A life devoted to Christ

St. Martin de Porres

The Episcopal Church commemorates the life of Martin de Porres on August 23. He was canonized by Pope John XXIII in 1962. Both Catholic and Episcopal Churches are named in his honor. His life was marked by an intense devotion to Christ and great compassion for the sick and those living in poverty. 

Martin was born in 1579 in the City of Lima, Peru. The Spanish had only recently conquered Peru having killed the last Incan King in 1533. His father, Juan de Porres, was a soldier and member of the Spanish nobility. His mother, Anna Velasquez, was a freed Panamanian slave. The Spanish had been acquiring African slaves from the Congo. By 1579, the year of Martin’s birth, there were reported to be nearly 3,000 African slaves in Peru. 

Martin’s father left the family when he was very young leaving them in poverty. Living in the poorest part of Lima, Anna Valasquez made a subsistence income as a laundress. As the dark-skinned son of a former slave, Martin was subjected to racial prejudice throughout his life.

His father returned to the family when Martin was about 10 years old. He saw that Martin received two years of education in Ecuador. He was then apprenticed to a barber-surgeon and gained rudimentary medical knowledge. He completed his apprenticeship at 15 and then became a servant at a Dominican convent. Martin proved to be a trustworthy soul and was appointed an alms collector for the convent. His job was to beg for money from the wealthy to provide sustenance for the poor and sick in the city of Lima. 

Martin’s medical background and compassion for the sick led to his appointment as overseer of the Dominican’s infirmary at 24. Initially, he was excluded from formal admission to the Dominican Order because of his mixed racial background. Eventually, however, his obvious spiritual gifts and dedication to the sick led to his admission to the Order as a lay associate. He willingly performed any task given to him and because of this, he is often depicted in icons as holding a broom.

He soon established a reputation as a gifted physician and word spread that he had been responsible for numerous remarkable healings. His increasing popularity enabled him to garner support for the establishment of an orphanage and children’s hospital in Lima’s most impoverished slum. In the spirit of St. Francis, he founded a shelter for stray dogs and cats and nursed them back to health. Consequently, he is often pictured with a cat or dog at his side. 

When not caring for the sick, Martin lived a very simple life spending hours in prayer and meditation. He was a proponent of ceaseless prayer. He believed that even the simplest of tasks done with love in the presence of God could be considered prayer. He is quoted as saying, “Everything, even sweeping, scraping vegetables, weeding a garden and waiting on the sick could be a prayer, if it were offered to God.”

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O Lord Jesus Christ, who inflamed the heart of Saint Martin with an ardent love of the poor and Who taught him the wonderful joy of true humility and the wisdom of always submitting to God’s Holy Will, grant that, like him, we may be ever truly humble of heart and full of Christlike charity for suffering humanity, Amen.