The Hidden Christians of Nagasaki

For over two hundred years, Japanese Christians worshipped in secret. After the brutal persecutions of the 1630s, when thousands were martyred and foreign missionaries expelled, the faithful of Nagasaki went underground. They passed their prayers from parent to child in whispered Latin phrases they barely understood, hiding carved Madonnas inside Buddhist statues, baptizing their infants in the dark.

Generation after generation, they pleaded with God not to forget them. They had no pastors, no scriptures in their own tongue, no sacraments beyond what memory could preserve. They called themselves "Kakure Kirishitan" — the hidden ones. And still they prayed: restore us.

Then, on March 17, 1865, a small group of Japanese villagers approached Father Bernard Petitjean at the newly built Oura Church in Nagasaki. A woman named Yuri leaned close and whispered, "Our hearts are the same as yours." Two centuries of secret faith, poured into a single sentence. The shepherd had not forgotten His flock.

This is the cry of Psalm 80 — a people in exile from God's visible presence, weeping, pleading, "Restore us, O God Almighty; make Your face shine on us, that we may be saved." The psalmist knew what those hidden Christians knew: that the God who once led Joseph like a flock does not abandon the vine He planted. Even in the longest darkness, He is already turning back toward His people.