Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan. We will do something similar here, every
February 5 we will get 26 Christian Martyrs who either were martyred or
murdered and honor them on February 5, June 8 and September 14 every year.
We will post the
information about Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan from Wikipedia.
INTERNET SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-six_Martyrs_of_Japan
日本二十六聖人
26 мучеників Японії Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan |
Died
|
February
5, 1597,Nagasaki, Japan
|
Means
of martyrdom
|
Crucifixion
|
Venerated
in
|
Catholic
Church, Anglican Church, ELCA
|
Beatified
|
September
14, 1627, Rome
by Pope
Urban VIII
|
Canonized
|
June 8,
1862, Rome
by Pope
Pius IX
|
Feast
|
February
6 (Roman Catholic Church)
|
The Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan
(日本二十六聖人 Nihon Nijūroku Seijin?) refers to a group of
Christians who were executed by crucifixion on February 5, 1597 at Nagasaki.
Their martyrdom is especially significant in the history of Roman
Catholicism in Japan.
A promising beginning to Catholic
missions in Japan — perhaps as many as 300,000 Christians by the end of the
sixteenth century — met complications from competition between the missionary
groups, political difficulty between Spain and Portugal, and factions within
the government of Japan. Christianity was suppressed, and it was during this
time that the 26 martyrs were executed. By 1630, Christianity had been driven
underground. Two hundred and fifty years later, when Christian missionaries
returned to Japan, they found a community of "hidden Christians" that had
survived underground.
Drawing by Miquel Parets in his chronicle for
remembering the martyrdom of 26 Catholic monks (23 Franciscans and 3 Jesuits)
crucified in Nagasaki (Japan) on 5th February 1597 during the reign of
Hideyoshi Toiotomi. Between 5th and 7th February 1628 Barcelona commemorated
the martyrdom of the 26 religious: Parets described the sentence that was
applied as it was explained to the people: "And all they together were
crucified with hands, feet and necks tied with rings, and were stuck with two
spears eachone, as indicated in this drawing. And during the martyred three
columns of fire appeared in the air." Parets,
Miquel; Margalef, M. Rosa; Amelang, James S.; Simon, Antoni; Torres, Xavier
(2011), Crònica. Llibre I/1, Barcelona: Editorial Barcino, p. 219-221, ISBN 978-84-7226-769-5.
|
Early Christianity in Japan
Main article: Kirishitan
On August
15, 1549, St. Francis Xavier (later canonized by Gregory XV
in 1622), Fr. Cosme de Torres, S.J. (a Jesuit priest), and
Fr. John Fernandez arrived in Kagoshima, Japan, from Spain with hopes of bringing Catholicism to Japan. On
September 29, St. Francis Xavier visited Shimazu Takahisa, the daimyo of
Kagoshima, asking for permission to build the first Catholic mission in Japan.
The daimyo agreed in hopes of creating a trade relationship with Europe.
The
shogunate and imperial government at first supported the Catholic mission and
the missionaries, thinking that they would reduce the power of the Buddhist
monks, and help trade with Spain and Portugal. However, the Shogunate was also
wary of colonialism, seeing that in the Philippines the Spanish had taken power
after converting the population. The government increasingly saw Catholicism as
a threat, and started persecuting Christians. Christianity was banned and those
Japanese who refused to abandon their faith were killed.
The Christian martyrs of Nagasaki.
16-17th-century Japanese painting.
|
Martyrdom
On February 5, 1597, twenty-six
Christians – four Spaniards, one Mexican, one Indian, all Franciscan
missionaries, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen Japanese laymen including
three young boys, who were all members of the Third Order
of St. Francis – were executed by crucifixion in Nagasaki on the
orders of Hideyoshi Toyotomi.
These individuals were raised on crosses and then pierced through with spears.
Persecution continued sporadically,
breaking out again in 1613 and 1630. On September 10, 1632, 55 Christians were
martyred in Nagasaki in what became known as the Great Genna Martyrdom. At this
time Catholicism was officially outlawed. The Church remained without clergy
and theological teaching disintegrated until the arrival of Western
missionaries in the nineteenth century.
While there were many more martyrs,
the first martyrs came to be especially revered, the most celebrated of which
was Paul Miki. The Martyrs of Japan were
canonized by the Roman Catholic Church on June 8, 1862 by Pope Pius IX, and are
listed on the calendar as Sts. Paul Miki and his Companions,
commemorated on February 6, February 5, the date of their death, being the
feast of Saint Agatha.
They were included in the General Roman Calendar for the first time in 1969;
accordingly those who observe the universal versions of earlier calendars, such
as the General Roman Calendar of 1962, the General Roman Calendar of Pope Pius
XII, the General Roman Calendar as in 1954 and, of course, the Tridentine
Calendar, in which these saints do not appear, give them no liturgical
veneration. They are, however, provided with their own Mass texts (Collect,
Secret and Postcommunion) under February 13 - the first Feria after the date of
their martyrdom - in the pro aliquibus locis section of missals used by
those observing the General Roman Calendar of 1962.
