The Martyrs of Japan

“Jesus called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.'” (Mark 8:34)

The Christian faith was introduced to Japan in the sixteenth century by the Jesuits, and later by the Franciscans. By the end of the century there were as many as 300,000 Christians in Japan. Unfortunately, this promising beginning met serious challenges brought about by rivalries between different groups of missionaries, the Spanish and Portuguese governments, and factions within the Japanese government. The end result was a suppression of Christians. The first victims were six Franciscan friars and twenty of their converts, executed at Nagasaki on February 5, 1597.

Three hundred and ninety-seven years later, I was ordained to the priesthood at Christ and Holy Trinity Church in Westport, Connecticut by the Rt. Rev. Clarence Coleridge. That may seem like a theological non-sequiter, but it is a statement of fact. In the Episcopal Church it is pretty rare (and maybe even impossible) to pick your "favorite" feast day on which to be ordained. Since I’d been ordained to the diaconate in June 1993 at Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford, Connecticut, I was eligible to be ordained a priest anytime after mid-December; the calendars of the parish and the bishop converged on the evening of February 5, 1994. (The serendipity that it was also my mother’s birthday just made it that much easier a day for me to remember!)

Sixteen years later, twelve of them serving as rector of St. Francis Church, I feel somehow more bonded to those Franciscan friars who were martyred in Nagasaki. They were tied to crosses, the crosses were raised to an upright position, and then they were stabbed to death with javelins. It surely isn’t the way I want to go! But the gospel reading appointed for this day goes to the very heart of the gospel I’ve been ordained to preach, and the witness of those Franciscans over four hundred years ago continues to make it very real.