Rosary Meditation - Dominican Japanese Martyrs

The Church teaches that Christ mysteriously continues His very own life through the ages in the members of His Mystical Body. When we meditate on the lives of the saints, we recognize how Christ lived through them and how His earthly life can sometimes be uncannily similar to those of the saints. Although this feast day commemorates all Dominican martyrs of Japan (all vocations: priests, brothers, third order, members of lay confraternities, etc.) throughout the entire period of persecution, I am choosing to limit my reflection to two of them: Saint Lorenzo Ruiz and Saint Alfonso Navarrete.

Introductory Prayers: Pre-Japan

Lorenzo Ruiz grew up in Manila with his parents: a Chinese father and a Filipino mother (which is exactly what I am, interestingly enough). He knew the Dominicans very well through his educational and parochial lives, eventually joining the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary.

Alfonso Navarrete was a Spanish friar commissioned to the Filipino missions. Already on the other side of the world, Navarrete still desired to minister in Japan, despite the admonishments of the persecutions (up to this point, the Dominicans were excluded from Japanese missions). One must admire the fortitude in his desire to literally leave everything and follow Christ to the Cross. In Japan, air conditioning and futuristic cities didn’t await… torture and death did.

First Sorrowful Mystery: Agony in the Garden

• Fruit of the mystery: trust in God’s will

Lorenzo Ruiz was falsely accused of murder. His only escape was to become a stowaway on a ship of missionaries, heading to Nagasaki. We don’t know if he knew these friars already, but we can recognize how he shared in the loneliness of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Just as everyone that Christ knew abandoned Him, Lorenzo Ruiz found himself with no one but God.

Navarrete eventually received the chalice he so desired and ministered in Japan for a short while. The Tokugawa shogunate grew to despise Christianity for the latter’s condemnation of idolatry, homosexuality, and infanticide; these three being rampant in the Shinto and Buddhist cultures of Japan at that time.

Theologians describe that when Jesus was “pressed down” in prayer (Matthew 26:39), it was all the sin of the world weighing down on Him. This must have included the heinous practices in Japan during Navarrete’s time, both culturally and specifically against Christians.

I invite us to meditate on what it must have been like to be one of those men on the boat, heading to Japan, knowing that torture and death likely awaiting on the shores of this mysterious land.

Second Sorrowful Mystery: Scourging at the Pillar

• Fruit of the mystery: mortification

Once arrested for being Christians, the Japanese authorities ordered the Christians to step on an image of Our Lord and Our Lady “just as a formality.”

Ruiz and Navarrete refused to apostatize. They and their companions were then sent to torture. The stories say the Japanese jammed bamboo needles under their fingernails. Afterwards, they were forced to drink an excessive amount of water, and subsequently lie on their backs as guards jumped on their stomachs like trampolines. The water would erupt out of every opening in their bodies.

Just like the whips that sank into the back of Our Lord, the saints we celebrate today endured brutal physical suffering for the salvation of souls.

Third Sorrowful Mystery: Crowning with Thorns

• Fruit of the mystery: moral courage

Just like Christ, these eventual martyrs were sent to trial. At this point, they could have chosen to end the suffering. As a matter of fact, Ruiz may have considered it; he asked the shogunate what would happen if he apostatized.

In the end, the Truth of the Faith was worth it. Ruiz is quoted saying, “I am a Christian. I shall die for God, and for Him I would give many thousands of lives. So do with me as you please.”

In a secular world that often shames the Catholic Faith, let us find inspiration to be steadfast and brave when we are told to keep our faith to ourselves in private, or meet opposition to the Truth.

Fourth Sorrowful Mystery: Carrying of the Cross

• Fruit of the mystery: patience

After their refusal to deny Christ, the Japanese authorities hung them upside down over a burning pit for three days.

Just as we meditate on the journey to Calvary, which lasted but a few hours, we can imagine what 72 hours must have been like.

Fifth Sorrowful Mystery: Crucifixion and Death

• Fruit of the mystery: salvation, self-denial

Lorenzo Ruiz died. He is the first Filipino saint, canonized by John Paul II in 1987, and is known as “the protomartyr of the Philippines.”

Navarrete survived, but was immediately beheaded with the others that survived the hanging. 

We celebrate and talk about the martyrs all the time; sometimes I believe we Catholics can become desensitized to martyrdom and take it for granted. But today, let us enter into the sufferings our brothers and sisters in Christ have endured throughout history, especially today, those in Japan.

It’s easy to think about martyrdom as I type this in an air-conditioned room and sit in a comfortable chair. May God give us the strength if we are worthy to wear the red crown of martyrdom.