Drawn from the oral histories of
Japanese Catholic communities, Shusaku Endo's acclaimed novel Silence
provides detailed accounts of the persecution of Christian communities and the
suppression of the Church.
A monument dedicated to the Martyrs in
Nagasaki.
|
Recognition
The first martyrs of Japan are
commemorated on February 5 when, on that date in 1597, twenty-six missionaries
and converts were killed by crucifixion. Nippon Sei Ko Kai, a member of the Anglican
Communion, added the martyrs to their calendar in 1959 to commemorate all the
martyrs of Japan. The Episcopal Church and the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America added the commemoration to their
calendars during the revision of their respective prayer books in late 1970s.
Some parts of the Anglican Communion and the ELCA commemorate the martyrs of
Japan on February 5, while the Catholic Church and the Church of England
commemorate them on February 6.
The Church of the Holy Japanese
Martyrs (Civitavecchia, Italy) is a Catholic church that is dedicated to the 26
Martyrs of Nagasaki. It is decorated with the artwork of Japanese artist Luke
Hasegawa.
St. Francis Branco
|
Statue of Philip of Jesus in the Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopan.
|
List of the 26 Martyrs of 1597
- Saint Antonio Dainan
- Saint Bonaventura of Miyako
- Saint Cosme Takeya
- Saint Francisco Branco
- Saint Francisco of Nagasaki
- Saint Francisco of Saint Michael
- Saint Gabriel de Duisco
- Saint Gaius Francis
- Saint Gundisalvus (Gonsalvo) Garcia
- Saint Isabel Fernandez
- Saint Ignatius Jorjes
- Saint James Kisai
- Saint Joaquim Saccachibara
- Saint Juan Kisaka
- Saint Juan Soan de Goto
- Saint Leo Karasumaru
- Saint Luis Ibaraki – Born in Owari (Nagoya). He was pressed by a samurai for apostasy, but declined it clearly. 12 years old, the youngest.
- Saint Martin of the Ascension
- Saint Mathias of Miyako
- Saint Miguel Kozaki
- Saint Paulo Ibaraki
- Saint Paul Miki or Saint Paulo Miki – Born in Japan in 1562, he joined the Society of Jesus in 1580 and was the first Japanese member of any Catholic religious order. He died one year before his ordination to the Catholic priesthood. Miki's remaining ashes and bones are now located in Macau, China.
- Saint Pablo Suzuki
- Saint Pedro Bautista or Saint Peter Baptist – He was a Spanish Franciscan who had worked about ten years in the Philippines before coming to Japan. St. Peter was a companion of St. Paul Miki when Christianity was made illegal.[5]
- Saint Pedro Sukejiroo
- Saint Philip of Jesus - Born in Mexico in 1572 (at the time "New Spain"). Upon his martyrdom he became the first Mexican saint and patron saint of Mexico City.
- Saint Thomas Kozaki
- Saint Thomas Xico
INTERNET SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-Six_Martyrs_Museum_and_Monument
Twenty-six martyrs museum. Location: Nishizaka-machi, Nagasaki, Japan. Photo by Fk. |
The Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum and
Monument were built on Nishizaka Hill in June 1962 to commemorate the 100th
anniversary of the canonization of the Christians executed on the site on
February 5, 1597. The 26 people, a mixture of native Japanese Christians and
European priests (20 Japanese, four Spaniards, one Mexican and one Indian) had
been arrested in Kyoto and Osaka on the order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the
national ruler, for preaching Christianity. They were imprisoned, then later
marched through the snow to Nagasaki, so that their execution might serve as a
deterrent to Nagasaki's large Christian population. Hung up on 26 crosses with
chains and ropes, the Christians were lanced to death in front of a large crowd
on Nishizaka Hill. St Paul Miki is said to have preached to the crowd from his
cross.
The main theme inherent in both the
museum and monument is "The Way to Nagasaki" – symbolising not only
the physical trek to Nagasaki but also the Christian spirit of the martyrs. The
museum's collection includes important historical articles from both Japan and
Europe (such as original letters from the Jesuit priest St Francis Xavier) as well as modern
artistic works on the early Christian period in Japan. The displays are
arranged chronologically into three periods: the early Christian propagation,
the martyrdoms, and the persistence of Christianity underground during the
persecution.
The exhibits include examples of
"fumie" or treading images. Every year from 1629 to 1857, Nagasaki
residents were forced to go through a ritual of stepping on bronze images of
Christ or Mary to prove they were not Christians. Also to be seen are statues
of the Virgin Mary in the guise of Buddhist deities such as Miroku and Kwannon
Bodhisattva to which the hidden Christians prayed.
The Martyrs' altar was built as a
memorial for the many people who gave up their lives. The image of a plum
blossom in the centre of the altar was chosen because the plum tree blossoms in
February - the month of the martyrdom of the 26 saints, who are commemorated on
February 6.
No comments:
Post a Comment