Today is the feast of Saint Lorenzo Ruiz (+1637), born of a Chinese father and a Filipino mother, raised well in the Catholic Faith which had been brought to the Phillippines by Dominican priests, at whose Masses he would serve. His beautiful handwriting landed him employment as an escribano, an ecclesiastical scribe and calligrapher (would we had such jobs nowadays). He married, settled down, and was raising three children when he was mysteriously accused – falsely it seems – of killing a Spaniard, so he sought asylum aboard a ship with some Dominican priests, which was on its way to
