Tag Archives: Paul Miki

Silence

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silence-movieMartin Scorsese’s “Silence” tells the story of Portuguese Jesuit missionaries in 17th century Japan. Although the film is based on a fictional novel by the Japanese author Shusaku Endo, many of the events and people depicted in “Silence” are real.

Francis Xavier, SJ and other Jesuits landed in Japan in 1549. From then, a steady stream of Jesuits, mainly Portuguese, continued to arrive through the 1570s.  It is estimated that 300,000 to 500,000 Japanese were baptized as Christians. According to Fr.Antoni Ucerler, SJ, an expert in Japanese Christian history, “Perhaps a certain number of these Christians were not really believers. Some did abandon the faith when commanded to do so, but many others held fast to their faith,” he explains. “That is comprehensible, because those were the days when, just as in Europe, if your feudal lord told you to do something, you did it.” Continue reading →

What was theirs to do

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The church’s liturgical calendar marks today as commemorating “St. Paul Miki and Companions.” Paul Miki, a native Japanese convert to Catholicism and a member of the Society of Jesus, was among twenty-six religious and lay missionaries who were sentenced to death by the Emperor of Japan. Miki and two Jesuits were martyred on February 5, 1597, but they were not the only ones martyred that day. There were twenty-three others, all of whom were Franciscans – some members of the First Order (Franciscan friars) and others members of the Third Order (Secular Franciscans). Several of the Franciscans were later canonized as saints: Peter Baptist, Martin of the Ascension, Francis Blanco, Philip of Jesus, Gonsalvo Garzia, and Francis of St. Michael.

“St. Paul Miki and Companions.”  Too often we never ask about or remember the “companions.”  In this commemoration, the seventeen lay people who gave their lives for Christ and their trust in Him.

So, yes the Jesuits and Franciscans celebrate their brethren, but even more importantly let us give thanks for the lay women and men whose work on behalf of others – schools, and hospitals, and activities in support of the poor and hungry.  All were active doing what was theirs to do.