Magdalene was born about the year 1611 near Nagasaki, the city where most of Japan’s new Christians lived or sought refuge on the outbreak of persecution. Her family appear to have been reasonably well-off and very much involved in the life of the Christian community. But she was still very young, probably about thirteen, when her parents and older siblings were arrested and martyred for their faith. She found a new family in the close-knit Christian community and its missionaries and she gave her young life to helping them.
She was particularly close to the Augustinian Recollects Francis of Jesus and Vincent of St Augustine. She assisted Francis as interpreter and catechist and he later received her profession as a member of the Third Order. But Magdalene was orphaned a second time when Francis and Vincent – among the beatified martyrs we remember on 28th September – were burned to dearth on Nagasaki’s «Hill of the Martyrs» in 1632. She would have witnessed the horrific deaths by burning, beheading, crucifixion and dreadful torture of many more missionaries and lay Christians.
Her faith held strong and she continued to exercise a ministry of catechizing, caring and encouraging among the persecuted Christian community that gave her the reputation of a deaconess. After the martyrdom of Blesses Francis and Vincent, quickly followed by that of two other Recollects, Blessed Martin and Melchior, Magdalen was helped and guided by Dominican missionaries. After two years ministering to the persecuted Christians in the hills around Nagasaki, witnessing heroic martyrdoms but also sad betrayals and desertions, Magdalene felt she could best serve this community by handing herself over to the authorities and taking the consequences. This she bravely did in September, 1634.
In ways reminiscent of the martyrdoms of young girls like St Cecilia in the days of the Roman Empire Magdalene had to face all kinds of promises and threats from her persecutors. When all this failed to produce the apostasy which was the main aim of the authorities she was subjected to horrendous torture and death. First she was left hanging for several hours by her arms until the ropes broke and she fell to the ground. Then she had bamboo spikes stuck under her fingernails and she was forced to scratch and claw the ground. Next came sadistic variations on the water torture, forcing the victim to swallow large quantities of water and then applying pressure to force the water, tinged with blood, out of mouth, nose and other organs. Eventually the torturers had to give up. Magdalene was returned to a cage in the gaol and left in dreadful pain to await execution. The day arrived in early October. Magdalene was taken from her prison and paraded on horseback through the streets of the city with a placard hanging from her neck announcing her crime as refusing to abandon her Christian faith. Witnesses later testified that she was dressed in her habit and cincture as an Augustinian Recollect tertiary.
Ten other Christians, of whom she seemed to be the leader and inspiration, were to die with her. On reaching the «Hill of the Martyrs» the executioners hung Magdalene upside-down from a gallows over a pit dug in the ground. Hers was to be the most dreadful of all the barbaric forms of execution used in the persecution. With her arms bound to her sides she was lowered up to her waist into the pit which was then covered over with boards to make breathing even more difficult. Blood would naturally flow to the head but to prevent a quick death from congestion cuts were made with a knife to her temples and blood trickled out.
The executioners waited in vain for any sign of recanting, but Magdalene only continued to pray, even sing hymns, according to witnesses. She was said to have survived in this terrible state and without food or drink for thirteen days. She was let fall into the pit which had partly filled with rainwater and she died from drowning. To avoid having relics kept by the Christians Magdalene’s body was burnt and her ashes scattered on the sea in Nagasaki Bay. Her martyrdom made a great impression on the Christian community as well as on a number of Portugese merchants who frequented the area. Many of these were later deported to Macao where number of Japanese Christians would also be exiled. As a result evidence could be collected from numerous witnesses about the life and martyrdom of the Augustinian martyrs of Japan and Magdalene in particular. Though this was done in the 1630’s it was not till 1981 that Magdalene of Nagasaki was beatified, together with a number of Dominican martyrs, by Pope John Paul II. She was canonized with the same companions and by the same Pope in Rome on 18th October, 1987.