Dominicans were the first missionaries to Japan, and 1530 is given as the date of their martyrdom. However, no conclusive proof exists regarding their names or number, and Saint Francis Xavier rightly holds the title of apostle to this island kingdom.

Following in Xavier’s footsteps came other missionaries, and, for about 40 years, they worked with great results among the people. Then, in the closing years of the century, persecution flared, and the blood of martyrs cried out with a louder voice than that of the preachers.

Ferdinand took the Augustinian habit in Mentilla, and in 1603, was sent to Mexico, and thence to Japan in 1605 as vicar provincial. He worked at Osaka with great success until his capture and execution en route to Omura.

The first Dominican to die in the great persecution was Alphonsus Navarrete. When Alphonsus was very young, he gave up his inheritance to enter the Dominican Order in Valladolid and, after he had completed his studies, was sent to the Philippine missions. The great persecution had just begun in Japan. The year before Alphonsus left Spain, a group of 26 Christians, including many Franciscans and three Japanese Jesuits, were crucified in Nagasaki.

Despite the dangers, the Dominicans, who had been excluded from Japan for several years, yearned to go into the perilous mission field. Alphonsus in particular, after a trip to Europe to recruit missionaries in 1610, begged to be allowed to go to Japan. In the following year his offer was accepted and he was sent as superior of the missionary band. During the short interval of peace, they began their work, and, during six years of growing danger, they instructed the people and prepared them for the dreadful days to come.

The missionary career of Alphonsus was brief, and it was always overshadowed by the threat of death that beset the Christians in that unhappy country. However, in the few years of his apostolate, his accomplishment was immeasurable. Like his Divine Master, he went about teaching and baptizing the people. He is called the “Vincent de Paul of Japan,” because it was he who first began the tremendous task of caring for the abandoned babies there. He anticipated the work of the Holy Childhood Society by gathering up the homeless waifs and providing for their support from money he begged of wealthy Spaniards.

The warning bell of the great persecution was sounded with the martyrdom in Omura of two priests, a Franciscan and a Jesuit. Alphonus Navarrete and his Augustinian companion Ferdinand went to Omura with the intention of rescuing the relics of the martyrs and consoling the Christians. They were captured on the way, and with a young native catechist, were beheaded. Their bodies were thrown into the sea.

Five years later, on the hill of the holy martyrs of Nagasaki, more than 50 Christians sealed their faith with their blood. Some of the martyrs were beheaded, some were burned at the stake. In the group were nine Jesuits, including the famous Father Charles Spinola, nine Franciscans, and nine Dominicans, among whom were the Blesseds Alphonsus de Mena, Angelo Orsucci, and Hyacinth Orphanel. Louis Bertrand, a nephew of the saint of that same name, perished in the same persecution.

Thousands of Japanese Christians, from tiny children to old grandparents, died amid terrible torments in the profession of their faith. The anger of the persecutors was turned against all priests, brothers, and catechists, tertiaries, and Rosarians, and they made fearful attempts to stamp out all traces of the hated religion in the country. Pope Pius IX, in 1867, solemnly beatified 205 of the martyrs, among whom were 59 Dominicans of the first and third orders and 58 members of the Rosary Confraternity. Although all did not die at the same time nor place, they are listed under the name of Alphonsus Navarrete, who was the first to die.

Born: Various dates in the sixteenth century

Died: died the most terrible torments in Japan in 1617

Beatified: Pius IX beatified them in 1867

Blessed Andrew was born into the noble dei Franchi Boccagni family. He entered the Dominican Order at Pistoia about 1351, when the Italian peninsula was still under the shadow of the plague and was deeply involved in fratricidal wars. Another theory has it that he entered at Florence in 1348, which was the year the plague reached its peak. Whichever date he entered, he did so to give attention to his immortal soul, at a time when the world around him was apparently falling to pieces.

