Blessed Justo Takayama Ukon was a Japanese samurai who played a very important role in the propagation of the spirituality of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. As a child he was converted to Christianity and was baptized with the Latin name of Just, all these changes were not very positive socially as he suffered the consequences of Tokugawa who distrusted the progress that was taking the Christian faith in Japan.
In 1614, Tokugawa decided to expel all the missionaries from the country and forbade the Japanese to practice Christianity but Takayama abandoned all his possessions and physical belongings but did not abandon the faith and left the country in the direction of the Philippines which at that time was the Crown Spanish. A few years later he traveled to Manila where he died. His task turned him into a martyred cause and there were several attempts to beatify him until the year 2017 that the Japanese Episcopal Conference achieved.
On the occasion of this beatification in 2017, Santi and Maria Angeles, current missionaries in Japan, and with the concern of wanting to put the Blessed in their manger, they contacted me to reproduce and be able to complete their manger in Japan.
At the moment the original painting of the Blessed is in the Cathedral of Osaka in Japan, but as I entered in this new order I arrived at the Cave of San Ignacio de Manresa (Catalonia) where there is a mosaic where the figure of the Beat comes out. In the following "link" you can read the article of the Vanguard where the story of Takayama is explained.
On Wednesday, November 28, 2018, the figure was presented to the Cardinal of Osaka who, according to the words, said that "It is the most beautiful figure I have seen so far on the beat" and allowed two to be exhibited at the Osaka Cathedral and at the disposal of who wants to buy them
The auxiliary bishop Josep Maria Abella, a Claretian from Lleida, was present, and as translator, to the delivery of the figure that was made to the Pope (Francisco), in the Vatican, where he commented that he liked sculpture a lot but especially that the sword of the samurai had become a cross.