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The saints

St. Lorenzo Ruiz and Companions

A Filipino husband and father on the run, who ended up dying for Christ in Japan.

Feast: 28 September · about 1600 to 1637 · Reformation and missions · Manila and Nagasaki

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Stained-glass window of St. Lorenzo Ruiz holding a palm and a rosary.

Judgefloro, 2016. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Home / The saints / St. Lorenzo Ruiz and Companions

Nagasaki, 1637

Lorenzo was a married layman in Manila, with a Chinese father and a Filipino mother, and he worked as a calligrapher.1

Accused of a crime, he fled the Philippines on a ship with Dominican missionaries.1

The ship went to Japan, where Christians were being hunted.

Patronage No official patronage we can cite yet. The Church remembers him as the first Filipino saint.

01St. Lorenzo Ruiz and Companions

Nagasaki

He was arrested with the missionaries and tortured.1

He said he was a Christian and would die for God, and he was killed at Nagasaki with fifteen companions.1

Live it this week

Answer the question when it comes

Lorenzo didn’t plan to be a martyr; he just answered honestly. This week, when faith comes up in conversation, say plainly that you’re Catholic and why it matters to you.

Notes

How we know · 1 source for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Lorenzo Ruiz and Companions”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.