Manuel Ruiz López, superior of the convent of Damascus, was born in 1804 in San Martín de las Ollas, Burgos, Spain. He entered the Friars Minor in 1825 and was ordained a priest in 1830.
On 20 July 1831, Fra Manuel set sail with his companions from the port of Cádiz for the Holy Land, landing in Jaffa on 3 August of the same year. Father Carmelo Bolta of Valencia, his future companion in martyrdom, was also a member of the same expedition.
“The departure of Fra Manuel for the Holy Land was part of the Spanish “desamortización”,” comments Fra Ulise Zarza, Secretary for Formation and studies in Jerusalem and Vice-Postulator of the Causes of the Saints, “namely the complex phenomenon of legal actions of expropriating unproductive land or properties. The Church was greatly affected by this, together with the harsh laws against religious orders. The impossibility of resuming the traditional forms of apostolate in schools, in helping the poor and in preaching, oriented the Spanish Church and the Superiors of the Order to focus on the missions, putting to good use the enthusiasm, the courage and the apostolic zeal of the young friars.”
In the Holy Land, Fra Manuel was sent to St Paul’s convent in Damascus in Bab Tuma (“Thomas’s Gate”), one of the seven Roman gates and a neighbourhood in the Old City. He had a particular inclination for learning oriental languages and so had no difficulties in carrying out a zealous apostolate, distinguishing himself for his charity and prudence.
“We know,” Fra Ulise continued, “that the Arabs called him familiarly “Father Patience” and this reflects how he was able to be very close to the people: what is impressive is how he gave himself every day and entirely to the mission that had been assigned to him.”
Forced to return to Europe in 1847 for health reasons, he went back to the Holy Land in 1858.
Soon after that, the hatred for Christians began to increase.
In the story of Fra Manuel Ruiz, the letter he sent to Jerusalem to the Procurator of the Holy Land on 2 July 1860 takes on particular importance: “In it,” Fra Ulise said, “it is clear that he fully understands the danger, together with his readiness to give his life for Christ. Fra Manuel wrote: “Our faith is threatened by the Druze and by the Pasha of Damascus, who gives them the means to take the lives of all Christians, without any distinction, whether they are European or Oriental. May the Lord’s will be done”: this sentence summarizes the acceptance of martyrdom, which Fra Manuel lived in an inseparable and deep bond with the Eucharist.”
A few days later, on the morning of 9 July, the horde of persecutors invaded the densely populated Christian quarter of Damascus which had about 3,800 homes and started to commit all sorts of violence.
“Fra Manuel protected his flock until the end,” Fra Ulise emphasized, highlighting all the pastoral care that he put into his mission and the dedication for his friars. Sources tell us that when the persecutors were about to enter the convent, Fra Manuel united the religious, the children of the school and some laypeople in the church, including the three Maronite brothers, the Massabkis, exhorting them all to be perseverant and inviting them to receive the Body of Christ.”
During the night, a commando of Druze was able to break in through a hidden door of the Franciscan convent of St Paul, indicated by a traitor. At the time of the break-in, Fra Manuel immediately ran to the tabernacle to remove the Eucharist and consume it, so as not to expose it to profanation, and he was thus killed at the foot of the altar.
“Here there is a very deep sense of the action that Father Ruiz carried out in relation to the Most Blessed Sacrament: the Lord made manifest, in that last gesture of his, the hidden fidelity that he had placed in his disciple. This is why it is very significant to see this bond between the Lord of the Eucharist giving himself and Fra Manuel giving himself on the altar: just as Christ gave himself in bread, the martyr gives his life in the name of Christ, completing the perfect sequence of the disciple.”
Silvia Giuliano
