6 February 2023
Memorial of Saint Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs
Even a sudden spark can illuminate a dark room; even a small ray of hope can lift a soul from the depths of despair. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel The Return of the King, Samwise Gamgee lays on the hard ground of Mordor looking up at the dark, clouded sky while Frodo sleeps. They are at their absolute end, and all looks hopeless; Frodo admitted he could not remember anything good or beautiful, so much had darkness filled his thoughts. Tolkien writes: “There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.”
Imagine if that small star deigned to lower itself not merely to be within Sam’s reach, but stood beside him, went before him, aided him and Frodo in their impossible quest. We need not imagine, for such a Light has come from Heaven to be with us: Christ, our hope. St. Paul Miki, SJ was crucified in Japan along with over twenty other clergymen on this day in 1597, preaching his last sermon from his own cross, forgiving those who had persecuted him, and when an onlooker shouted that he would soon be in heaven a contemporary account says: “Joy glowed in all their faces…[Paul’s] hands, his whole body strained upward with such joy that every eye was fixed on him.”
In our Gospel Jesus walks among the sick like a light to which the moths of night are drawn. They beg His touch, or even permission to touch just the tassel of His cloak: but a spark from Him whose “…life was the light of the human race…” (John 1:4) dispels their darkness and gives them hope. Let Him do the very same for you.