Jay Cocks

I do because you are just like me. You see Jesus in Gethsemane and believe your trial is the same as His. Those five in the pit are suffering too, just like Jesus, but they don't have your pride. They would never compare themselves to Jesus. Do you have the right to make them suffer? I heard the cries of suffering in this same cell. And I acted.

There's a saying in here: "Mountains and rivers can be moved but men's nature cannot be moved".

I pray too, Rodrigues. It doesn't help. Go on, pray. But pray with your eyes open.

1633. Pax Christi. Praised be God. Although for us there is little peace in this land now. I never knew Japan when it was a country of light, but I have never known it to be as dark as it is now. All our progress has ended in new persecution, new repression, new suffering. They use ladles filled with holes so the drops would come out slowly, and the pain would be prolonged. Each small splash of the water was like a burning coal. The Governor of Nagasaki took four friars, and one of our own society to Unsen. There are hotsprings there. The Japanese call them "hells," partly I think, in mockery. And partly, I must tell you, in truth.

The officials told our Padres to abandon God and the gospel of his love. But they not only refused to apostatize, they asked to be tortured so they could demonstrate the strength of their faith and the presence of God within them. Some remained on the mountain for 33 days. The story of their courage gives hope to those of us priests who remain here in secret. We will not abandon our hidden Christians who live in fear. We only grow stronger in his love.

Rodrigues, please listen. The Japanese only believe in their distortion of our gospel. So they did not believe at all. They never believed.

Francis Xavier came here to teach the Japanese about the son of God. But first he had to ask how to refer to God. "Dainichi", he was told. And shall I show you their Dainichi?

Behold... there is the SUN of God. God's only begotten sun. In the scriptures Jesus rose on the third day. In Japan... the sun of God rises daily.

The Japanese cannot think of an existence beyond the realm of nature. For them, nothing transcends the human.

I pray but I am lost. Am I just praying to silence?

I worry, they value these poor signs of faith more than faith itself. But how can we deny them?

I feel so tempted. I feel so tempted to despair. I'm afraid. The weight of your silence is terrible. I pray, but I'm lost. Or am I just praying to nothing? Nothing. Because you are not there.

Surely God heard their prayers as they died. But did He hear their screams?

The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.

Father, how could Jesus love a wretch like this? There is evil all around in this place. I sense its strength, even its beauty. But there is none of that in this man. He is not worthy to be called evil.

I thought that martyrdom would be my salvation. Please, please, God, do not let it be my shame. The Lord is my refuge, and my deliverer. My God is my helper, and in Him will I put my trust. Of the Blood, all price exceeding, shed by our immortal King, destined for the world's redemption.

The black soil of Japan is filled with the wailing of so many Christians, the red blood of priests has flowed profusely, the walls of the church have fallen down.

...surely God heard their prayers as they died... but did he hear their screams?

These people are the most devoted of Gods creatures on Earth. Father Valignano, I confess I began to wonder - God sends us trials to test us and everything he does is good, and I prayed to undergo trials like his son - but why must their trials be so terrible, and why when I look in my own heart do the answers I give them seem so weak.

Newland. You couldn't be happy if it meant being cruel. If we act any other way I'll be making you act against what I love in you most. And I can't go back to that way of thinking. Don't you see? I can't love you unless I give you up.

I think we should look at reality, not dreams.

I can't be your wife, Newland! Is it your idea that I should live with you as your mistress?

How can we be happy behind the backs of people who trust us?

Is New York such a labyrinth? I thought it was all straight up and down like Fifth Avenue. All the cross streets numbered and big honest labels on everything.

Then I must count on you for warnings too.

They never knew what it meant to be tempted, but you did. You understood. I've never known that before - and it's better than anything I've known.

Centuries and centuries. So long, I'm sure I'm dead and buried, in this dear old place, as heaven.

I know. I know, as long as they don't hear anything unpleasant. Does no one here want to know - want to know the truth, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only asks you to pretend.

Do you think her lover will send her a box of yellow roses tomorrow morning?

Don't make love to me. Too many people have done that.

