Today June 1

Today is the feast of some more Japanese martyrs -- not Paul Miki and companions, but 200 martyrs, prominent among whom are Alphonsus Navarette, O.P. and Ferdinand Ayala, Augustinian. They are called "The Martyrs of Japan II" because they perished in the second great persecution in Japan (1617-1632). This persecution was both religiously and politically motivated. Religiously because the object was to destroy Christianity, not Christians. Thus every effort was made to get the victims to apostatize before their deaths, using many horrible ingenious tortures. Some were made to stand for three hours at a time in freezing water and others sprinkled with sulfuric acid and rolled over a type of cactus. Some of the many so abused broke down under the repeated treatments, but others, many more, in fact: priests, laymen, men, women, adolescents and even small children held fast and refused to deny our Lord. The political motivation was a calculated effort by the shogun Ieyasu to destroy the rising power of the daimyos, some of whom were Christians. One of them, Date Masamune, even sent a delegation to Spain, Mexico, and Rome to Pope Gregory XV. These Japanese, who were keen on Catholicism, made a great impression. Later, however, Date himself apostatized, as did the entire embassy. But the shogun held great -- nigh on to absolute -- power. It was often the little guy, the humble Franciscan, the altar server, the native lay Jesuit, the housewives, grandmothers and peasants who maintained their faith even while the nobles repudiated theirs. The intrepid missionaries already mentioned (Spaniards who traveled to Japan via the Philippines) were beheaded. Others, 5 priests and 4 seminarians, were burned to death by slow fires. Two more, priests from Spain and the Azores, would each say Mass each day in prison (one would say one, while the other kept watch out for the guards; then they'd switch), and walked to the headsman's block singing the litany of saints. They embraced each other before laying their necks on the block. Leonard Kimura was able to baptize 96 folks even while he was in prison for 2 1/2 years and walked to his death at the stake bravely and joyfully. Jerome de Angelis, S.J. and Francis Galvez, O.F.M. and 50 others were burnt alive in slow fires on a hill near Tokyo. This last, Galvez, was successful in sneaking into the increasingly more dangerous Japan by disguising himself as a black man! One of his fellow martyrs, Simon Yempo, was a native Japanese who had been a Buddhist monk. You never hear about these guys. There were numerous Buddhist monks who converted during this period. Diego Carvalho and a band of fugitive Christians were tracked through the snow and followed by means of their footprints. They were marched to a hill (two of their party were hacked to death where they fell), stripped naked and told to renounce their faith, tortured and then left to die in the cold. Many more were burned (slowly) to death: Franciscans, Jesuits, and lay catechists -- these last all natives. The Franciscans, Louis Sotelo and Antony Tuy, "were tireless workers and gained many souls for God. They worked night and day hearing confessions, baptizing, catechizing, raising those who had fallen through fear." - Butler's Lives. These two planted seeds for 2000 souls, many lost through martyrdom, but others kept the faith alive "in the catacombs" until the faith was allowed again.