Saint Lorenzo Ruiz was born in the Philippines and was a happily married family man who joined the Dominican Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary. He was accused of murder and fled on a Dominican mission ship to Japan. At that time, the rulers of Japan were persecuting Christians, so they were arrested, tortured unbearably for 2 years and died by the “gallows and pit”. In 1983, St. Lorenzo, the first Filipino saint and martyr, was canonized by Pope John Paul II after a 2-year-old girl was miraculously cured of hydrocephaly.
