St. Pedro Bautista - Missionary. Developer of the Philippines, Martyr
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| St. Pedro Bautista |
But little to what most of the Filipinos know that not all friars are what the Propagandists and the Nationalist have in mind. In fact, it was through the efforts of the Friars that helped us to improve our lives from its primitive ways from education, advancements on labor, trade, infrastructure, even protecting us from the abuse of some government officials and most importantly, our rich Catholic Faith.
One of the most outstanding of all the friars that developed and ministered out country is Saint Pedro Bautista of the Franciscan Order. Though very few knew about him, except on some areas were churches he built and at times, dedicated to him, he contributed much on developing some key places in the country under the Franciscan administration that would later became key cities in the country. He also taught church music and the manufacture and use of musical instruments, discovered the medicinal characteristics of the hot springs of Los Baños, strongly defended the basic human rights of the indigenous peoples of Zambales and most importantly, an ambassador in Japan that would led to his martyrdom.
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| The Bronze statue of St. Pedro Bautista carved by Joe Bautista located at his Holy Cave in Quezon City |
His Early Life
San Pedro Bautista, a contemporary of Sts. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, was born Pedro Blazquez in San Esteban del Valle on June 29, 1542, three centuries after Saint Francis. He studied Latin and cosmology in Mombeltran, and continued his studies with the Jesuits in Oropesa and later studied music in Avila. He served in the cathedral for two years as a choirboy. In 1560 he studied philosophy and theology in Salamanca for 6 years until he felt called to the priesthood. He was ordained deacon in Avila.
In 1567, the young Pedro Blazquez returned from Salamanca and entered the Franciscan novitiate in Arenas, where San Pedro Alcántara (1562) was buried. Here in the spiritual fervor and rigor of the Alcantarine reform the spirit of the young novice Pedro Blazquez was formed. He professed in 1568. Coming as a deacon with ecclesiastical studies already done, he was soon ordained priest and was assigned to preaching and formation work in the Province.
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| San Pedro Bautista |
The times were conducive to missionary work. After discernment, he applied to be a missionary and was approved to join a religious group who would leave for Mexico in 1581. He worked there for nearly three years. At that time a missionary`s ultimate goal was China and Japan with the Philippines as a stopover for refueling. He arrived in Manila in 1584 and immediately gave himself to missionary work.
In his missions in the Philippines, he chose the poor and needy environments. He visited them, took care of the sick, built houses, schools and hospitals. Pedro Bautista and his confreres attended to the lepers and the poor. They became the advocate for the voiceless, abused and exploited. The Mexican historian Miguel León writes: "For the natives like the Franciscans because they walk barefoot and live as poor like us, eating what we eat, settling down with us, talking with us meekly ... With their love and charity they attract both rich and poor .... Litigation or complaints were never found in the holy friars.”
He also taught music to children and adults from towns and parishes around Manila and was the first to organize a parish choir in the Philippines. He did not only organize them, but taught them how to use and make musical instruments made of bamboo. He became known for building the liturgical life of the people where ever he was assigned. He became the guardian of San Francisco de Manila in Intramuros. In 1586 he was made Parish Priest of Lumban, Laguna. Becoming Custos that same year, he was placed in charge of the Franciscans, who were spread from Bulacan to Sorsogon. He also became took care and ministered for the exiled Japanese Christians who were residing in Paco, Manila and formed a special group of Japanese in Paco Parish.
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| Santuario de San Pedto Bautista in Frsico, Quezon City that he himself foounded |
Pedro continued the Franciscans` work of gathering the Filipinos into towns. To him are
due the first Franciscan buildings made of stone in the towns outside of Manila. It is interesting to note too that it was in the church of Lumban that the Franciscans first reserved the Blessed
Sacrament outside of Manila (1600). He also developed some key locations in Luzon from Pakil, Los Baños, and other parts of Laguna provinces, some parts of Bicol Region, Candelaria, Quezon among others.
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| The Cueva Santa that St. Pedro Bautista stayed years before his Japanese Mission and Martyrdom |
After a long search, he selected a site which would become San Francisco del Monte. It was opened as a house of retreat for the missionaries and as a novitiate house in 1590.
Healer of the Sick and Defender of the Poor
San Pedro is the recognized founder of the hot springs in Los Baños, Laguna. He determined its medical element. He also strongly defended the rights of the indigenous peoples of Zambales. He affirmed their basic human rights and taught the slave drivers to recognize God`s dignity in their lives. It was his firm, moral stand that opened the people`s minds to the value of life.
