Saint Martin de Porres:

Feast day : 03 November

Today the Church celebrates the feast of Saint Martin de Porres, a Peruvian lay brother of the Dominican Order who lived during the period 1579-1639. He spent his life serving the poor, sick and needy with great love and devotion. He loved to serve and performed all his tasks with love and as done for the Lord. He was abundantly blessed with several mystical gifts and graces. He had the gift of bilocation, levitation, transportation, gift of healing and miracles and a remarkable rapport with animals. During his lifetime, several miracles came to be through his intercession and these continued after his death too. When his body was exhumed 25 years after his death, it was found to be incorrupt and exuding a sweet fragrance. He was canonized in 1962 and is the patron saint of mixed-race people, barbers, innkeepers, public health workers, and all those seeking racial harmony.

Early life:

Saint Juan Martin de Porres Velazquez was born in Lima on 9 December 1579. He was the illegitimate child of a Spanish Knight and a freed African slave. As he was dark skinned his father disowned him and he grew up facing insults and racial discriminations. But he was a blessed child of God and was filled with graces and virtues from an early age. He was devoted to the Lord and suffered all the insults patiently. Martin was always keen to serve and help those in need. He wanted to become a missionary and attain martyrdom for the Lord. However, God had other plans for him. When he was eight years of age, his father accepted him as his son.

When he was a teenager he joined a surgeon as an apprentice and trained under him. But he remained keen on pursuing a life devoted to serving the Lord and spent hours in prayer at night. At the age of 15 he joined the Third Order of Dominicans as a servant boy. He loved to serve and performed all his tasks with love and as done for the Lord. He worked in the kitchen, laundry and infirmary at the priory. After his usual duties he would go to the city and visit the poor, sick and needy and beg alms for them and feed them. Sometimes he would bring sick people to the monastery and care for them. He was an embodiment of compassion and love for all, himself living a penitential life of prayer and fasting and abstaining from meat.

Vocation:

After eight years of service, the Dominican Order permitted him to take his vows as a member of the Third Order of Dominicans. Accordingly, at the age of 24, in the year 1603 he professed his religious vows as a Dominican lay brother. He was abundantly blessed with several mystical gifts and extraordinary graces. During this lifetime there are several testimonies by people who witnessed his mystical gifts. He had the gifts of bilocation, transportation, levitation, miraculous knowledge, ecstasies during prayer, gift of healing and miracles and a remarkable rapport with animals. He was filled with compassion for all creatures of God and spent every moment of his life to serve the sick, poor and orphaned. When he was in the Dominican monastery, he would bring home, the poor and sick and tend to them. When he couldn’t find a bed for them, he laid them on his own bed and cared for them. Though he was reprimanded for it by the other lay brothers at times, he would say “it would be easier to wash sickly sheets than a soul stained with the tears of regret over not helping someone.” He was known to heal people by just shaking hands with them or offering them a glass of water! When 60 brothers of the community fell ill during an epidemic they had to be locked up in quarantine. Saint Martin knew he had to care for them and the locked doors were not a barrier for him. According to tradition, it is believed that he entered through the locked door and served them, leaving no sign of his entry and exit from the room! He also attended to the sick outside the friary and sometimes brought them back to the monastery to care for them till his Superior forbade him from doing it. He later founded a residence for orphans and abandoned children in the city of Lima.

Death & Sainthood:

Saint Martin de Porres died at the age of 59 on 03 November 1639. People in Lima flocked to see him and many cut pieces from his habit as relics. His body was laid to rest in the grounds of the monastery. After his death there were several miracles reported by people who sought his intercession in their needs leading to the opening of his case for canonization. When his body was exhumed nearly 25 years after his death it was found to be incorrupt and exhaling a fine fragrance. He was beatified on 29 October 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI and canonized on 06 May 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.