July 25 (Feast of Saint James)

The Feast of Saint James, July 25, 1638, marks a decisive turning point in the sea voyage of Sebastian Rodrigues, Francisco Garrpe, and Juan de Santa Marta from Lisbon to Japan. On this day, the ship Santa Isabella rounded the Cape of Good Hope, but the milestone was immediately overshadowed by a violent storm that broke the mast, crashed it onto the deck, and drove the ship onto a rock, nearly sinking it. The event encapsulates the physical ordeal of the missionaries' journey and prefigures the spiritual and physical trials they will face in Japan, where the silence of God will become their greatest test.

The Storm and Near-Shipwreck

On July 25, the feast of Saint James, the ship at last rounded the Cape of Good Hope. A violent wind arose, breaking the mast, which crashed down on the deck with a rending sound. Even the sick, along with Rodrigues and his companions, were summoned to rescue the foresail from the same peril. Scarcely had they succeeded when the ship ran onto a rock. Only the assistance of other ships prevented the Santa Isabella from sinking then and there. The storm was the culmination of a series of earlier calamities: a terrible storm off the West African coast three days after departure, ceaseless rain at the Canary Islands, an outbreak of disease that left more than one hundred victims moaning on the deck, and the oppressive heat of windless calms. The journey had already been prolonged by these mishaps, and food and water had become scarce.

Aftermath and Context

After the storm, the wind again calmed, and the sail lay lifeless, its pitch-black shadow falling upon the faces and bodies of the sick who lay like dead men on the deck. The days passed one by one with the glaring heat of the sun beating down upon a sea without even a swell of the waves. These hardships prolonged the journey so that the Santa Isabella did not reach its destination, Goa, until October 9, 1638. The Feast of Saint James thus stands as a moment of acute crisis within a longer narrative of endurance, where the missionaries' physical suffering mirrors the spiritual anguish they will later encounter in Japan. The storm also echoes the earlier departure from the River Tagus on March 25, 1638, when the three missionaries received a blessing from the Bishop and sailed out to a salvo of guns, a moment of hope that now seems distant.

Narrative Significance

The storm on the Feast of Saint James functions as a microcosm of the entire missionary enterprise: a journey undertaken with faith and courage, yet beset by forces beyond human control. The near-shipwreck, the broken mast, and the reliance on other ships for rescue prefigure the way Rodrigues and Garrpe will later depend on the fragile support of Japanese Christians like Mokichi and Ichizo, and how their mission will be repeatedly shattered by persecution. The event also introduces the theme of God's apparent silence in the face of suffering: the missionaries pray and work, but the storm does not abate until it has run its course. This silence will become the central theological crisis of Rodrigues's journey, culminating in his apostasy and his final, paradoxical understanding of Christ's presence in the act of trampling the fumie.