December 8th: Birth, death, Eternity

               December 8, 1941: a day that has lived in infamy for 71 years.  Americans remember Pearl Harbor on the 7^th of December, but it was December 8^th Japan Time when the Japanese Imperial Navy’s dive bombers hit Pearl Harbor.  December 8^th 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, which pegs the end of the earthly life of the Lord’s mother, who was soon to return to earth time and again to dazzle the upturn’d eyes of mortals in the form of countless apparitions warning mankind to believe in her Son’s reality and the direness of man’s addiction to sin, lest countless souls needlessly consign themselves to eternal fire—the pool of fire that is the second death. (See Revelation 20:14-15)

               So the front and back covers of that Book of Death that mankind knows as the Pacific War coincide with the conception of the Blessed Virgin (for conception is the start of full-fledged human life) and her departure from earthly life—which, for those who cling to Christ, is only the beginning of eternal bliss.  But all this must be merest coincidence.

               Just like the coincidence of Saint Francis Xavier’s arrival in Japan by dint of an irresistible wind that drove his ship straight to Kagoshima, the home town of his Japanese interpreter, an escapee from Japan who was now a convert to the Faith.  The ship’s captain had been determined to avoid Japan, but that almighty wind had had its way, and now there was nothing to do but land his passengers.

               And the date?  By the merest coincidence, the 15^th of August 1549, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin:  the birth of Christendom in Japan.

               Birth, death, Eternity.

Luke O'Hara, Kirishtan.com

The Yatsushiro Martyrs

    December 8th and 9th, 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 the crucified martyrs was seven-year-old Ludovico (his baptismal name).  On his mother's instructions he kept repeating the holy names of the Lord and the Blessed Virgin--Iézusu! Maria!--as he awaited 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 on the cross next to his own.
   The little boy rode to Heaven on eagle's wings; lifted, that is, by the Almighty Name.  Imagine that family reunion, once all had arrived at their eternal Home.

November 11, Saint Marina of Omura

November the Eleventh marks the 378th anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Marina of Omura, 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 Omura, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan:  a lady in lay Dominican garb 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. 

She had dedicated her life and her virginity to Christ:  a vow which was anathema to the Shogun up in Edo (modern-day Tokyo):  Iemitsu, a sin-enslaved sadist who would prowl the streets of his capital at night in disguise, heavily guarded, looking for innocent victims to test the sharpness of his sword on.  Of all his imagined enemies he feared Christ the most.    

Marina lived in Omura, a very long way from the capital but just a few hours’ ride on horseback from the port-town of Nagasaki, the Christian capital of Japan.  Omura itself had been a Christian stronghold in former times.  Indeed, Omura Sumitada, lord of Omura three generations past, had been Japan’s first-baptized Christian domainal lord, and his daughter had herself been baptized as ‘Marina’.  Alas, a string of anti-Christian dictators had, since those days, put an end to the freedom of conscience that some parts of Japan had once known:  in Saint Marina’s day, to profess Christ was death throughout Japan.

Her crimes were legion:  she had manifested charity to the utmost, giving refuge in her home to hunted priests and persecuted Christians at the risk of her life.  Thank God that Saint Marina—like so many Holy Martyrs before her—despised the pains of death:  for in her eyes these were but the merest footsteps in her faultless climb to Heaven to meet her one true Lord. 

Arrested, she was stripped naked and paraded through the whole domain of Omura to shame her; yet, as a virgin self-promised to Christ, she marched with perfect modesty.  She was immolated by ‘slow fire’ on Nishi-zaka, the holy execution-ground overlooking Nagasaki Bay—the sacred soil that had held the crosses of the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan back in February of 1597.  Many holy souls had followed their path to Heaven since that icy winter day thirty-seven years before; Marina of Omura would stand tall among them as a paragon of indomitable faith. 

‘Slow fire’ meant that the firewood beneath her feet had been wetted to prolong her miseries and delay merciful death.  Marina, however, did not amuse her torturers with displays of agony; instead she prayed for her persecutors and her fellow persecuted Christians:  thus is she remembered in Omura as a Christian heroine of remarkable strength.  Superhuman, supernatural strength, humility, and courage, let us say—as befits a faithful child of God.

Saint Marina of Omura, pray for us.

  Luke O'Hara, Kirishtan.com

Praised Be the Most Blessed Sacrament

Luke O'Hara
see:  Kirishtan.com

1:55 PM  -  Public

The photo on this page is a bird's-eye view of one of the sulfurous hot springs atop the Shimabara volcano where so many Christians--Kirish'tan, that is--were boiled by the local daimyo's minions in order to procure their apostasy.   Here died many a Japanese Kirish'tan hero, among them Blessed Paulo Uchibori, whom the torturers hung upside down and dipped into the boiling sulfur-bath head-first.
     They pulled him out, expecting him to renounce Christ, but to their astonishment, Paulo shouted a victory cry: "Praised Be the Most Blessed Sacrament!"
     Again they dunked him, determined to boil away that strength of Spirit in him, but when they pulled up the rope again, the boiled Christian's shout of faith resounded in redoubled strength:  "Praised Be the Most Blessed Sacrament!"
     They plunged him in again, this time not to force a change of heart--for this was too plainly impossible--but to drown him in the boiling hell which would send him straight to Heaven.  Perhaps their consciences could no longer bear the sting of Truth burning in those words of his, those quintessential Kirish'tan words:  "Praised Be the Most Blessed Sacrament!"  

     May God grant that we all learn from his example--in this present age so steeped in lies--to not traduce the Truth:  our Faith.

   

Kirish'tan: Heaven's Samurai A novel of Old Japan

      Saint Francis Xavier; Saint Paul Miki, Saint Luís Ibaraki and the other 26 Martyrs of Japan; Arima Harunobu, Konishi Yukinaga and Omura Sumitada, the Christian daimyo of Amakusa and Shimabara; the great warlords Shimazu Yoshihisa, Kato Kiyomasa, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu:  these characters live again in the pages of Kirish'tan:  Heaven's Samurai.

     The novel is available at https://www.createspace.com/3650514

or go to my website:  Kirishtan.com

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