Sts. Paul Miki and Companions

Sts. Paul Miki and his Companions, the Martyrs of Nagasaki, were twenty-six Christians — priests, religious, and lay people, both native Japanese and foreign missionaries — put to death for the faith at Nagasaki on 5 February 1597, during a persecution unleashed against the young and flourishing Church of Japan. Among them were Franciscans and Jesuits, catechists, and boys as young as twelve, bound together in a common witness of love for Christ.

Paul Miki, a Japanese Jesuit and gifted preacher, was crucified with his companions on a hill overlooking the city, and from his cross he forgave his executioners and proclaimed that he died gladly for the Gospel, exhorting the people to seek their salvation in Christ. Their heroic constancy became the seed of the extraordinary "hidden Christians" who kept the faith in secret for over two centuries without priests. The first martyrs of the Far East to be canonized, they were declared saints in 1862, and their memory is kept on 6 February.