Nov 162009
February 15; Martyr
Father Machado was beheaded on the 22d of May, 1617, in Japan, with a Franciscan religious, Peter of the Assumption. They embraced each other fervently before bending their heads to receive the death-blow. Father John had always desired to be sent to Japan. “The three happiest days in my life,” he wrote, “are the day of my entrance into the College of Coimbra, that of my arrest, and this one on which I hear my sentence of death.” And again: “I have just been told that I am to sacrifice my life for our good Jesus. I sacrifice it with joy, and if I had a thousand lives I would, with His divine grace, sacrifice them all.”