Flora Cantábrica

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Magdalena of Nagasaki, Saint
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virgin and martyr
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Roman Martyrology: In Nagasaki, Japan, Saint Magdalene, virgin and martyr, who, in the time of Emperor Yemitsu, was strong-willed both in keeping the faith and in enduring the torture of hanging for thirteen days (1634).
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The daughter of noble and fervent Christians, she was born in 1611 near the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Ancient sources say that she was a beautiful woman with a delicate constitution. Because of her Catholic faith, her parents and her siblings had been sentenced to death and martyred when she was still very young.
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In 1624, she met two Augustinian Recollects, Fathers Francisco de Jesús and Vicente de San Antonio, who had arrived in Japan a few months before. Attracted by the profound spirituality of both missionaries, she consecrated herself to God as an Augustinian Recollect “tertiary”. From that moment, her gala dress was her tertiary habit, and her greatest request was prayer, reading religious books and the apostolate.
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Times were hard. The persecution that intensified against the Christians was every day more systematic and cruel. Magdalena taught catechism to children and begged Portuguese merchants for the poor. In 1629, she took refuge with her parents Franciso and Vicente and several hundred Christians in the mountains of Nagasaki. In November of that same year, the two missionaries were captured, and she remained in hiding, enduring suffering and hardship with serene joy. She instilled courage to stand firm in the faith, she encouraged those who had denied Christ because of fear or weakness, she visited the sick, baptized newborns and for all she had a word of encouragement.
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In view of the frequent apostasies of Christians terrified by the tortures to which they were subjected and eager to unite themselves to Christ forever, she Magdalen decided to challenge the tyrants. Dressed in her tertiary habit, in September 1634, she appeared before the judges. She carried with her a small bundle full of religious books to pray and read in prison. Neither the promises of an advantageous marriage nor the torture managed to bend her will.
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At the beginning of October, she was subjected to the torment of the “forca” or “fossa”. Suspended by her feet, with her head and chest inserted into a cavity covered with boards to make breathing even more difficult, the brave young woman invoked the names of Jesus and Mary during her martyrdom, and sang hymns to the Lord. She endured thirteen days in this torment, until one night a heavy rain flooded the pit and the martyr drowned. The executioners burned her body and scattered the ashes in the sea so that the Christians would not keep her relics. …………
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Beatified in 1981, she was canonized by John Paul II on October 18, 1987 along with 15 other martyrs in Japan.