KIKU’S PRAYER
by Shusaku Endo
Kiku’s Prayer is a Japanese Christian novel set during one of the periods of Christian persecution in Japan during the seventeenth century. It tells the story of the imprisonment and torture of the Urakami Christians and its impact upon Japan’s relations with an increasingly modernizing world – through the eyes of a girl named Kiku.
Kiku is a young girl who is raised to believe that Christians are trouble-makers, until she meets Seikichi, whose ancestors have been passing on the secret Christian faith and Father Petitjean, a French priest who has spent years searching for Japan’s hidden Christians.
Her decision to help Seikichi, who has been imprisoned by the local shogunal authorities for being a Kirishitan or secret Christian, brings her to people who provide her with comfort – and those who cause her unbearable harm.
When Kiku learns of the torture that Seikichi and the other Christians are being subjected to in prison for refusing to renounce Jesus, she runs into the cathedral where Father Petitjean works. Though she is not a Christian, she pours out her heart in front of a statue of Mother Mary pleading that, since she too is a woman, she must understand how Kiku feels and save the man she loves.
Without suffering, one individual can never be fully connected to another. Do you see? Suffering links people to one another.
Kiku’s Prayer
Kiku’s Prayer is a sorrowful yet realistic description of life for many Christians in the world today. From this book by Shusaku Endo, readers learn more about the suffering that Christians around the world experience for following Jesus Christ – and what our response should be.
PRAYER
Dear Jesus, thank you for understanding the suffering of the hidden Christians. Even though they went through unbelievable trials, believers responded to persecution with love and strengthened their resolve to follow you. Continue to bless believers in Japan, and the entire country. In Jesus’ Name, amen.
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DID YOU KNOW?
The statue of Mother Mary, which is featured throughout this book, is on display at Oura Church in Nagasaki in Japan, a cathedral that was damaged during the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945.