Saints Paul Miki and his Companions, Martyrs on Thursday of week 4 in Ordinary Time
Hebrews 12:18-19,21-24
What you have come to is nothing known to the senses: not a blazing fire, or a gloom turning to total darkness, or a storm; or trumpeting thunder or the great voice speaking which made everyone that heard it beg that no more should be said to them. The whole scene was so terrible that Moses said: I am afraid, and was trembling with fright. But what you have come to is Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where the millions of angels have gathered for the festival, with the whole Church in which everyone is a ‘first-born son’ and a citizen of heaven. You have come to God himself, the supreme Judge, and been placed with spirits of the saints who have been made perfect; and to Jesus, the mediator who brings a new covenant and a blood for purification which pleads more insistently than Abel’s.
Psalm 47(48):2-4,9-11 O God, we ponder your love within your temple.
Mark 6:7-13
Jesus made a tour round the villages, teaching. Then he summoned the Twelve and began to send them out in pairs giving them authority over the unclean spirits. And he instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a staff – no bread, no haversack, no coppers for their purses. They were to wear sandals but, he added, ‘Do not take a spare tunic.’ And he said to them, ‘If you enter a house anywhere, stay there until you leave the district. And if any place does not welcome you and people refuse to listen to you, as you walk away shake off the dust from under your feet as a sign to them.’ So they set off to preach repentance; and they cast out many devils, and anointed many sick people with oil and cured them.
Reflection:
One major insight that connects Paul Miki and companions with the scriptural themes “What you have come to is nothing known to the senses” (Hebrews 12:18-19, 21-24) and “Take nothing for the journey” (Luke 9:3) is the radical detachment from earthly securities in order to embrace the unseen, divine reality.
Jesuit seminarian, Paul Miki, along with 25 other Christians, including Jesuit brothers, Franciscans, and laypeople, was arrested in Kyoto. They were paraded through the streets as criminals and then forced to march 600 miles in the freezing winter from Kyoto to Nagasaki. Along the way, they were mocked and humiliated but continued to pray and sing hymns.
Upon arriving in Nagasaki, they were crucified on a hill overlooking the city on February 5, 1597. Each martyr was tied to a cross, and their bodies were pierced with spears. Before his death, Paul Miki preached from the cross, forgiving his persecutors and proclaiming that the true King was Christ, not the Emperor. His final words were a bold testimony of faith: “Like my Master, I forgive my persecutors. I am Japanese by birth, but I die for the sake of the Gospel.”
Numerous descendants of those original Christians from Nagasaki moved to Aichi and Gifu Prefectures to the north and became part of what are now our MSC parish communities. Paul Miki’s legacy is very close to our confreres and parishioners there in Japan.
Their faith transcended what was known to the senses—comfort, safety, and survival—because they had encountered a greater reality: the love and promise of Christ. Jesus’ command to “take nothing for the journey” is an invitation to radical dependence on God. Their martyrdom echoes the deeper reality that the Christian journey is one of self-emptying (kenosis). Just as the disciples were sent without money, food, or extra clothing, the martyrs stripped themselves of all attachments—even to life itself—so that they might in dying, gain everything. The martyrs teach us that the Christian journey is not about what we hold onto but about what we are willing to surrender. They entered into the mystery of faith where earthly senses fail but where the eyes of the heart perceive the greater reality of Christ’s love. Their witness calls us to travel light in this world, relying not on visible securities but on the hidden yet overwhelming power of God’s grace.