Faith
250 years after the death of the martyrs in Nagasaki, when Japan was again opened up to trade and commerce with the West, there were discovered families who carried on vestiges of the Christian faith. Without the support of an institution called ‘church’; without contact with Christians outside of Japan there were Japanese families who had continued to baptise their children and to pass on the rudiments of the faith. Today we give thanks – not so much for their deaths, but for their faith and for the faith which they passed on to future generations. May we all have such a faith.
-Br. James Koester, SSJE