SAINT FEAST DAY 28 FEBRUARY: BL. LOUIS SHINZABURO, MARTYR

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

Saints celebrated on the 28th of February

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

BL. LOUIS SHINZABURO, MARTYR

"PRAY, PRAY MUCH!"

Blessed Louis Shinzaburo was numbered among 32 Catholics who at the beginning of 1627 were languishing as prisoners in Shimabara, Japan, having been arrested for their faith by the country’s pagan regime. 

15 of these were put to death by drowning on February 21. On the garments of the remaining Catholics, cloths were sewn bearing the words: “This punishment is inflicted upon these ones for not having abandoned the religion of Christ”. Their persecutors mutilated their hands, cutting off many of their fingers.

THEY PREPARED THEMSELVES WITH PRAYER

Moved by the Catholics’ constancy, several non-Catholic prisoners repented of their own crimes and attempted to bandage the Catholics’ hands with paper. 17 Catholics were condemned to die in “the Mouth of Hell”, a much-feared, sulfurous volcanic crater on Mount Unzen. They prepared themselves by spending a day and two nights in prayer.

LAUDATE DOMINUM - PRAISE THE LORD

As the Catholics made the ascent to the crater on February 28, 1627, they sang Psalm 117, the LAUDATE DOMINUM: “Praise the Lord, all ye nations!…” Louis, the first of the 16 to die, invoked the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary as he plunged into the crater.

Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.