Heroic Christian Missionaries and Martyrs in Pagan Cultures

Below, I’m sharing the story of Saint Pedro Calungsod a martyr of the Philippines.

 

Saint Pedro Calungsod is one of many saints martyred by pagan, tribal peoples, or atheistic states, often in the most brutal and torturous ways.

These genuine missionaries did not go seeking gold or glory but out of love for Jesus and the salavation of souls they willingly laid down their lives like their Lord did when He walked the earth.

 Let’s honour them.

Saint Pedro Calungsod was educated by the Jesuits in the Visayas, a section of the Philippines. Pedro could read, write and speak Visayan, Spanish, and Chamorro, paint, draw, sing, and worked as a carpenter. 

Pedro was a teenage catechist who worked with Spanish Jesuit missionaries to the violent Chamarros in the Ladrones Islands (modern Marianas) in 1668. 

Because he was a Christian on a mission to catechise the Chamorros, and perform baptisms, Calungsod was murdered by two natives. He was hacked to death with a catana on 2 April 1672 at Tomhom, Guam and his mutilated body was thrown into the sea.

He died trying to defend Father Diego Luis de San Vitores. Martyr. Witnesses record that Pedro could have fled for safety but chose to stay at Father Diego's side. The priest was able to give Pedro absolution before he himself was killed.

Saint Pedro Calungsod was Beatified on March 2000 by Pope John Paul II at Vatican City after an investigation proved the miraculous cure of bone cancer through Pedro's intercession.

 Official Prayer for Pedro Calungsod

Almighty God, by whose gift Blessed Pedro the Martyr witnessed to the Gospel, even to the shedding of his blood: grant, by his example and intercession, that we too may live for You, boldly and steadfastly, confessing Your name through our Lord, Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Forgotten Stories 

We are often taught these days about how awful it was that missionaries went into non Christian, pagan lands and tried to catechise the natives.

Yet we forget that many of these peoples’ pagan belief systems led to child sacrifice, to idols and terrible warfare between tribes including cannibalism. Women, the young and the infirm were often maligned in these societies and these societies were often deeply hierarchical and patriarchal. These hierarchies weren’t founded on Jesus’s command that ‘those who wish to lead should become servants of all’, but on the survival of the fittest.

Modern, new ageism, romanticises the tribal peoples and nature itself.

But nature is fallen and though often very beautiful is also deadly and ruthless.

Tribal peoples’ with animistic, pagan beliefs saw nature as animated by ‘spirits’. They read nature as a way of divination and they sacrificed to nature.

They lived basic lives that were at the mercy of nature often and repaid violence with more violence.

We forget how destructive pagan cultures are yet, Europeans’ have their  own example from ancient Rome  to the barbarian tribes of Scandinavia.

Christianity brought a completely new way of thinking and being to the world.

Jesus’s life, death, resurrection and teachings ( outlined particularly in the Sermon on the Mount) were so profound, they divided history into two parts.

 Jesus was The Word Made Flesh. Jesus was God himself clothed in humanity to save humanity from itself.

Many tribes people, both European, African, Asian and American welcomed Christianity.

Native Americans such as Kateri Tekakwitha and Nicholas Black Elk are notable examples. 

Anyone who caused intentional spiritual or physical harm to tribal people while calling themselves a missionary of Christ was a hypocrite and according to Jesus’s own words was not a part of The Kingdom of Heaven. 

Jesus said, 

‘Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will. enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who. does the will of my Father who is in heaven.’

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

True Christianity brings forth these commandments of love to the world through Christ’s mystical body on earth: The Church and Her Sacraments.

In places and peoples where The Holy Spirit has been authentically poured out there has been deep healing and restoration.

There is still brokenness in the world but through The Church Jesus established The Holy Spirit works still.

We are not told this story. The enemy of our souls doesn’t want us to access the truth so he tries to infiltrate, attack and pervert it so people will look anywhere but to Jesus, the only one who will save their souls. 

There are so many stories of hope, healing, restoration and goodness, where Christian missionaries brought Jesus to indigenous peoples and did great good for their communities. Below are just a few examples:

Saint Dominic of Molokai

Saint Teresa of Calcutta

Saint Herman of Alaska

Blessed Charles de Foucauld