Andrew proved to be a good religious and an able administrator. He served as prior in three convents while still quite young. In 1378, he was appointed bishop of Pistoia, an office he filled with distinction and holiness for 23 years.

It is written of Andrew that he devoted himself to the poor, and spent his revenues to relieve their misery and to rebuild the ruined churches. He had a great personal devotion to Our Lady, to the Holy Childhood, and to the Three Holy Kings. As bishop, he lived a life of extreme simplicity, retaining his religious habit, and as much as he could of the rule. A year before his death, he resigned his office and retired to die at his old convent of Pistoia.

Born: Born in Pistoia, Italy, in 1335

Died: died 1401

Beatified: Benedict XV in 1921 declared him Blessed

Nothing is known about William’s early life. In 1234, he and two other Dominicans were commissioned as inquisitors by Pope Gregory IX to combat Albigensianism in Languedoc, France. He and his companions were driven out of Toulouse, Narbonne, and several other towns by the heretics.

With him on the preaching mission were a fellow Dominican, Bernard of Rochefort; the Franciscans, Steven of Narbonne and Raymond of Carbonier, and two unnamed others; the Benedictine, Prior Raymond; the clerks, Bernard Fortanier and Admer; and the Dominican lay brother, Garcia d’Aure; and Peter the Notary. There were others who worked with him through the long and difficult years in Toulouse, but these were the ones who died in the martyrdom of Avignonet.

After the death of Saint Dominic, the party of Count Raymond of Toulouse rose to power again. In a short time it regained possession of Toulouse and several armed strongholds nearby. When William Arnaud and his companions came into the vicinity, they found every gate closed against them. None of the cities under the command of Raymond’s troops would allow them to come in, and, by order of the heretic commander, the citizens of Toulouse were forbidden under pain of death to supply the inquisitor’s party with any food. They took refuge in a farmhouse outside of Avignonet and preached around the countryside for some time. Because they had some measure of success, the heretics intensified their efforts to entrap and kill the inquisitors.

The members of the commission realized that they were only one step from death. They might have escaped and gone safely to some other part of the country had they chosen to do so. Instead, they remained where obedience had assigned them, and at the end of May 1242, they were given a heavenly warning that they were about to receive the crown of martyrdom. William was absent from the rest of the group when the plot was formed to kill them. Being told of a vision of martyrdom by one of the brothers, he hurried back to rejoin his group. The heretics completed their plans to massacre the entire party.

Scheming carefully, they set the scene at the country castle of one of the wealthy members of their group. In order to make sure of getting the inquisitors into the trap, they sent word to William that a confirmed heretic of his acquaintance wished to abjure his heresy and return to the faith.

Knowing well that it was a trap, William still could not refuse to go. He and his eleven companions went, on the evening of the Ascension, May 28, to the castle of Count Raymond VII of Toulouse. The soldiers of Raymond were concealed in the great hall. They fell upon the helpless group and killed all but four of the members. These four were taken out by friends who had know about the plot and hurried to the church.

William Arnaud and Steven of Narbonne were murdered in the sanctuary of the church as they sang the Te Deum. This was a crime almost unparalleled in medieval times when the right of sanctuary was one of the few strongholds against barbarism. The bodies of the martyrs were thrown into a deep ravine, and rocks were rolled down on them. During the night, some hours after the martyrdom, bright lights radiating from the bodies of the martyrs brought the faithful to gather up the relics.

The church of Avignonet was placed under interdict because of the sacrilege, and for 40 years no Mass was said there. The doors remained closed. Finally, when the interdict was lifted, the bells rang of themselves, according to legend, to let people know that Avignonet was once more a member of the living Church.

