The Filipino Saints for the Filipino American in Me

Bruce Lee for Me

As an Asian American male growing up, there wasn’t a lot of popular public figures that I could recall treating as my childhood hero other than Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee was one of the few popular male Asian figures that made me and my Asian American peers proud. We all had his posters on our walls and many of us were actually inspired to study Martial Arts because of him. I spent many Friday nights watching Bruce Lee movies with my friends. For us, Bruce Lee was a lot more than just a movie actor or a martial artist. He gave Asian boys like myself a sense of pride. He made us visible. He represented what we wanted to become. It was quite exhilarating to see a protagonist on the big screen who looked like me.

In a way, I feel the same kind of pride when we honor the two canonized Filipino saints, San Lorenzo Ruiz and San Pedro Calungsod. They both lived hundreds of years ago, in the 1600s, but their impact on the Church and on today’s Filipinos are profound and long-lasting. In my local parish in the suburbs outside of Seattle, the Filipino community is getting ready to gather and proudly celebrate the Feast of the Filipino Saints this September. For my parish and many other parishes around the world, this Feast Day is reason enough to gather together the members of the Filipino community, for the cooks to prepare some of the special Filipino delicacies, and for the choir to sing some Tagalog music. The Feast Day of the Filipino Saints gives the Filipino faithful another opportunity to express the depth of their faith, the richness of their culture, and the strength of their solidarity built on faith.

In today’s interconnected multicultural small world, representation matters. May it be race, gender, age, or whatever characteristic, it is important that we show appreciation for people, their heritage and their cultural history. With America’s long history of complex racial relations, we need to show others that they matter, that they are welcome, and they are kapwa tao (we have a shared togetherness).

Not Color-Blind

It is true, we are all children of God. All are equal and all are loved the same by our God. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). We are all one in Him. “For the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (Samuel 16:7). Sure, we are to be part of the “One,” “Holy”, “Catholic,” and “Apostolic” Church. But it doesn’t mean that diversity doesn’t exist. It’s not that we don’t see color because we see color. But the colors we see is life. We are one yet many (1 Corinthians 12:14). Diversity is beautiful and colorful. Each color on the rainbow contributes to making the entire spectrum look beautiful. In a choir, each individual voice contributes to producing the beautiful unison of many unique voices and tones that sound so pleasing to the ear. We are one body, one body in Christ, and each part of that body brings a unique set of gifts.

Representation Matters

Representation matters because it shows that I matter, my culture, and my people matter, that my people exist and that other people recognize that. Representation shows that there are people who look like me or sees the world like I do who can also aspire to become saints. Through these two Saints, Filipinos see ourselves and our stories as part of the Church’s narrative.

The stories of San Lorenzo Ruiz and San Pedro Calungsod are something that many Filipino Catholics honor and value because they are stories that Filipinos can relate to. San Lorenzo Ruiz was a simple family man, happily married with three children, and lived an ordinary life. However, his life’s circumstances in the Philippines made him seek refuge outside of the Philippines and thus had to leave his family and immigrate to Japan. But remember this was in the 1600s. Watch the 2016 Martin Scorcese’s movie “Silence” with Andrew Garfield to get a feel for how Japan was in the 1600s. It was a time when Christians were facing deadly persecutions. They were tortured, hanged upside down, and killed for their Christian beliefs. Lorenzo Ruiz was captured by the Japanese and imprisoned for two years for being Christian. And for the entire two years, he was ordered to recant his Christian belief or else he and his companions would be tortured. But he remained steadfast until the end and refused to recant. He and his companions were then killed and his final words were:  "I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly do accept death for God. Had I a thousand lives, all these to Him I shall offer. Do with me as you please.”

San Pedro Calungsod also lived in the 1600s. He was a simple faith-loving man who went to Guam as a missionary. And because of his dedication and devotion to the faith, he was murdered.

Today, many Filipinos can relate to these stories. In America, being able to celebrate and honor these stories brings Filipinos not only a sense of pride but also a source of inspiration. They give many of us Filipinos inspiration and hope that we, too, can follow their footsteps and aspire to become saints. When Saint Ignatius, from Spain and founder of the Jesuits in the 1400s, read the accounts of Saint Dominic, also from Spain and founder of the Dominicans in the 1100s, he was immediately inspired to do what he did and exclaimed: “Saint Dominic did it, therefore, I have to do it!”

In 2009, a study by a group of experimenters led by Ray Friedman of Vanderbilt University found that Black Americans who participated had a significant increase in scores after hearing President Obama acceptance speech. Seeing a Black president not only inspired them but it also smashed the stereotypes in academia.

Representation matters and it’s not just for the sake of representation or sense of pride but it also shows that our worldview matters and that someone with the same worldview, culture, and values as ours can also do it--become president or become a saint.