The Filipino-American community of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Tampa, FL will incorporate the celebration of the Feast of San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila on Saturday, September 30, 2023 at the 5:30PM Mass. Many thanks to the efforts of parishioners Jun and Gloria Biaquis, Jojie Vicedo, and to Rev. Hector Cruz-Lesbros, SM who will officiate this celebratory mass.
Lorenzo Ruiz is the first Filipino saint venerated in the Catholic Church. He became martyr for his country and his faith after his execution in Japan by the Tokugawa Shogunate during its persecution of Japanese Christians in the 17th century.
He was born in Binondo, Manila on November 28, 1594. Refusing to recant his faith, he bled to death by tsurushi, a painful form of torture in Japan on September 29, 1637 at the age of 42. According to Latin missionary accounts sent back to Manila, Lorenzo declared upon his death:
Ego Catholicus sum et animo prompto paratoque pro Deo mortem obibo.
Si mille vitas haberem, cunctas ei offerrem.
(I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly do accept death for God;
Had I a thousand lives, all these to Him shall I offer.)
Lorenzo Ruiz was beatified by Pope John Paul II during his first visit to the Philippines in 1981, making it the first beatification ceremony ever held outside Vatican City. He was later on canonized in the Vatican City on October 18, 1987, making him the first Filipino saint.
