6 Feb – Memorial for Sts. Paul Miki and Companions, martyrs (in Japan)
St. Paul Miki (1562-1597) was one of the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan. He was born into a rich family and educated by Jesuits in Azuchi and Takatsuki. He joined the Society of Jesus and preached the gospel for his fellow citizens. The Japanese government feared Jesuit influences and persecuted them. He was jailed among others.
He and his Christian peers were forced to walk 600 miles from Kyoto while singing ‘Te Deum’ as a punishment for the community. Finally they arrived at Nagasaki, the city which had the most conversions to Christianity, and he was crucified on 5 February 1597. He preached his last sermon from the cross, and it is maintained that he forgave his executioners stating that he himself was Japanese. Alongside him died Joan Soan (de Goto) and Santiago Kisai, of the Society of Jesus, in addition to 23 clergy and laity, all of whom were canonized by Pope Pius IX in 1862.
On 15 August 1549, St. Francis Xavier, Father Cosme de Torres, SJ, and Father John Fernandez arrived in Kagoshima, Japan, from Spain with hopes of bringing Catholicism to Japan. On Sep 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.
A promising beginning to those missions – perhaps as many as 300,000 Christians by the end of the 16th 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. By 1630, Christianity was driven underground.
The first Martyrs of Japan are commemorated on Feb 5 when, on that date in 1597, 26 missionaries and converts were killed by crucifixion. 250 years later, when Christian missionaries returned to Japan, they found a community of Japanese Christians that had survived underground.
- Wikipedia
Heb 12:18-19,21-24
Mk 6:7-13
…he instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick – no bread, no haversack, no copper for their purses.
A month ago, a terrible, terrible windstorm and wildfire blazed through Southern California and reduced three iconic communities in Los Angeles to a wasteland. Many have lost homes, loved ones, livelihoods, and their communities. Some 40,000 acres have been torched to nothing. Everyone knows someone who has lost a home, or had their lives disrupted, or been displaced because of evacuation mandates. There is a pall over Los Angeles. Angelenos are a sunny people — optimistic, positive, not easily fazed. This has knocked us over.
During the 48hr period when the fire grew from 100 acres to 10,000 acres, we too packed our bags, loaded our car and wondered if we might have to abandon our home. The winds were blowing gusts at more than 100mph and embers were jumping canyons, mountains and freeways, sparking new fires in their wake. When you’re in that panicked state, you’re not thinking. You’re just doing. The LA Fire Dept tells us to always have on hand, a to-go list or a half-packed bag, so when the time comes, you ‘do’ and not ‘think’. You’re not scrambling to find your father’s antique watch or your husband’s old college trophies. There will be no time for that. I can attest to this – when it came to it, all I could think about was how much water we would need, whether we had enough gas in the car, and whether my dog had enough food. Everything else just… fell away. We had each other, we had the dog, and that was enough. The rest was up to God.
When Jesus summoned the Twelve to begin their ministry, he instructed them to “take nothing for the journey but a walking stick – no bread, no haversack, no copper for their purses. They were to wear sandals but, he added, “Do not take a second tunic”. Nothing for the journey but a walking stick, the clothes on their backs and faith in their hearts. Asceticism is, for so many of us, a foreign land. We are so weighed down by our ‘stuff’, all the material and digital shackles of modern life. Then something like a wildfire happens, and all of it, all the stuff we thought we needed, it all goes away. Only God remains.
The winds that caused much of the damage have calmed down considerably. We’ve even had a light shower of rain, an answered prayer for so many of us! I am deeply grateful to everyone who prayed for me, and my family, and to everyone who reached out to check on us, to see if we needed help, a roof over our heads, some place to be while we waited it out. Our home is fine, God be praised! Our neighbourhood was far away enough that we were spared. Something like this really brings into focus the things that truly matter. In the thick of it, my only thoughts were of my family in Asia, and to have my husband, my kids and my dog close, to batten down the hatches, and to pray for God’s mercy. Our smallness, our lack of consequence, our helplessness, was never clearer than during the storm. We have survived, only by His grace, His love and His mercy.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Sharon Soo)
Prayer: We pray for all who have lost homes, loved ones and livelihoods, due to climate related natural disasters. We pray that God give them peace, strength, wisdom and prudence as they begin to rebuild their lives. Thanksgiving: We give thanks for all our friends and family, who have helped us to get through the climate related disasters that we have been grappling with in California. From last year’s earth movements, to this year’s wildfires and windstorms, thank you for your prayers and your good intentions.
OXYGEN 
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