Current Feasts, Saints and other Holy Days

The Martyrs of Japan - February 5

In 1549 the Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier, founded the church in Japan. The Jesuits were soon followed by the Franciscans. For forty years Christianity spread and flourished. Then in 1588 the Japanese ruler Hideyoshi, fearful of the changes introduced by Christianity and apprehensive of western intentions of conquest, began a severe persecution aimed at wiping out the Christian faith completely. The persecution included the families of the principal victims in accordance with Japanese custom. This persecution lasted nearly fifty years, and during that period thousands laid down their lives.

The first of these martyrs were twenty-six in number. Of these, one was Japanese Jesuit priest and outstanding preacher Paul Miki, two were Jesuit lay-brothers, and six were Franciscans (four of whom were Spanish, one from Mexico City and one from Bombay). The other seventeen were all laity (one a Korean and sixteen Japanese). Among the laity were catechists, interpreters, a physician and three boys in their teens.

Their martyrdoms took place near Nagasaki in 1597. They were tied or chained to crosses on the ground, had an iron collar put round their necks, and then their crosses were raised upright in a single row. Each victim had a separate executioner, who stood in front of the cross with a spear in his hand. It is said that while awaiting execution the martyrs preached or sang. Then at a given signal the spears were plunged into the martyrs.

These twenty-six were canonised in 1862 as the First Martyrs of the Far East. But they are not the only martyrs in Japan: between 1617 and 1632 many more Japanese Christians were put to death because of their faith.

Teaching of Christianity in Japan was forbidden until the 1850s, and all foreigners were excluded from the country. In 1859 French missionaries were permitted to enter and were amazed to find that, 250 years later, there were small bands of Christians in communities throughout Japan, who, without priests or teachers, had kept the faith handed down by their forebears and baptised their children.

Source: https://www.anglican.org.nz/Resources/Worship-Resources-Karakia-ANZPB-HKMOA/For-All-the-Saints-A-Resource-for-the-Commemorations-of-the-Calendar/For-All-the-Saints

St Anskar (Ansgar) - February 3

Archbishop of Hamburg, Missionary to Denmark and Sweden

Anskar, also known by his Latin name Ansgarius, was born in 801 near Amiens. He was educated and professed as a monk in the nearby monastery of Corbie.

Anskar was in Correy, Westphalia, when King Harold of Denmark asked for a Christian evangelist for his people. Harold had been in exile and during that time had been converted to Christianity. Anskar agreed to accompany him and in 826 became a missionary to the Danish people. A few years later he made a missionary journey to Sweden. In Anskar he was consecrated bishop of Hamburg. After the Vikings sacked Hamburg in 845, the pope made Anskar archbishop of Hamburg and Bremen and gave him also some responsibilities for Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

Anskar devoted his energies to founding schools and preaching and was famous for his great charity to the poor. He attacked the slave-trade of the Vikings, but was unable to end it. Anskar was not very successful in Sweden, which soon reverted to paganism, until the eleventh century. His greatest achievements were in Denmark (of which country he is the patron saint) and in northern Germany. Even so, Anskar saw no real harvest of his labours in his own day. He died in Bremen in 865 and was buried there.

Source: https://www.anglican.org.nz/Resources/Worship-Resources-Karakia-ANZPB-HKMOA/For-All-the-Saints-A-Resource-for-the-Commemorations-of-the-Calendar/For-All-the-Saints

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple - February 2

Candlemas

By the end of the third century, the church had come to have a quite significant place in Greco-Roman society, and the conversion of Constantine ensured that Christianity would be the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Alongside this there developed some key theological debates about the person of Christ. These two factors combined to produce a growing interest in the places and events associated with the life of Jesus, and pilgrims began to flock to Palestine.

Jerusalem became a centre for liturgical innovation, and one of the festivals that grew up in the fourth century was the commemoration of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple. The festival was ordered at Constantinople by the emperor Justinian in 542, and gradually spread throughout the church in both east and west. Candles have been associated with the festival from at least the seventh century. Pope Sergius instituted a procession with candles as part of the ceremonies, during which the antiphon lumen ad revelationem (“a light for revelation”) and the Nunc dimittis were sung. This gave rise to the name “Candlemas” for the festival.

The festival commemorates the incident, recorded only by Luke, in which Jesus is brought to the Temple and is greeted by Simeon and Anna. Luke gives the reason for the visit to the Temple as “for their purification according the law of Moses” and “to present him [Jesus] to the Lord”. Within the Jewish tradition, the purification of the child’s mother required a sacrificial offering at the Temple. The offering in respect of the first-born child was a monetary offering and did not require the presence of the child at the Temple. Luke’s account combines the two themes. His interest is not in the rites themselves, however, except to show that Jesus’ status as Saviour of Israel rests on obedience to the Law. Luke’s telling of the story has many structural similarities to the story of the child Samuel (1 Samuel 1:1-2:11).

Luke’s real interest, however, is in the events that happen in the Temple with Simeon and Anna. Simeon is described as one who was “looking forward to the consolation of Israel”, a phrase reminiscent of the later chapters of Isaiah. So here in the Temple, the centre of Jewish worship, both Law and Prophets bear witness to Jesus as the fulfilment of the hopes of Israel.

Simeon’s Nunc dimittis enlarges the vision of God’s work to encompass the Gentiles, making the same theological point as the story of the magi in Matthew’s Gospel. But Simeon goes on to emphasise that the coming of the messiah will bring division as well as hope, for not all Israel will accept him. But Luke does not leave the story on this negative note, and, in Anna, the very epitome of the faithful worshipper of God, he reiterates the theme of the promise of God “to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem”.

Source: https://www.anglican.org.nz/Resources/Worship-Resources-Karakia-ANZPB-HKMOA/For-All-the-Saints-A-Resource-for-the-Commemorations-of-the-Calendar/For-All-the-Saints