There is a striking footnote to this story of martyrdom. Shortly after the interdict was lifted, there appeared one day on the steps of the church a fairly large statue of the Blessed Virgin. Who had put it there has never been discovered. It is difficult to see how anyone in such a small town could have successfully concealed a statue of that size, for small towns are notoriously poor places to hide secrets. The statue appeared on the steps in broad daylight, yet no one saw it being placed there. The people took it as a sign that they were forgiven for their part in the outrage, and also as a sign that they should rebuild the devotion to Our Lady, which the Dominicans had preached. The statue was named “Our Lady of Miracles,” and they petitioned for a special feast in honor of their own Miracle lady.

Until very recently, a beautiful little ceremony was held in the Church of Our Lady of Miracles on every May 28. It was a night ceremony, in memory of the night martyrdom of William Arnaud and his companions, and it was called “The Ceremony of the Vow.” Carrying lighted candles, the people proceeded across the entire width of the church on their knees, praying for forgiveness for the people who committed the massacre.

Born: ?

Died: 1242

Beatified: Pius IX confirmed their cult in 1866

Patronage: Blessed William Arnaud is invoked by people who suffer from neuralgia, in memory of a miracle of healing which he performed on one of the sisters of Prouille.

Marietta was a beautiful and appealing child, with big eyes and a constant smile. Because she was tiny, she was always called Marietta, rather than Mary. Her mother neglected her when she was a baby, leaving her to the casual care of others, and the little girl was often hungry and cold. She never protested, but was always gay and charming, and she was the special darling of her sister, who was a Dominican nun.

The sisters made quite a pet of the little girl, and she ran through the cloisters unhampered, singing for the sisters from the throne of the community-room table. What brought about her utter disgust with marriage is hard to tell. When her father proposed that she marry an eligible young man, she reacted with horror. She had been managing the household since the death of her mother, and her father felt that having a home of her own would be the best thing in the world for her. When he suggested this, Marietta fell into a faint, and she remained in that condition for days. When she recovered, she could not stand up, and had to be put to bed.

At this point a strange interlude brings, which can only be explained by the fact that God does not operate in the same fashion we do. Marietta’s father was fond of quack doctors, and quacks of the 16th century were really fantastic. Without protest the girl endured all the weird and frightful treatments they devised, suffering more from the treatments than she ever had from the malady. Today her ailment would probably be diagnosed as some type of spastic nerve malady. Packing her in mud and winding her in swaddling bands until she, according to her own account, “felt like a squashed raisin” could not have helped anything but the quack doctor’s purse. The ailments continued unabated for 34 years.

Marietta had hoped to be a nun; four of her sisters were already in the convent. Because such a life was, of course, impossible for an invalid, her father attempted to better her spirits by having her accepted into the Third Order. A priest came from Santa Maria Novella and received her into the order in 1544, but he excused her from the obligation of saying the Office because of the desperate nature of her illness. When he came the following year, she made her profession. For a little while after her profession, Marietta was able to get out of bed and could even walk a little. She could see and enjoy the beauties of the city. The she fell ill again and went back to bed; this time she had asthma, pleurisy, and a kidney ailment.

The doctors continued their experimentation through all the years of her life. A mystic, who sometimes conversed with the angels, saints, and devils, Marietta was suspected by the neighbors of being in league with the devil. Her protests that “she had seen him all right but he wasn’t a friend of hers,” fell on deaf ears; they obtained permission to have her exorcised. Her confessor left her; he was afraid of becoming involved. Another priest who came to her, mostly out of curiosity, stayed on as her confessor and directed her strange and troubled path for 22 years.

Marietta’s little room became a sort of oratory, and troubled people came there to find peace. She had an unusually soothing effect on animals; several pet cats made her the object of their affection. One of them used to sleep on the foot of her bed, and if she became sick during the night would go out to find someone to care for her. Once, when the cat felt that Marietta was being neglected, it went out and fetched her a large cheese. The cats, according to the legend, did not even glance at the songbirds that she had in a cage beside the bed.

