Podcasts · Traditional Catholic Daily Devotional

Sep 7 – Feria / S Magdalene of Nagasaki

· 12 min

Episode Sep 7 – Feria / S Magdalene of Nagasaki

0:00 11:39

It's a Feria, 4th Class, with the color of Green. In this episode: the meditation: "The Sorrowing Mother", today's news from the Church: "St. Pius X Against Half-Hearted Journalism", a preview of the Sermon: "Total Confidence in God", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Have feedback or questions about the DD or our other shows? podcast@sspx.org Sources Used Today:

• "The Sorrowing Mother" — From the Assumption to Advent

• https://angeluspress.org/products/from-trinity-sunday-to-the-assumption

• "St. Pius X Against Half-Hearted Journalism" (FSSPX.news)

• https://fsspx.news/en/news/st-pius-x-against-half-hearted-journalism-60892

• "Total Confidence in God" (SSPX Sermons)

• SSPX YouTube: Sermons Playlist • Listen & Subscribe: SSPX Sermons Podcast

• The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)

• https://angeluspress.org/products/spiritual-life-archbishop

Please support our new project, the Archbishop Lefebvre Biography Audiobook:

• Learn more:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Wp4MQdK2o • Donate:https://sspx.gifts/audiobook

Saint Magdalene of Nagasaki was only twenty-two when she was killed, but by then she had already watched nearly every spiritual guide in her life suffer for the Catholic faith.

She was born around 1611 near Nagasaki, Japan, into a Christian family. This was no longer the hopeful age when Saint Francis Xavier had first brought the Gospel to Japan. Christianity was now outlawed, missionaries were hunted, and Catholic families faced imprisonment, torture, or death.

Magdalene's own parents were reportedly martyred while she was still young.

She remained Catholic.

Later, she came under the spiritual direction of Augustinian missionaries, including Saints Francis of Jesus and Vincent of Saint Anthony. She wanted to belong more completely to God, so she became an Augustinian tertiary, living a consecrated life while helping the underground Church.

Then her priests were arrested and killed.

Magdalene remained Catholic.

She worked with two more missionaries, Saints Martin of Saint Nicholas and Melchior of Saint Augustine.

They were killed too.

At some point, hiding probably began to feel like simply waiting for the authorities to find her.

So Magdalene did something extraordinary.

She turned herself in.

According to the traditional accounts, she appeared before the authorities wearing her Augustinian habit and openly declared that she was a Christian. She hoped that by publicly defending the faith, she might strengthen Catholics who were frightened into silence.

The authorities subjected her to one of the most horrifying punishments used during the Japanese persecution, the ana-tsurushi, or "pit torture." The prisoner was suspended upside down over a pit, often with the body tightly bound and the head lowered into the opening. The torture could continue for days because the authorities wanted apostasy, not simply death.

Magdalene endured it for nearly two weeks.

Witnesses later remembered her remarkable composure. Even during the torture, she reportedly continued praying and singing hymns.

Eventually she died in 1634, probably from suffocation after heavy rain flooded the pit.

The authorities burned her body and scattered the ashes into Nagasaki Bay so Christians would have no relics to venerate.

That didn't erase her memory.

In fact, Nagasaki became home to one of the most astonishing stories in Catholic history. For more than two centuries after the missionaries were expelled, communities of hidden Christians, the Kakure Kirishitan, secretly preserved baptism, prayers, and fragments of Catholic tradition without priests.

Magdalene never lived to see that.

But she belonged to the generation whose courage made that survival possible.

Saint Magdalene of Nagasaki, fearless daughter of Japan's hidden Church, pray for us.

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