ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST
Saints celebrated on the 27th of August
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. LUKE KIYEMON, MARTYR
Blessed Luke Kiyemon was born in 1599 into a wealthy family of Figen in Japan. He was baptised a Catholic in his boyhood. Inspired by the spirit of poverty he saw in the Franciscan missionaries who lived in Japan, Blessed Luke became a Third Order Franciscan. When his parents had died, he gave his inheritance to the poor and to the support of a Franciscan hospital. Blessed Luke assisted at the hospital and as a catechist instructed people in the Faith.
HE GAVE HIS INHERITANCE TO THE POOR
At the time, Japanese Catholics were being persecuted by the country’s pagan regime. In 1616, at the age of seventeen, Blessed Luke was exiled for his faith.
HE WAS EXILED FOR BEING A CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN
He re-entered Japan two years later and settled in Nagasaki, where he resumed teaching as a catechist. A gifted carpenter, Blessed Luke used his talent to construct hiding places for the missionaries who had remained in Japan at the peril of their lives.
HE CONSTRUCTED HIDING PLACES FOR THE MISSIONARY PRIESTS
Blessed Luke was at the home of a fellow Catholic Christian, Blessed Caspar Vaz, when in May of 1627 Japanese soldiers raided the house and arrested all the Catholics there, including two missionaries. Blessed Luke was put to death with Caspar, the missionaries, and ten other Catholic Christians on 17th August 1627. The 2004 ‘Roman Martyrology’ commemorates these martyrs on 27th August.
“Give me grace, my God, to set my heart toward You. Amen.”
(📷 An extensive bronze depicting the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan, designed by Japanese sculptor, Yasutake Funakoshi)
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