Saint Lorenzo Ruiz (1594-1637 AD)
Feast Day: September 28
Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, whose Chinese name is Li Lelun, was the first martyr of the Philippines and the first Saint from the Philippines to be canonized.
Lorenzo Ruiz was born in Binondo, Manila, on 28 November 1594, to a Chinese father and a Filipino mother who were both Catholic. His father taught him Chinese while his mother taught him Tagalog.
In the early seventeenth century, Lorenzo went to Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan for asylum, at the time when the Tokugawa shogunate was carrying out religious persecution. He was martyred on September 29, 1637 because he refused to change his beliefs.
Lorenzo Ruiz, together with five other companion martyrs, were canonized by Pope St. John Paul II on October 18, 1987 during his papal visit to the Philippines; it was the first canonization ceremony to be held outside the Vatican in history. Lorenzo Ruiz is the patron saint of the Filipino people. The healing of a two-year-old girl diagnosed with hydrocephalus was attributed to St. Lorenzo Ruiz’s intercession.