Friday, February 6, 2026
Memorial of Saint Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Be still
Blessed are they who have kept the word
with a generous heart,
and yield a harvest through perseverance.
Be.
My chaplain friend Chris and I saw a film called Silence together one winter night just after Christmas ten years ago. Its shadowy soundtrack still wafts through my mind. The fog at dawn and dusk, just off the shores of Japan, rises, falls, and never completely lifts. Many people scurry toward and then away from each other, and in the long gone unmechanical days of the 1630’s there is often, awful, silence.
Be still.
Missionaries from Europe have come to preach to the Japanese peasants.
God’s way is unerring, His promise is tried by fire;
He is a shield to all who take refuge in him.
 The farmers whisper in the bamboo forest, while unseen reeds whistle in the wind. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee … Holy Mary mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our deaths.
Be still and know.
The Christians are completely underground now after the death of Paul Miki and his companions 30 years earlier. They are afraid, but faithful in their fear. They refuse to relinquish their Jesus. Priests have come to minister to them from Portugal, and in their villages near Nagasaki they can at last have a Mass. They can taste the body and blood of Jesus, and know what it means to be filled. But this religion from the West, having before been reluctantly accepted, is now forbidden. Christians will be killed by the state, by the shogun, by the samurai, and not in simple ways.
The LORD liveth! And blessed be my Rock!
Extolled be God my savior.
Therefore will I proclaim you, O LORD,
 among the nations,
 and I will sing praise to your name.
Why did the Japanese choose to be so cruel, and where did they learn their terrible techniques of torture and slow death? The “Christian century” in Japan began years earlier with St. Francis Xavier’s arrival and welcome in 1547. But by 1638, when Christianity was officially banned, the response of civil and military leaders had become more and more defensive, repressive, and cruel. The same sadism and defensiveness in leaders showed itself in World War II and seemed directed not only at others but toward the Japanese themselves when things went wrong.
Be still and know that I am.
King Herod heard about Jesus, for his fame had become widespread,
and people were saying,
“John the Baptist has been raised from the dead;
that is why mighty powers are at work in him.”
A few weeks after we saw the movie, I read the book, written by Shusaku Endo. Questions that the movie asked about either official cruelty or Christian faithfulness did not find answers in the book. The leaders were quiet and polite until they acted, and in the meantime the priests vacillated. As Roy Peachey wrote about the Portugese priest Rodrigues, “Tormented by the silence of God, he has a surprisingly secular understanding of the world.”
Not so the peasants of the villages. In his review of the movie Anthony Lane saw, “inserted into the grandeur, closeups so extreme that we can trace the arcs of dirt beneath individual fingernails. More often than not, we see a cross, of wood or plaited straw, clasped within these palms: a pitifully humble thing, but invested with such meaning that merely to own it could get you slain, or save your immortal soul.” Nothing mattered more.
Others were saying of Jesus, “He is Elijah”;
still others, “He is a prophet like any of the prophets.”
But when Herod learned of it, he said,
“It is John whom I beheaded. He has been raised up.”
This morning the sky was lead gray, the air ice cold. Now in mid-afternoon the sun has come out in Austin and the sky is blue again.
Which sky is the real sky? If the color of the sky affects my mood so much, how would I act if I was persecuted or tortured, or forced to watch my friends die if I refuse to stamp my own foot down to trample the image of Christ?
Blessed be God my salvation!
You who gave great victories to your king
 and showed kindness to your anointed,
 to David and his posterity forever.
I say I don’t know what I would do. But really, I don’t want to know. How could I not be afraid, like the peasants, like the priests, like even the samurai – all afraid?
It’s to all of us that Jesus says again and again, “Here I am. Do not be afraid. I shall always be with you.”
Be still and know that I am God.
(Sirach 47, Psalm 18, Luke 8, Mark 6)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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