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| The Execution of St. Pedro Bautista |
In the last decades of the sixteenth century, however, the Spanish presence was seriously
threatened. In 1586 an armed encounter between a group of Japanese pirates and colonial forces took place. The victory sided with the Spaniards, but given the ferocity of the Japanese and the weapons they used, the Spaniards feared the Japanese. In 1591, the Philippine authorities received a letter of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the shogun of Japan, also known as Taykosama with the following threat: "Recognize my power, because if you would not come to bow to me and prostrate before me, without doubt I will certainly send my army and I will destroy and lay you waste."
The government immediately sent a party through the Dominican Father Juan Cobo in order to try to stop the expansionist impulses of Hideyoshi. But he died in Formosa, upon returning from his trip, without informing the authorities of Manila. Hideyoshi wrote a second letter as threatening as the first. The governor, aware that Manila was unprotected and indanger in case of an invasion, decided to send a second party to try to appease the irascible and ambitious shogun of Japan. The person chosen was Pedro Bautista. After overcoming initial difficulties, the party was organized immediately and on May 26, 1593 they began the journey to Japan. Pedro Bautista was accompanied by three friars, the priest Bartolome Ruiz, the lay brother Francisco de La Parrilla, and the lay brother Gonzalo Garcia as interpreter, and several lay Spanish and Japanese. The delegation was divided into two boats. The journey was much longer and more dangerous than expected. After a series of typhoons, on July 4, 1593, after 39 days at sea, the ship of Pedro Bautista entered the port of Hirado, a modest island northwest of Japan. The second boat went to Amakusa.
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| A tableaux depicting the group's meeting with Hideyoshi |
The meeting between the Franciscans and Hideyoshi, for reasons of Japanese protocol, occurred two months later, in October in Nagoya. The early moments were very tense. Hideyoshi spoke in a threatening tone, demanding that the rulers of Manila would give clear signs of submission. Pedro Bautista did not lose his composure for a moment, rejected the threats and refused to give evidence of submission. Finally Hideyoshi yielded to the peaceful attitude of Pedro Bautista. Impressed by his humility and extreme poverty, he promised to protect the Franciscans and even gave them a lot in Miyako (modern Kyoto), where they could build a convent and church. Six years earlier, in 1587, Hideyoshi had decreed the expulsion of all the Jesuits from Japan. The church in Japan was in a lamentable state, since the prohibition. He invited Pedro Bautista to visit him in Kyoto, home of the emperor, and the surrounding cities, Osaka, Sakay, Fushimi, etc. Before traveling to Kyoto, Pedro Bautista informed the Philippine authorities on the outcome of their meeting. The document would be signed two years later.
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| Processional image of St. Pedro Bautista |
The number of Christians at that time was about 6,000, from about 400,000 inhabitants. The challenge of evangelization offered Fray Pedro and his brothers was immense. Nevertheless, the missionaries were forced, for more than six months, to observe a discreet silence, limiting themselves to evangelize with their mere presence, a Franciscan method learned in their solitary convents in Spain. In 1595 Pedro Bautista and his brothers got to work. Soon they began to receive support and financial help from the people. He had insisted that both the church and the convent were opened on August 2, feast of the Our Lady of the Angels. But since the construction prevented the friars to spend sufficient time to pray, Pedro Bautista decided to postpone the opening to October 4, the feast of Saint Francis. Before that date, the second group of missionaries arrived from Manila.
Shortly after the inauguration of the convent and church, Pedro Bautista started to build Santa Ana Hospital especially designed to accommodate the lepers. Sometime later, to meet the needs of the population of Kyoto, he ordered the construction of a second hospital, which he called San José. Not satisfied with this, he decided to build a school for children to counteract the harmful influence of certain Buddhist pagodas. Not all were happy with the uplifting of the poor Japanese. Buddhists monks and merchants became wary of the friars` evangelizing works. In December 1594 Pedro Bautista started to build a convent in Nagasaki which served as the contact point with the Philippines. By March he met a very strong opposition in certain sectors of the city. With calm partially recovered, he returned to Kyoto in September, leaving behind some friars. In June 1596 another group of friars came. A small residence was established on Osaka named after Our Lady of Bethlehem.
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| A tableaux that shows the path to their martyrdom |
The wreck of a Spanish galleon in Tosa Bay was used by those against the Franciscans. Pedro Bautista tried to save the ship`s merchandise and to help the passengers. They gave false accusations to Hideoshi, who believed them. On December 8, 1596 Hideyoshi ordered the house arrest of Pedro Bautista and his friars in Japan.
