A Spanish Discalced Franciscan priest crucified at Nagasaki, Japan, in 1597 among the 26 Martyrs of Japan.

Martín de la Ascensión Loinaz Amunabarro (1567-1597) was a Spanish priest of the Discalced Franciscans who served as a missionary in the Philippines and Japan. He was arrested with a group of Franciscan missionaries and Japanese Christians during an early wave of persecution under the ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and was crucified at Nishizaka, Nagasaki, on February 5, 1597, at the age of 30, among the group known as the 26 Martyrs of Japan.

Quick Facts

• Born: 1567, Spain
• Died: February 5, 1597, Nishizaka, Nagasaki, Japan (age 30)
• Feast Day: February 6
• Venerated as: Priest of the Discalced Franciscans; martyr; one of the 26 Martyrs of Japan

Who Was Saint Martín de la Ascensión Loinaz Amunabarro?

Martín de la Ascensión was a young Spanish Franciscan friar and priest who traveled from Spain to the Philippines and then to Japan as a missionary, at a time when Japan’s ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi had grown suspicious of the growing Christian community and its foreign missionaries.

Historical Setting

Hideyoshi’s edict against Christianity in the 1590s led to the arrest of a group of Franciscan missionaries, Jesuit associates, and Japanese lay Christians, including catechists, craftsmen, and children, who were marched over a month from Kyoto to Nagasaki and publicly crucified as a warning to the Christian community, one of the first major martyrdoms of the Japanese mission era.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Martín de la Ascensión Loinaz Amunabarro

Martín de la Ascensión is remembered as one of the 26 Martyrs of Japan, a group that became world-famous for the dignity and evident joy with which they went to their deaths on the crosses at Nagasaki, an event that deeply moved the wider Church and profoundly shaped the memory of the Japanese Catholic mission.

Canonization and Feast Day

Martín de la Ascensión was beatified in 1627 and canonized in 1862 by Pope Pius IX, among the 26 Martyrs of Japan. Their feast is kept on February 6.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

His youth at death, just thirty years old and only a few years into missionary service, alongside the group’s famous composure on the crosses, is a witness that readiness to die for Christ does not depend on decades of preparation but on a total gift made in a moment of trial.

A Prayer to Saint Martín de la Ascensión Loinaz Amunabarro

Saint Martín de la Ascensión, young missionary crucified at Nagasaki, intercede for the Church in Japan and for missionaries everywhere who face the possibility of martyrdom. Give us your joy and dignity in the face of suffering. Amen.

Sources

• Vatican.va (canonization of the 26 Martyrs of Japan, 1862)
• New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia
• EWTN