St. Magdalena of Nagasaki

  Posted on November 9, 2020  by admin  No comments

Born: c.1610 in Nagasaki, Japan 

Died: 15 October 1634 in Nishizaka, Nagasaki, Japan 

Venerated: in Catholic Church

Beatified: February 18, 1981, Manila, Philippines by Pope John Paul II

Canonized: 18 October 1987 by Pope John Paul II 

Patronage: Secular Augustinian Recollects 

Major shrine: Binondo Church in Binondo, Manila, Philippines

Feast: October 20

Magdalene of Nagasaki was a Japanese Christian born in 1610 as the daughter of a Christian couple martyred. With the arrival of the Augustinian Order, Magdalene served as an Augustinian lay sister or tertiary, interpreter and catechist for the friars Francis of Jesus Terrero and Vincent of Saint Anthony Simoens.

After the martyrdom of her counselors, she apprenticed herself to two other Augustinians, Melchior of Saint Augustine and Martin of Saint Nicholas. When these two friars were also put to death, she turned to Giordano Ansaloni de San Esteban, a Dominican.

Some time later, and attired in her Augustinian habit, Magdalene turned herself into the authorities and declared herself a follower of Jesus Christ. At age 23, she died on October 15, 1634 after thirteen days of torture, suffocated to death and suspended upside down in a pit of offal on a gibbet (tsurushi).

After death, her body was cremated and her ashes scattered in Nagasaki Bay. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on February 18, 1981 in Manila, and canonized on October 18, 1987 at Vatican City among the 16 Martyrs of Japan.