Magdalene of Nagasaki

, was born in 1611 as the daughter of a Christian couple martyred about 1620. With the arrival of the Augustinian Order, Magdalene served as an Augustinian lay sister or tertiary, interpreter and catechist for Fathers Francis of Jesus Terrero and Vincent of Saint Anthony Simoens.
In 1632, these two Augustinian friars, who had been her spiritual counselors, were burned alive. After the martyrdom of her counselors, she apprenticed herself to two other Augustinians, Fathers Melchior of Saint Augustine and Martin of Saint Nicholas. When these two friars were also put to death, she turned to Father Jordan de San Esteban, a Dominican. 
Some time later, and attired in her Augustinian habit, Magdalene turned herself into the authorities and declared herself a follower of Jesus Christ. At age 23, she died on October 16, 1634 after thirteen days of torture, suffocated to death and suspended upside down in a pit of offal on a gibbet {Tsurushi (Japanese: 釣殺し), or "reverse hanging",}. After death, her body was burned and her ashes scattered in the bay of Nagasaki. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on February 18, 1981 Manila.
Drawn from the oral histories of Japanese Catholic communities, Shusaku Endo's acclaimed novel Silence provides detailed accounts of the persecution of Christian communities and the suppression of the Church.
==Depiction==
Though the official picture of Magdalene of Nagasaki shows her wearing an Augustinian habit while holding a fern in her hands, another depiction of her is used by the Dominicans for their own devotion. Instead of the black habit, she is shown wearing a kimono while holding a cross in her hands. The sculpture of her shows that she wears a veil on her head.
==See also==
*Martyrs of Japan
==External links==
*St. Magdalene of Nagasaki, O.S.A. 
*Mary Magdalene of Nagasaki canonized (Vatican)
*Life of St. Magdelene of Nagasaki (Augustinians of the Midwest)
Category:1611 births
Category:1634 deaths
Category:Augustinian nuns
Category:Victims of Anti-Catholicism
Category:Christianity in Japan
Category:Japanese saints
Category:Japanese Roman Catholic saints
Category:Japanese Roman Catholic nuns
Category:Female saints
Category:17th-century Christian saints
Category:17th-century Roman Catholic martyrs
la:Magdalena Nagasaciensis
ja:長崎のマグダレナ