St. Lorenzo Ruiz was born 1594 in Manilla in the Philippines. His father was Chinese, and his mother was Filipino. Both of his parents were Christians and ensured that Lorenzo received a strong education in the Faith.
Lorenzo enjoyed serving as an altar boy in his youth. He was educated by the Dominicans. When he was a young man, Lorenzo decided to join the Dominican Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary.
The modern church of the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, National Shrine of San Lorenzo Ruiz where he used to Serve as a layman and a scribe.
Lorenzo married a native Filipino woman named Rosario. The two of them had three children. Their family led a holy, ordinary life.
In 1636, Lorenzo was falsely accused of killing a Spaniard. To escape arrest, he fled to a ship that was about to sail for Japan. Onboard were three Dominican priests and a layman who had leprosy.
At the time when the ship arrived in Okinawa, the Japanese government was persecuting Christians. So Lorenzo was arrested for being a Christian. His captors ordered him to renounce his faith, but he refused. He was imprisoned for two years.
Then, in 1637, Lorenzo’s captors took him and his companions to Nagasaki. They gave Lorenzo and his companions the choice to renounce the Christian Faith or be tortured and killed.
First, Lorenzo and his companions were tortured by water. Their captors poured water into their mouths so forcefully that it came out their noses and ears. Lorenzo and his companions refused to renounce their Faith, despite this torture.
Lorenzo and his companions were then tortured through tsurushi or “gallows and pit,” in which victims are hung upside down with a rope around their ankles and a gash cut in their head to prevent very much blood from gathering in their heads.
The torturers left one hand untied so that the victims could use the hand to show they were willing to renounce their Faith. But Lorenzo refused to renounce his Faith. He died from blood loss and suffocation, after two days of torture. His companions also held steadfast to the point of death.
As Lorenzo prepared to die, he said, “I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly do accept death for God. Had I a thousand lives, all these to Him I shall offer. Do with me as you please.”
St. Lorenzo Ruiz was beatified in 1981 by Pope St. John Paul II at a ceremony in the Philippines, the first beatification ceremony to be held outside the Vatican.
Saint Lorenzo's Canonization:
St. Lorenzo’s Feast Day: September 28th
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