Born in Japan in 1562 and educated by the Jesuit growing up with a desire. 

Today is the feast day of Saint Paul Miki and Companions, who were martyrs. 

Born in Japan in 1562, he was the son of wealthy parents and educated by the Jesuits. 

Growing up with a desire to serve the Lord, Paul became a Jesuit priest himself and was an outstanding preacher and evangelist, enabling the rapid growth of the Catholic community that had been started forty years earlier by Saint Francis Xavier. 

During the reign of Emperor Hideyoshi, Christians came under intense persecution. Paul was arrested in Kyoto along with a number of other priests and lay people, including children, and they were forced to march 600 miles to Nagasaki. 

There, twenty-six of those who survived a march were crucified on the hill now known as Holy Mountain. 

Children were among those martyred. 

Paul was hung from a cross and pierced with a lance, he was amazingly still able to deliver a sermon: “I did not come from any other country. I am a true Japanese. The only reason for my being killed is that I have taught the doctrine Of Christ. I thank God it is for this reason I die. After Christ’s example, I forgive my persecutors. I ask God for pity on all and I hope my blood will fall on my fellow man as fruitful rain.” 

It was to Nagasaki that Maximilian Kolbe would go some four hundred years later to build a Franciscan friary, which was still standing after the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. 

Today, Nagasaki is the home to the largest population of Catholics in all of Japan. 

St. Paul Miki and Companions, please pray for us.