Saint of the Day - St. Lorenzo Ruiz (September 28th)
Channel: House of Prayers for Everyone (HOPE)
Date: 2023-09-27

Saint Lorenzo Ruiz of Manila is the first Filipino saint venerated in the Catholic Church and is commemorated every Sept. 28th.

Early Life

Lorenzo Ruiz was born on November 28, 1594, in Binondo, Manila to a Chinese father and a Filipino mother who were both Catholic.

Lorenzo served as an altar boy at the Binondo Church. After being educated by the Dominican friars for a few years, Lorenzo earned the title of "escribano" (scrivener) because of his skillful penmanship. He became a member of the Cofradía del Santísimo Rosario (Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary).

He was married to Rosario, a native, and they have two sons and a daughter. The Ruiz family led a generally peaceful, religious, and content life. However, his life changed in 1636 when while he worked as a clerk for the Binondo Church, Lorenzo was falsely accused of killing a Spaniard.

Lorenzo sought asylum on board a ship with three Dominican priests: Antonio Gonzalez, Guillermo Courtet, and Miguel de Aozaraza; a Japanese priest, Vicente Shiwozuka de la Cruz; and a lay leper Lázaro of Kyoto. Lorenzo and his companions sailed for Okinawa on June 10, 1636, with the aid of the Dominican fathers.

Martyrdom

During the time they arrived in Japan, the Tokugawa Shogunate was persecuting Christians because they feared that the Spanish invaded the Philippines through using religion. The missionaries were immediately arrested and thrown into prison, and after two years, they were transferred to Nagasaki to face trial by torture. The group endured many and various cruel methods of torture.

On September 27, 1637, Lorenzo and his companions were taken to Nishizaka Hill, where they were tortured by being hung upside-down over a pit. This form of torture was known as "tsurushi" in Japanese or horca y hoya ("gallows and pit") in Spanish. The method had the victim bound; one hand was always left free so that the individual may signal their desire to recant, leading to their release.

Despite his suffering, Lorenzo refused to renounce Christianity. Lorenzo died two days later on September 29, 1637. His body was cremated, with the ashes thrown into the sea.

According to Latin missionary accounts sent back to Manila, Lorenzo declared these words before he died:

"I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly do accept death for God;
Had I a thousand lives, all these to Him shall I offer."

Veneration

The Positio Super Introductione Causae (the cause of beatification) of Lorenzo Ruiz was written by Spanish historian Fidel Villarroel. The central document found to exhibit Ruiz's martyrdom was an eyewitness account by two Japanese ex-priests from the Society of Jesus, rediscovered by Villaroel at the Jesuit Generalate archive in Rome, an unlikely location as Ruiz was of the Dominican order.

Lorenzo was beatified during Pope John Paul II's papal visit to the Philippines in 1981. It was the first beatification ceremony to be held outside the Vatican in history. Lorenzo was canonized in the Vatican City on October 18, 1987, among the 16 Martyrs of Japan, making him the first Filipino saint.

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Images attributed to the following:
- By Judgefloro - Own work, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
- By Unknown author - Reproduction of a 17th century engraving. Boxer, C.R. The Christian Century in Japan, 1549–1650. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1951. ISBN 1-85754-035-2 (1993 reprint edition)., Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons