San Lorenzo Ruiz
The first Filipino saint was a mestizo de sangley (mixed Chinese and Filipino), and I want to honor that by dressing him in a plain camisa de chino (left, collarless shirt with round neck; part of his traditional iconography) and also in a variant of the barong Tagalog that borrows elements from the Tangzhuang. His rosary has the Dominican cross because he was a lay brother under the Dominicans.
San Lorenzo Ruiz was born in Binondo, Manila, site of the city's Chinatown. In 1636, after being accused of murdering a Spaniard, he sought refuge with Dominican missionaries and went with them to Japan. In Nagasaki, they endured horrific torture including waterboarding and denailing in an effort to coerce them to renounce their faith. Finally, they were put through the tsurushi, a Japanese torture technique in which the victim is hung upside-down in a hole filled with sewage. Two days of this torture, and he refused to recant. His last words were:
I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly do accept death for God;
Had I a thousand lives, all these to Him shall I offer.
Cardinal Tagle sings "Sanlibong Buhay" (A Thousand Lives), composed by Jandi Arboleda and Father Manoling Francisco, SJ.
ᜁᜌᜈᜎᜅᜒᜈ᜔ ᜋᜓ ᜃᜋᜒ᜶
