spread the Gospel to Japan and China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

In Japan, Blessed Alfonsus Navarrete, a Spanish Dominican, was beheaded on 1 June 1617 in Omura. In 1622, nine other Dominicans were burned to death in Nagasaki. All told, from 1614 through 1632, more than 100 Spanish and Japanese Dominicans (novices, cooperator brothers, tertiaries, and confraternity members) were martyred for the faith.

Saint Francisco had labored for a number of years in the Phillippines before going to China in 1642. In China, Saint Francis de Capillas, also a Spanish Dominican, was beheaded in 15 January 1648. In the following century several Spanish Dominicans were also martyred in China, including Bishop Peter Sanz on 26 May 1747 and Bishop Francis Serrano along with the priests Joachim Royo, John Alcober, and Francisco Diaz on 28 October 1748.

Saint Francisco de Capillas was proclaimed Protomartyr (First Martyr) of China on 16 September 1748 by Pope Benedict XIV. Two centuries later, he was beatified by Pope Pius X on 2 May 1909. Still nearly another century after his beatification, he was canonized by the great Pope John Paul II on 1 October 2000.

Blessed Francis de Capillas was beatified on 7 May 1867 by Pope Blessed Pius IX.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch, bishop and martyr

17 OCTOBER 2009. Today the Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, one of the early Apostolic Fathers and the third bishop and Patriarch of Antioch (following Saint Peter and Saint Evodius). Saint Ingnatius was condemned to death by being eaten by lions and was martyred in the Flavian Ampitheatre in 108 A.D.

Saint Ignatius was a disciple of Saint John the Apostle. And, tradition tells that Saint Ignatius was one of the children that Jesus took into his arms and blessed. as described in Mark 9:36.

After his arrest by the Roman authorities, Saint Ignatius was transported to Rome for his martyrdom. The journey to Rome was a long and difficult one and along the way Saint Ignatius wrote seven letters (six to the churches in the region and one to Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna). The Letters of Saint Ignatius have been preserved and are one of the earliest examples of Christian theology, touching on subjects such as ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role of bishops. Online translations of Saint Ignatius' letters can be found here.

In his letter to the Romans, Saint Ignatius writes:

I am writing to all the Churches and I enjoin all, that I am dying willingly for God's sake, if only you do not prevent it. I beg you, do not do me an untimely kindness. Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching to God. I am God's wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ.

After his death, Saint Ignatius' friends received permission to recover his remains and took them back to Antioch. Today, the remains of Saint Ignatius are entombed beneath St. Peter's Basilica.

Saint Ignatius, pray for us!

IMAGE: Icon of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, central Russia, 17th century.

233 Martyrs of Valencia, Spain

22 SEPTEMBER 2009. Today the Church remembers the 233 martyrs of Valencia Spain (referred to collectively as Jose Aparicio Sanz and 232 companions), beatified by the great Pope John Paul II on March 11, 2001.

Experts believe that in the early months of 1936 more than 10,000 priests, brothers, nuns, and Catholic lay persons were killed in the Spanish Civil War, as leftists attempted to wipe out what they saw as the Catholic resistance. The Spanish Civil War (1936-39) pitted the progressive government, supported by communists, anarchists, socialists, labor groups and other leftist causes, against a Nationalist movement, which was attempting to keep intact authoritarian Spanish society. Eventually, the Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco, prevailed. However, the horrible, bloody conflict was particularly costly for Catholics in Spain.

The written material collected in support of the beatification on March 11, 2001, ran more than 4,000 pages. This material offers stirring accounts of the heroic and virtuous conduct of the martyrs. For example, seminarians who were shot left behind a note scrawled on a chocolate wrapper: "We die forgiving those who are taking away our life and offering it for the Christian ordering of the world."

In his homily on March 11, 2001, this is how the late Holy Father described the martyrs:

They were men and women of all ages and states: diocesan priests, men and women religious, the fathers and mothers of families, young lay people. They were killed for being Christians, for their faith in Christ, for being active members of the Church. Before dying, all of them, as stated in the canonical processes for their declaration as martyrs, forgave their executioners from their heart.

The list of those who are being raised to the glory of the altars today for confessing their faith and dying for it is long. There are 38 priests from the Archdiocese of Valencia, with a large group of men and women, members of Catholic Action, also from Valencia; 18 Dominicans and two priests from the Archdiocese of Zaragoza; four Friars Minor and six Friars Minor Conventual; 12 Friars Minor Capuchin with five Capuchin women religious and a Discalced Augustinian; 11 Jesuits with a young lay man; 30 Salesians and two Daughters of Mary Help of Christians; 19 Third Order Capuchins of Our Lady of Sorrows with a laywoman cooperator; one Priest of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Dehonian); the chaplain of La Salle College of Bonanova, Barcelona, with five Brothers of the Christian Schools; 24 Carmelite Sisters of Charity; one Servite Sister; six Sisters of the Pious Schools with two laywomen cooperators from Uruguay, who are the first blesseds of this Latin American country; two Little Sisters of the Abandoned Elderly, three Third Order Capuchins of the Holy Family; a Claretian Missionary Sister; and lastly, Francisco Castelló y Aleu, a young member of Catholic Action in Lleida.

