Saint of the Day: St. Lawrence Ruiz and Companions

(d. 1633 to 1637)

Their story

+ Between 1633 and 1637 sixteen martyrs were executed at Nagasaki, Japan.

+ The group was comprised of both professed Dominican religious and Dominican tertiaries, who had worked to spread the Gospel in the Philippines, Formosa, and Japan.

+ Included among the martyrs is Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, a Filipino husband and father who was also a member of the Holy Rosary Archconfraternity.

+ Saint Lorenzo—honored as the first canonized Filipino saint—was canonized with the other martyrs in 1987. Saint Lorenzo is honored as a patron saint of the Philippines.

For prayer and reflection

“I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly do accept death for God. Had I a thousand lives all these to Him shall I offer.”—Saint Lorenzo Ruiz

Spiritual bonus

On September 28 we also remember Blessed Nikita Budka. Ordained a priest in the Ukrainian Catholic Church in 1905, he was named first bishop of Ukrainian Catholics in Canada in 1912 and, that same year, auxiliary bishop of Lviv, Ukraine. In 1945, Bishop Budka was arrested for his faith and sentenced to eight years of hard labor in a Soviet concentration camp. Blessed Nikita Budka died from abuse and neglect in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and is honored as a martyr. He was beatified in 2001.

Prayer

Grant us, we pray, Lord God,
the same perseverance shown by your Martyrs
Saint Lawrence Ruiz and his companions
in serving you and their neighbor,
since those persecuted for the sake of righteousness
are blessed in your Kingdom.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(from The Roman Missal)

Saint profiles prepared by Brother Silas Henderson, S.D.S.