Saints Paul Miki and Companions

Martyrs

Feast Day

February 6

Life

1564–1597

Canonized

1862

Order

Society of Jesus (Paul Miki) and Order of Friars Minor (six Franciscans)

Born

Tounucumada, Japan (Paul Miki)

The Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan were crucified on the hill of Nishizaka outside Nagasaki on February 5, 1597. They are the first canonized martyrs of the Far East. The group consisted of six European Franciscans, three Japanese members of the Society of Jesus (Paul Miki, John Soan de Goto, and James Kisai), and seventeen Japanese laypeople, including catechists and three boys aged twelve, thirteen, and fifteen.

Saint Francis Xavier had landed at Kagoshima in 1549 and inaugurated the Catholic mission to Japan; by the 1580s the Christian community numbered more than 200,000. The arrival of the Spanish galleon San Felipe at Tosa in 1596 led the regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi, suspecting Christianity as a Spanish political instrument, to issue an edict ordering the arrest of the Franciscans of Kyoto and Osaka and several Jesuits.

Paul Miki (Pauro Miki) was born about 1564 in Settsu province to a Japanese samurai family converted to Christianity. He entered the Society of Jesus and was on the eve of priestly ordination at the time of his arrest. His fellow Jesuits, John Soan de Goto and James Kisai, were lay catechist-companions of the Society.

The condemned were paraded for several weeks from Kyoto to Nagasaki, parts of their ears having been cut off as part of the sentence. At Nagasaki on February 5, 1597, they were bound to twenty-six crosses set up on Nishizaka Hill and pierced with spears. From his cross Paul Miki preached his last sermon, recorded by eyewitnesses, declaring that he died for the faith and that he forgave Hideyoshi and all his executioners.

The Twenty-Six were beatified by Pope Urban VIII on September 14, 1627, and canonized by Blessed Pius IX on June 8, 1862. The General Roman Calendar of 1969 fixed their memorial on February 6.