Footprints of Gracia Hosokawa (seven episodes)
About 400 years ago, during Japan's Warring StatesPeriod,
there was a Christian woman who loved Jesus Christ
with all her heart and followed Him with absolute trust.
7. The moment of martyrdom
In December 1596, 26 Christians were crucified at Nishizaka of Nagasaki as a lesson to everyone else. Two years later in 1598 the tyrant Hideyoshi died and Gracia passed her last moments amid the upheavals which followed his death.
In 1600 Japan was divided in two by the eastern army under the command of Tokugawa Ieyasu and the western army under the command of Ishida Mitsunari. Hosokawa Tadaoki joined Ieyasu’s side. On July 17, as Tadaoki was about to join battle at Sekigahara, Ishida, who had waited for Tadaoki to set off for the front, seized Gracia, the wife of Tadaoki, as part of his strategy to become the ruler of all Japan, and tried to put her as a hostage in Osaka Castle. Gracia had already made up her mind. She moved her ladies-in-waiting along with all the children to a safe place and after her last prayer, instead of electing to die by her own hand, was killed by a chief retainer, Ogasawara Shosai. When Shosai had made sure that Gracia was dead he spread gunpowder around the Hosokawa mansion and set fire to it. He himself, along with the other retainers, committed seppuku (hara-kiri) on the spot. Meanwhile Ishida’s army, riddled with traitors and disunited, was cruelly defeated at Sekigahara, and this defeat was no doubt fit punishment for what Ishida had done.
The death of Gracia made a deep impression on many people, Christians and
non-Christians alike. As the rumors spread, Ishida, who was afraid
of what people said, gave up taking hostages and this further weakened
his position. It is even said that taking Gracia hostage led to the
tables being turned on Ishida and the eventual victory of the Ieyasu side.
It is surely no accident that so many of the people close to Gracia became
Christians. Seventeen of Gracia’s ladies-in-waiting as well as many
retainers were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
Gracia’s younger son, Okiaki, was baptized by Maria while her eldest daughter
Cho, and younger daughter Tara, also converted to Christians. Tadaoki’s
younger brother, Okimoto, was baptized and given the Christian name Joan,
and after Gracia’s death Tadaoki’s mother was also baptized, receiving
the Christian name Maria. Moreover the third son of Ogasawara Shosai,Genya,
along with his wife and children died splendid martyrdom deaths for
the sake of Christianity.
In this way, the life of Gracia, who had kept her faith through the proscription
of Christianity at peril of her life, was like a grain of wheat and she
gave many Christians the strength not to give in under persecution or torture.
The warriors of the Warring States period who had brought the country under
control disappeared like the wind. However Gracia, through the grace
of God, refused to bend before many evils, and shining freely, truly, in
strength and in hope, was the true victor of war-torn Japan through her
life of faith.
“My soul is silent and waits for God because my salvation will come from
God. God is my rock and my salvation and my watchtower. I will
never be shaken. “ Psalm 62:6-7
