
Two Sixths of August, 333 Years Apart
‘To remember the past,’ said Pope St. John Paul II in Hiroshima, ‘is to commit oneself to the future.’
‘To remember the past,’ said Pope St. John Paul II in Hiroshima, ‘is to commit oneself to the future.’
A stronghold of Christendom once flourished in Japan, with a peninsula called Shimabara at its head.
On a Lenten Friday in 1614, the Tokugawa scourge arrived in Chikuzen, Japan.
In his hatred for Christ, the Shogun Iemitsu acted as if he were possessed — and the Christians of Japan felt his wrath.
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.
In January 1629, with hands bound and rosaries around their necks, this group of Catholic faithful were beheaded in Yonezawa, Japan.
“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.”
In 1616, on Holy Saturday evening, a great fire — not lit by human hands — appeared on a mountaintop in Japan
‘I have come here as a pilgrim to pray, to confirm you in the faith, and to be confirmed by the faith of these brothers and sisters,’ he said.
Martyrs of Japan and, indeed, all Christians martyrs, pray for us.
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