May I tell you what most interests me about New York; not all the blind obeying of traditions, somebody else's traditions; it seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it a copy of another country. Do you suppose Christopher Columbus would have taken all that trouble just to go to the opera with Larry Lefferts?

I should go were I'm invited or I should be too lonely.

So, how do you like this odd little house? To me it's like heaven.

I remember we played together. How this brings it all back to me. I remember everybody here the same way in knickerbockers and pantalettes.

I gave up arguing with young people 50 years ago.

Your name was Beaufort when he covered you with jewels and it's got to stay Beaufort now that he's covered you with shame.

The entire family is difficult! Not one of them wants to be different. When they are different, they end up like Ellen's parents. No masks. Continental wanderers, dragging Ellen about, lavishing on her an expensive but incoherent education. Out of all of them, I don't believe there's one that takes after me, but my little Ellen. You've got a quick eye. Why in the world didn't you marry her?

Know each other? Everybody in New York has always known everybody. Don't wait till the bubbles off the wine. Marry them before Lent. I may catch pneumonia any winter now and I want to give the Wedding Breakfast.

We should remember, marriage is marriage and Ellen is still a wife.

I'm forty-seven. Forty-seven years old. You know how I stayed alive this long? All these years? Fear. The spectacle of fearsome acts. Somebody steals from me, I cut off his hands. He offends me, I cut out his tongue. He rises against me, I cut off his head, stick it on a pike, raise it high up so all on the streets can see. That's what preserves the order of things. Fear.

At my challenge, by the ancient laws of combat, we have met at this chosen ground, to settle for good and all who holds sway over the Five Points: us natives, born right wise to this fine land, or the foreign hordes defiling it.

Here's the thing. I don't give a tuppenny fuck about your moral conundrum, you meat-headed shit-sack. That's more or less the thing. And I want you to go out there... You, nobody else. None of your little minions. I want you to go out there. And I want you to punish the person who's responsible for murdering this poor little rabbit. Is that understood?

I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth. You can build your filthy world without me. I took the father. Now I'll take the son. You tell young Vallon I'm gonna paint Paradise Square with his blood. Two coats. I'll festoon my bedchamber with his guts. As for you, Mr. Tammany-fucking-Hall, you come down to the Points again, and you'll be dispatched by my own hand. Get back to your celebration and let me eat in peace.

The Priest and me, we lived by the same principles. It was only faith divided us. He gave me this, you know? That was the finest beating I ever took. My face was pulp. My guts was pierced, my ribs was all mashed up. And when he came to finish me, I couldn't look him in the eye. He spared me, because he wanted me to live in shame. This was a great man. A great man. So I out out the eye that looked away, I sent it to him wrapped in blue paper. I would've cut them both out if I could have fought him blind. And I rose back up again with a full heart… and buried him in his own blood. He was the only man I ever killed worth remembering.

My father gave his life, making this country what it is. Murdered by the British with all of his men on the twenty fifth of July, anno domini, 1814. Do you think I'm going to help you befoul his legacy, by giving this country over to them, what's had no hand in the fighting for it? Why, because they come off a boat crawling with lice and begging you for soup.

Everything you see belongs to me, to one degree or another. The beggars and newsboys and quick thieves here in Paradise, the sailor dives and gin mills and blind tigers on the waterfront, the anglers and amusers, the she-hes and the Chinks. Everybody owes, everybody pays. Because that's how you stand up against the rising of the tide.

We hold in our hearts the memory of our fallen brothers whose blood stains the very streets we walk today. Also on this night we pay tribute to the leader of our enemies, an honorable man, who crossed over bravely, fighting for what he believed in. To defeat my enemy, I extinguish his life, and consume him as I consume these flames. In honor of Priest Vallon.

He ain't earned a death! He ain't a death at my hands! No, he'll walk amongst you marked with shame, a freak worthy of Barnum's Museum of Wonders. God's only man, spared by the Butcher.

Ears and noses will be the trophies of the day. But no hand shall touch him. NO hand shall touch him! He'll cross over whole. With honor.