The reading from the Book of Kings tells us that Solomon stood before the people and proclaimed his faith in God before them. So, too, in very different circumstances, Paul Miki, the first Jesuit Martyr, acted as the spokesman for the twenty-six Japanese who were about to be martyred and declared his faith in Jesus as our Saviour. Jesus says in the Gospel of Luke: "Everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will acknowledge him before the angels of God". Thus the Japanese Christians acknowledged Jesus at the cost of their lives, as in so many other countries other Christians were willing to do. Not all of us are called to acknowledge Jesus by a martyr's death, as did the Japanese Martyrs at Nagasaki. But all of us who profess the Christian faith and claim to be Christians, are indeed expected to acknowledge Jesus by our words, actions and attitudes in the ordinary circumstances of daily life, where constancy in our fidelity to God and the Gospel will serve as a different kind of martyrdom