The testimonies we have received speak of honest, exemplary people whose martyrdom sealed lives that were interwoven with work, prayer and religious commitment in their families, parishes and religious congregations. Many of them in life had already enjoyed a reputation for holiness among their countrymen. It could be said that their exemplary conduct prepared them in a way for the supreme confession of faith that is martyrdom.

How can we not be deeply moved at hearing the accounts of their martyrdom? The elderly María Teresa Ferragud was arrested at the age of 83 with her four contemplative religious daughters. On 25 October 1936, the feast of Christ the King, she asked to accompany her daughters to martyrdom and to be executed last so that she might encourage them to die for the faith. Her death made such an impression on her executioners that they exclaimed: "This is a true saint". No less edifying was the witness of the other martyrs, such as the young Francisco Castelló y Aleu, 22 years old, a chemist by profession and a member of Catholic Action. Realizing the gravity of the situation, he did not want to hide but to offer his youth as a loving sacrifice to God and his brethren; he left us three letters, an example of strength, generosity, serenity and happiness, written a few moments before his death to his sisters, his spiritual director and his fiancée. Or the newly ordained priest, Germán Gozalbo, 23 years old, who was shot only two months after celebrating his first Mass, after endless humiliations and abuses.

How many examples of serenity and Christian hope! All these new blesseds and many other anonymous martyrs paid with their blood for the hatred of the faith and of the Church which was unleashed by the religious persecution and the outbreak of the Civil War, the immense tragedy that Spain experienced in the 20th century. During those terrible years many priests, religious and lay people were killed simply because they were active members of the Church. The new blesseds being raised to the altars today were not involved in political or ideological struggles, nor did they want to be concerned with them. This is well known to many of you who are their relatives and are taking part in this beatification today with great joy. They died solely for religious motives. Now, by this solemn proclamation of their martyrdom, the Church wishes to recognize these men and women as examples of courage and constancy in faith, helped by God's grace. For us they are models of consistency with the truth they professed, while at the same time they honour the noble Spanish people and the Church.

The words of our late Holy Father cannot but touch our hearts. If we allow the Holy Spirit to fill us, to infuse our hearts with the very love of God, Himself, we cannot but have our hearts of stone softened and remade into an image of the Sacred Heart of Christ--open to hurt, and offered-up to Our Lord as an offering for those in our world. That is how these Spanish martyrs died, offering themselves to God and forgiving their executioners.

Blessed Jose Aparicio Sanz and 232 companions, pray for us!

Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe

14 AUGUST 2009. Today the Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe, declared by John Paul II as the "Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century."

Born in 1894, in Central Poland (then part of the Russian Empire) Maxilian Kolbe joined the Conventual Franciscans in 1910 and was ordained as a priest in 1918. Kolbe's life was strongly influenced by a visit from Our Lady as a child. He described the visit like this:

"That night, I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both."

Following his ordination, Kolbe returned to the newly independent Poland in 1919. In Poland, Kolbe worked to promote the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Between 1930 and 1936 Kolbe also traveled to Japan and founded a monastery outside Nagasaki, which remains today prominent in the Japanese Catholic Church.

After the outbreak of World War II, Father Kolbe hid refugees from the Nazis, including 2,000 Jewish people, in his Friary. On February 14, 1941, Father Kolbe was arrested by the SS and in May was transferred to Auschwitz. Because Father Kolbe was a devout priest, he was treated to regular beatings and other special ill treatment during his imprisonment.

In July 1941 a prisoner disappeared from Father Kolbe's barracks. Following rules intended to entice prisoners to police each other, the guards then chose ten men from the barracks to die by starvation. One of the men chosen for death, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out that he had a family, and Father Kolbe volunteered to take his place.

The men and Father Kolbe were then placed in Block 13 (notorious for torture) to die by starvation and dehydration. After three weeks without food or water, only Father Kolbe and three of the other men remained. During the time with the other men in Block 13, Father Kolbe led them in songs and prayer. It is reported that each time the guards entered to check on Father Kolbe and the others, he was found kneeling or standing calmly in the middle of the cell. Finally, being the last man alive, Father Kolbe was killed by an injection of carbolic acid.

Father Kolbe was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1971, and canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 10, 1982 in the presence of Franciszek Gajowniczek. Upon his canonization, Saint Kolbe was declared a martyr of the faith.

Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe, pray for us.