July 6, 2025 - "Blessed Thomas "Kintsuba" Jihyoe"

Thomas Jihyoe of Saint Augustine was a Japanese Augustinian friar who gave his life for Christ during the persecution of Christians in Seventeenth-Century Japan.  Thomas was born around 1600 in Omura, Japan.  His parents were Christian catechists who were both martyrs for the Faith.

 

As a youth Thomas studied under the Jesuits in Arima. When the Jesuit school was closed during the persecution, Thomas along with this Jesuit teachers, was expelled from Japan.  He went to Macao (an autonomous region on the south coast of China across the Pearl River Delta from Hong Kong and a Portuguese colony until 1999) where he continued his studies.  In 1622 he went to Manila, Philippines, where he entered the Augustinian novitiate.  After he took his vows in 1624, he was sent to Cebu City, Philippines where he completed his theological studies.  In 1627 or 1628 he was ordained a priest—the first Japanese Augustinian friar to be ordained a priest.

 

Thomas felt a call to return to Japan because Christians there were under great need of pastoral care and guidance as more and more Catholic missionaries were martyred in the ongoing persecution.  He was finally granted permission to return to Japan in 1631 after having been turned down several times.

 

Since he was Japanese, it was easy for him to conceal his priesthood from the authorities.  He obtained a position in the administration of the Governor of Nagasaki under the name Kintsuba (Garnished with Gold).  Fearless and motivated by faith, Thomas was able to offer support to the imprisoned, including the Augustinian Batholomew Gutiérrez. When Bartholomew was killed, Thomas continued to encourage and help the other Christian prisoners. Within a short time, the Governor began to suspect there was a priest ministering to the captives in jail.  Thomas had to flee the city and take refuge in a nearby cave.

 

Thomas was finally captured in 1637.  After undergoing many kinds of cruel torture and remaining resolute in his Catholic faith, he was condemned to death.  On November 6, 1637, he was hung by his feet with his head inserted into a pit of rotting garbage until he died.

 

Blessed Thomas “Kintsuba” Jihyoe of Saint Augustine pray for us!

 

Until next week,

Fr. John