Today the church remembers the Martyrs of Japan*

                               Psalm 80:14 

 Behold and tend this vine 

*the Martyrs of Japan, 

were 6 Franciscan friars 

and 20 Japanese Christ-

ians who were crucified in 

Nagasaki February of 1597 

and Christianity,  seen “as 

a cloak for subversive activities"  was outlawed.. The 

ban was lifted in 1859 and returning  missionaries 

found that some Christian faith had survived - 

the same thing Bill Mahedy found on his trip

 to the USSR in 1989, prior to its break up in 1991. 

Pray for all

 Christians in Japan and for the Japanese Episcopal Church there, The Nippon Sei Ko Kai: 

日本聖公会,  

 for boldness to confess Christ, 

for the spirit of Christ in to forgive our enemies.