I made my first and only visit to the Philippines with friends in 2015. I am grateful to have made that trip as a young adult. My friends took me to my mom’s hometown. They also took me to the see the Black Nazarene. This place connected me to my grandmother who had an immense devotion to the suffering Christ. My grandmother had a replica statue made of the Black Nazarene and donated it to Saint Patrick Church in San Francisco.

One of the treasured memories of my time in the Philippines was stopping by the Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila.

Lorenzo was beatified in 1981 during Pope John Paul II’s visit to the Philippines. It was the first beatification outside of the Vatican! Lorenzo was canonized in 1987. In 1992, the pope made Lorenzo’s home parish a minor basilica. It is the tenth minor basilica in the Philippines and the fourth minor basilica in Manila.

September 28 commemorates the memory of this great saint and his companions. Lorenzo is the first martyr and saint for the Filipino people. He told his executioners:

Pope John Paul commented on this heroic statement stating:

“Here we have him summed up; here we have a description of his faith and the reason fοr his death. It was at this moment that this young father of a family professed and brought to completion the Christian catechesis that he had received in the Dominican Friars’ school in Binondo: a catechesis that cannot be other than Christ-centered, by reason both of the mystery it contains and the fact that it is Christ who teaches through the lips of his messenger … Just as the young Church in Jerusalem brought forth its first martyr for Christ in the person of the deacon Stephen, sο the young Church in Manila, founded in 1579, brought forth its first martyr in the person of Lorenzo Ruiz, who had served in the parish church of Saint Gabriel in Binondo. The local parish and the family, the domestic church, are indeed the center of faith that is lived, taught and witnessed to.”

Lorenzo’s heroic statement is poetic and clutches at the heart of every believer. How I wish I was just as heroic! Lorenzo loved Jesus and that love bore fruit in the shedding of his own blood. Convicted of this intimate union with Christ, he offered to give a thousand of his lives to Jesus. Jesus was the center of his life and that is obvious by his statement: “I am a Christian.” It must be an amazing thing to think of Jesus at the moment of death. Every heartbeat to its very end beats for his intimate friend, Jesus.

Not all of us have the call to be martyrs. But we do have the call to give Jesus our whole lives. Yes, this one life is a gift!

May this one life be so significant in the eyes of Christ. May many see the glory of God through us. So, as we live this day, may our one life be the perfect gift of praise.