St. Lorenzo Ruiz and Companions

Their story

Lorenzo Ruiz was born around 1600 in Manila, in the Philippines, to a Chinese father and a Filipino mother. He was raised Catholic, served as an altar boy with the Dominican friars and earned his living as a calligrapher. He married and had three children. In 1636 Lorenzo was falsely accused of a crime. Fearing for his life, he fled on a ship with several Dominican missionaries, not knowing that they were bound for Japan, where Christianity had been outlawed and Christians were being hunted and killed. Soon after they landed, they were arrested and taken to Nagasaki. There Lorenzo and his companions endured horrible tortures meant to make them renounce their faith. Lorenzo refused, declaring, "I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly accept death for God. Had I a thousand lives, all these I shall offer to Him." He died in September 1637. He is honored together with fifteen other martyrs who died in Japan in those years, priests, religious and lay people from Japan, the Philippines, Spain, France and Italy. Pope St. John Paul II canonized them in 1987. Lorenzo is the first Filipino saint and a patron of the Philippines and of Filipinos working far from home.