Marietta’s spiritual life is hard to chronicle against such an odd background. In her last years, she was in almost constant ecstasy. The chaplain said Mass in her room, and she went to confession daily. She never discussed the sorrowful mysteries, because she could not do so without crying, but she often talked with great animation and a shining face, about the glorious mysteries. Once she was raised out of her bed in ecstasy. She shared her visions with another mystic, the Carmelite, Mary Magdalen de Pazzi. Because of her devotion to Saint Bartholomew, she added his name to her own, and usually used it instead of her family name.

Born: August 15, 1514 at Florence, Italy

Died: May 28, 1577 at Florence, Italy of natural causes

Beatified: July 11, 1804 by Pope Pius VII

Patronage: loss of parents, sick people, victims of abuse

Blessed Colomba of Rieti is always called after her birthplace, though she actually spent the greater part of her life away from it. Her celebrity is based — as it was even in her lifetime — mainly on two things: the highly miraculous nature of her career from its very beginning, and her intense devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. She was one amongst a number of saintly Dominican women who seem to have been expressly raised up by God in protest against, and as a sharp contrast to, the irreligion and immorality prevalent in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These women, nearly all of the Third Order, had an intense devotion to St. Catherine of Siena, and made it their aim to imitate her as nearly as possible. Many seculars, men as well as women, shared this devotion, amongst these being Ercole I, Duke of Ferrara, who had a deep admiration for Colomba and for some other holy Dominican religious, her contemp oraries, the most notable of whom were Blessed Osanna of Mantua and Blessed Lucy of Narni.

For the latter Ercole’s veneration was so great that he never rested until he had got her to come with some of her nuns to live in Ferrara, where he built her a convent and where she died after many troubles. She began when quite a girl to practice austere penances and to subsist almost entirely on the supernatural food of the Holy Eucharist, and continued this for the greater part of her life. At nineteen she joined the Dominican Tertiaries, of whom there were many in town, though still living at home; and she soon won the veneration of her fellow townspeople by her personal holiness as well as by some miracles that she worked. But Colomba was not destined to remain in Rieti. In 1488 she left home and went to Perugia, where the inhabitants received her as a saint, and in the course of time built her the convent of St. Catherine, in which she assembled all the Third Order Dominicanesses, who desired her as superior in spite of her youth. In 1494, when a terrible plague was raging in Perugia, she offered herself as victim for the city. The plague was stayed, but Colomba herself was struck down by the scourge. She recovered only to save her sanctity severely tried by widely spread calumnies, which reached Rome, whence a commission was sent to examine into her life. She was treated for some time as an imposter, and deposed from her office of prioress; but finally her innocence triumphed.

In 1495 Alexander VI, having heard of Colomba’s holiness and miracles from his son the Cardinal Caesar Borgia, who had been living in Perugia, went himself to the city and saw her. She is said to have gone into ecstasy at his feet, and also to have boldy told him of all personal sins. The pope was fully satisfied of her great sanctity, and set the seal of approval on her mode of life. In the year of 1499 she was consulted, by authorities who were examining into the manner, concerning the stigmata of Blessed Lucy of Narni, and spoke warmly in favor of their being genuine, and of her admiration for Blessed Lucy’s holiness. Her relics are still venerated at Perugia, and her feast is kept by her order on 20 May.

Born: February 2, 1467 at Rieti, Umbria, Italy as Angelella Guardagnoli

Died: May 20, 1501 at Perguia, Italy of natural causes; at the moment of her death, her friend, Blessed Osanna Andreasi, saw Columba’s soul as a radiance rising to heaven; the whole city turned out for her funeral, which was paid for by the city fathers

Beatified: February 25, 1625 by Pope Urban VIII

Patronage: against sorcery; against temptation and Perugia, Italy

Representation: Dominican tertiary receiving the Eucharist from a hand reaching down from heaven; Dominican tertiary receiving the Eucharist from an angel; Dominican tertiary with a dove, lily, and book; Dominican tertiary with a wreath of roses, cross, lily, and rosary