To Die a Thousand deaths for the True Faith - The Companion Martyrs of Saint Lorenzo Ruiz
St. Lorenzo Ruiz and his companion martyrs in a parish dedicated to the group in Navotas (Photo by Rev. Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP) Majority of Filipino Catholics knew Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, the country's first ever Filipino canonized Saint. The whole nation rejoiced on the announcement, the beatification (held in Manila) and canonization rites in the 1980's. Numerous images, statues, books, novena booklets, prayer cards and other religious paraphernalia are widely circulated up to this day and after the canonization rites, schools, parishes and chapels were immediately erected in his honor. But if we look on the official Church documents, he was not canonized alone for he was canonized together with a group of Spanish and Japanese priests and Japanese lay men and women and he was made the leader of this particular group of martyrs. One common denominator of the group is that all of them died a martyrs death because of their missionary efforts in the then feudal Japanese empire that...