Saint Magdalene of Nagasaki is a Japanese martyr, patron saint of the Augustinian Recollect Secular Fraternity. Her life story, her testimony in death and her faith are today a ray of light for many people, so many years later.
One day in the middle of October in the year 1634, 375 years ago, saint Magdalene of Nagasaki died drowning and tormented in a pit. It is the moment to remember her importance. We do this using the text which I previously wrote in the small book “The Martyrs of Japan. Flames of living love” (Our Augustinian Saints no. 8, Spanish version) and what has appeared in the Spanish bulletin “Canta y camina”, numbers 7 & 8, for the motive of her canonization, in 1987.
The protagonists of this story of persecution, which lasted for almost half a century (1597-1637), are various religious orders. Some from the Philippines, others from India or Macao, fought for the privilege to collect a harvest of martyrs in Japan. On occasions, also, healthy competition became rivalry and degenerated into sectarianism, cumulating in unholy methods at odds with the end result.
The zeal of the religious was immense even seeming for many, imprudent. In the same way, they would become the best ambassadors for their respective countries, which would also make them on occasions compromise their zeal in favor of commercial relations between Spain, Portugal or Japan. For this reason, at certain key moments, the Archbishop of Manila prohibited the religious to pass through Japanese lands, and the Governor General of the Archipelago investigated and banned the expeditions which they secretly organized, despite the prohibitions.
This phenomenon, more than fear or compassion, was to provoke in the rest of the world emulation. At the beginning of the 17th Century all the Universal Church was returning to Japan, attentive to what was happening there, and anxious for news. The letters of the missionaries like the information coming from the Far East were devoured in the West with delight. The lands of the Empire of the Rising Sun were converted into a Mecca for pilgrimage for many Christians from distant parts of the world: from Spain or Portugal, or even Holland or Mexico.
NEXT PAGE: 1. 1584-1632: The First Augustinian martyrs: Francis of Jesus and Vincent of St. Anthony
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction
- 1. 1584-1632: The First Augustinian martyrs: Francis of Jesus and Vincent of St. Anthony
- 2. 1632-1637: The fire continues: Martin of Saint Nicholas and Melchior of Saint Augustine
- 3. Magdalene
- 4. The last act
- 5. The world in which she lived
- 6. The martyr, for St. Augustine
- 7. A very large process
- 8. Recollect or Dominican? A disputed Saint
- 9. The Augustinian Recollect Secular Fraternity
- 10. What does Saint Magdalene tell us today?
- 11. A life of traveling around, to die singing