On January 3, 1597, Pedro Bautista and his friars, along with catechists and helpers of the convent, to which Paul Miki, catechist of the Jesuits and two other assistants joined, were taken to the public jail of Kyoto and subjected to punishment cutting part of their left ears asa sign of shame. They were made to march through the cities of Kyoto, Fushimi, Osaka and Sakay and, in the Japanese winter, with tremendous snowfall, sometimes on foot, on horseback and on boats for a long journey of about 800 miles to the place of execution on top of the hill Nishizaka in Nagasaki.
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| The martyrdom of st. Pedro Bautista and companions. This painting was used as the tapestry image for their Beatification and Canonization rites in Rome |
The Beatification and Canonization
In 1598, an envoy from the Philippines was authorized by Hideyoshi to gather the last remains of the martyrs and their crosses. But the place soon became a place of pilgrimage and became known as Martyrs Hill. As soon as the news of their martyrdom came, the church bells of Intramuros and the bells of the churches that he established were runged immediately and "Te Deum" was sung afterwards.
On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14, 1627, Pope Urban VIII declared the Franciscan martyrs blessed. The Jesuits were later beatified in 1629.
The group of St. Pedro Bautista was canonized with his five fellow Franciscans Saints Martin de Asuncion, Felipe de Jesus, Francisco Blanco, Francisco de San Miguel and Gonsalvo Garcia, Seventeen Japanese laity composed of Saints Antony Dainan, Bonaventure of Miyako, Cosmas Takeya, Francisco of Nagasaki, Francis Kichi, Gabriel de Duisco, Joachim Sakakibara, John Kisaka, Leo Karasumaru, Louis Ibaraki (The youngest of the group), Matthias of Miyako, Michael Kozaki, Paul Ibaraki, Paul Suzuki, Pedro Sukejiroo, Thomas Kozaki and Thomas Xico and three Japanese religious brothers composed of Saints James Kisai, John Soan de Goto and Paul Mikiwere in 1862 by Blessed Pope Pius IX.
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| St. Pedro Bautista in heavenly glory |
Even though most of the martyrs were Franciscans (six Franciscan friars and seventeen collaborators), it was Paul Miki, the Japanese Jesuit, who has chosen as the leading figure to highlight that he is the first Japanese saint. But perhaps it would be better for us here in the Philippines to have this memorial as St. Pedro Bautista and Companions. However, in the Philippines, considering the legacy that he left in the country, St. Pedro Bautista was chosen to lead the group of the first Martyrs of Japan for their Memorial Masses.
St. Pedro Bautista is honored in the country with churches that were dedicated in his honor, notably the Parish of San Pedro Bautista in Candelaria, Quezon province and the the Santuario de San Pedro Bautista, the Church that he himself established as a retreat center dedicated to Nuestra Señora de los Angeles. The Santuario still preserves the cave that he once rested which is now known as the "Cueva Santa" that pilgrims visit up to this day. The Santuario was elevated as a Minor Basilica and the elevation rites took place on September 14, 2020 - The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
With the exemplary and extraordinary life of St. Pedro Bautista, one needs to rethink on the perception of the Friars in the country. We have to re-examine our own history and not to rely much on our nationalistic tendencies for some actual facts might say otherwise. We have to stop the perpetuation of the propaganda that the people muddled to the Friars, for without these good friars, the nation will still be in the dark. In honoring Saint Pedro Bautista, we are showing not only gratitude to the legacy that he left to the nation but also seeing him as an example to work tirelessly on bring the Good News to others, even offering our lives for this noble cause.
San Pedro Bautista, Ipanalangin mo kami!
References:
Devotees of San Pedro Bautista (1982), "San Pedro Bautista : A Saint in the Philippines", Santuario de San Pedro Bautista, Quezon City.
Rañoa, Andres B.OFM, The Life of San Pedro Bautista, Retreived from http://ofmphil.org/subpage.php subcatid=00000068&subpagetitle=LIFE%20OF%20SAN%20PEDRO%20BAUTISTA&catid=00000002&pagetitle=WHO%20ARE%20WE?.
San Antonio, Juan Francisco de. (1738), "Chronicas de la Apostolica Provincia de San Gregorio", Convento de Ntra. Sra. de Loreto., Manila.
I grew up in San Francisco del Monte in Quezon City. I learned my early catechism together with a small group of children every Sunday morning from the San Pedro Bautista church . I have very fond memories of the church and the Franciscan priests who had a very strong influence on the community. I personally benefited from the works of San Pedro Bautista because of the church he founded and his prayerful attitude which is immortalized in the "sacred cave." I have also been to the San Pedro Church in Candelaria, Quezon province. Praise God for this holy saint who lived among Filipinos and nurtured our Catholic faith.
ReplyDeleteIs it true that very old frescoes were white-washed or painted over during a beautification of the old church in the 1970s?
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