FEAST OF SAINT MARTIN DE PORRES – 3rd NOVEMBER

FEAST OF SAINT MARTIN DE PORRES
FEAST DAY – 3rd NOVEMBER

St. Martin de Porres was born in Lima, Peru on December 9, 1579. Martin was the illegitimate son to a Spanish gentlemen and a freed slave from Panama, of African or possibly Native American descent. At a young age, Martin’s father abandoned him, his mother and younger sister, leaving them to grow up in deep poverty. After two years in primary school, Martin was given to work with a barber/surgeon where he would learn to cut hair and the medical arts.

Martin, when 15, experienced a lot of racial discrimination. In Peru, by law, all descendants of African or Indians were not allowed to become full members of religious orders. Martin, a very prayerful lad, asked the Dominicans of Holy Rosary Priory in Lima to accept him as a volunteer who performed the most menial tasks in the monastery. In return, he would be allowed to wear the habit and live within the religious community. He, very slowly, was moved up to officer in charge.

After eight more years with the Holy Rosary, Martin was granted the privilege to take his vows as a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic by the prior Juan de Lorenzana who decided to disregard the law restricting Martin, based on race. But many of the members in the Holy Rosary were not as open-minded as Lorenzana; Martin was mocked for being illegitimate and descending from slaves. Martín suffered taunts, but held his peace. He was God’s servant and that of his brothers, even if they were cruel.

He grew to become a Dominican lay brother in 1603 at the age of 24. Ten years later, after he had been presented with the religious habit of a lay brother, Martin was assigned to the infirmary where he would remain in charge until his death. He became known for encompassing the virtues needed to carefully and patiently care for the sick, even in the most difficult situations, regardless of race or wealth, from Spanish nobles to African slaves.

Martin’s life reflected his great love for God and all of God’s gifts. It is said he had many extraordinary abilities, including aerial flights, bilocation, instant cures, miraculous knowledge, spiritual knowledge and an excellent relationship with animals. He founded an orphanage for abandoned children and slaves and is known for raising dowry for young girls in short amounts of time. During an epidemic in Lima, many of the friars in the Convent of the Rosary became very ill. Locked away in a distant section of the convent, they were kept away from the professed.

However, Martin passed through the locked doors to care for the sick, and became disciplined for not following the rules of the Convent, but after replying, “Forgive my error, and please instruct me, for I did not know that the precept of obedience took precedence over that of charity,” he was given full liberty to follow his heart. Love was stronger than societal custom.

People felt the love in him. They began to say that he could cure the sick just by bringing them a glass of water. Once Martín carried a dirty beggar covered with sores to his room to tend to him. Another friar scolded him, for the sick man was filthy. Martín responded, “Compassion, my brother, is preferable to cleanliness.” Many of the friars, sensing his wisdom and love, approached him for spiritual direction.

Martin’s heart followed the precept of charity – love of God and love of neighbor with a single, unified love – until his death on 3rd November 1639, at the age of 59. His fellow friars and the city already knew: this “poor mulatto” who served the poor because he was one of them, this simple friar who humbled the proud, was their brother.  In an almost superfluous sign, it was as if God smiled and agreed, when Martín’s body was found to be incorrupt 25 years after he died.

He was beatified in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI and canonized in 1962 by Pope John XXIII.

He is the patron saint of mixed-race people, barbers, innkeepers, public health workers, and all those seeking racial harmony. His feast day celebration is 3rd November.

CONTEMPLATING THE LIFE OF SAINT MARTIN DE PORRES – THE HUMBLE HEALER OF LIMA

In the late 1500s, in the colorful city of Lima, Peru, a little boy was born to a Spanish nobleman and a freed Black woman from Panama. His name was Martin de Porres.

He arrived into a world where the color of one’s skin could determine one’s fate – and Martin’s mixed heritage often meant rejection. Even his own father hesitated to acknowledge him at first. But the boy who knew poverty and prejudice would grow into one of the most radiant saints of compassion the Church has ever known.

A CHILD OF QUIET FAITH

From an early age, Martin had a deep tenderness toward all living things. His mother, Ana Velázquez, taught him the faith with simplicity. When he was barely a child, Martin would give away food, clothes, even his shoes to the poor on the streets of Lima. He seemed to hear an inner voice that said, “Everyone is your brother and sister.”

At twelve, he was apprenticed to a barber-surgeon, learning to mix medicines, draw blood, and care for the sick. It was rough work – but Martin noticed something that others missed: each suffering face mirrored the face of Christ.

A BROTHER OF SERVICE

When he was fifteen, Martin knocked at the door of the Dominican monastery of the Rosary in Lima, asking to be received – not as a friar, but as a donado, a simple lay helper. Because of his mixed race, he was initially not allowed to take vows. Yet he embraced every humble task with joy: sweeping floors, cooking meals, cleaning wounds. The friars began to notice something strange – a serenity that seemed to radiate from him, a quiet holiness that turned the mundane into the miraculous.

When racial laws were relaxed, the Dominicans finally permitted him to profess full vows. Brother Martin became a lay brother of the Order of Preachers, and soon his little infirmary became a place of healing not only for the brethren, but for the poor, the sick, and even animals.

THE MIRACLES OF MERCY

Stories about Martin’s extraordinary charity spread throughout Lima. He was known to bilocate – seen in two places at once – and to miraculously pass through locked doors to reach the sick who called for him. He healed fevers, closed wounds, multiplied food, and brought dying souls peace.

One night, when the monastery’s rats were being hunted, Martin gently gathered them and whispered, “Go, my little friends, to the garden – and do not harm the storehouse again.” The rodents obeyed. His tenderness extended to all of creation.

To Martin, mercy had no boundaries:

He built shelters for orphans, cared for slaves newly arrived from Africa, and even founded a hospital for stray cats and dogs. He never turned anyone away – not because they deserved help, but because Christ deserved to be loved in them.

A LIFE HIDDEN WITH GOD

Despite fame and miraculous gifts, Martin remained profoundly humble. He called himself “the mulatto dog of the convent.” When superiors offered him higher positions, he begged to remain a servant.

After years of tireless service, Martin fell ill with fever in 1639. As he lay dying, he whispered, “I am ready, Lord.” The friars, nobles, and poor alike came to touch his hand and ask his blessing. The scent of flowers filled the room at his passing – a sign, they said, of divine favor. He was only sixty.

Three centuries later, Pope John XXIII canonized him in 1962, calling him “the saint of universal brotherhood.”

LEGACY

St. Martin de Porres stands today as a patron of racial harmony, social justice, and humble service. He reminds the world that holiness is not measured by learning or status, but by the wideness of one’s heart.

His story is a quiet revolution – the Gospel lived in broom and bandage, in compassion stronger than prejudice.

PRAYER

Most humble St. Martin, whose burning charity embraces all, but especially those who are sick, afflicted, or in need, we turn to thee for help in our present difficulties and we implore thee to obtain for us from God health of soul and body, and in particular the favour we now ask … (pause to ask favours).

May we, by imitating thy charity and humility, find quiet and contentment all our days, and cheerful submission to God’s holy will in all the trials and difficulties of life. Amen.