Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, martyr of Manila

Saint Lorenzo Ruiz of Manila was the first Filipino canonized saint. He was born around 1600 in Binondo, Manila, to a Chinese father and a Filipino mother. He was an altar boy, a calligrapher, and a member of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, and he later married and had three children. In 1636, falsely accused of a crime, he left Manila with a group of Dominican missionaries bound for Japan, where Christians were being persecuted. He was arrested there and taken to Nagasaki. After days of torture, he refused to renounce his faith and was martyred on September 29, 1637. John Paul II canonized him in 1987. His feast day is September 28, and he is venerated as a patron of Filipino youth, altar servers, and overseas Filipino workers.