Saint of the Day, February 6

Paul Miki, a Japanese Jesuit, was crucified at Nagasaki on 5 February 1597 with twenty-five companions — six Franciscan missionaries, three Jesuits and seventeen Japanese laypeople, including three boys aged twelve to fifteen. They were marched 600 miles in winter from Kyoto, their ears partly severed, mocked through every town, and finally bound to crosses on a hill overlooking Nagasaki harbor and pierced with lances. From his cross Paul Miki preached the love of God for his executioners. They were the first martyrs of the East canonized by Rome (1862) and the seed of Christianity in Japan, whose hidden communities preserved the faith for two and a half centuries until the country reopened.