6 February: Saints Paul Miki and Companions
The First Japanese Martyr
Saint Paul Miki and his companions are shining witnesses of a faith lived without compromise, in joy and suffering. Paul was born in 1556 near Kyoto, Japan, into a family of the Japanese aristocracy. His father, a member of the Samurai class, had become a Christian along with some Buddhist monks. Paul received baptism at a very young age and, as he grew, discovered his vocation. He therefore decided to join the Jesuits, where he pursued his studies until priestly ordination.
During the years of his ministry, Japan was undergoing a period of profound political change. In 1587 the powerful Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the country’s supreme military leader, launched a harsh repression against Christians: conversions were punished by death, places of worship were destroyed, property was confiscated and entire communities were threatened.
Paul Miki holds a special place in the history of the Japanese Church. He was in fact the first religious born in Japan to emerge as a leading figure for that young Christian community, which had arisen through the preaching of Saint Francis Xavier and had quickly grown to number hundreds of thousands of faithful. Paul was able to unite Christian faith with a deep knowledge of his people’s culture, engaging in dialogue with people of every background—from scholars and Buddhist and Shinto religious figures to peasants in the countryside and the poorest in the city, often oppressed by the powerful. His style and way of communicating earned him respect even among those who did not share his faith.
In the climate of anti-Christian violence, Paul was arrested in December 1596. Taken to prison, he found himself with other Christian prisoners: Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries, as well as numerous Japanese laypeople spiritually connected to the Order of Saint Francis.
All were ordered to renounce Christianity. When they refused, they were first subjected to a cruel humiliation: the cutting off of the lobe of the left ear. Wounded and bleeding, they were paraded on carts through the streets, exposed to the mockery of the population.
During imprisonment, Paul was a guide, a support, and an example of steadfastness for his companions. On the scaffold, before dying, Paul spoke his final words as a true sermon: he affirmed that the Christian way is the best path to salvation, because it teaches one to love and to forgive even one’s enemies. He openly declared that he forgave the emperor and all those who had decided his condemnation, inviting them to discover Christian baptism.
At the beginning of 1597 he was forced to undertake a long march to Nagasaki, where, on a hill, on 6 February, together with twenty-five other companions—religious and laypeople, adults and youths—he was put to death by crucifixion. His death did not mark the end of Christianity in Japan. For more than two centuries, despite persecutions and violence, the faith survived thanks to its silent transmission within families, without priests or official structures. When in the nineteenth century the country reopened to the West, missionaries discovered with amazement Christian communities still alive.
The names of the companions in martyrdom are the Saints: John of Goto Soan, James Kisai, religious of the Society of Jesus; Peter Baptist Blázquez, Martin of the Ascension Aguirre, Francis Blanco, priests of the Order of Friars Minor; Philip of Jesus de Las Casas, Gonzalo García, Francis of Saint Michael de la Parilla, religious of the same Order; Leo Karasuma, Peter Sukejiro, Cosmas Takeja, Paul Ibaraki, Thomas Dangi, Paul Suzuki, catechists; Louis Ibaraki, Anthony, Michael Kozaki and Thomas, his son, Bonaventure, Gabriel, John Kinuya, Matthias, Francis of Meako, Joachim Sakakibara, Francis Adaucto, neophytes.
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