Saint Martin de Porres

Juan Martín de Porres Velázquez was born in Lima on 9 December 1579, when the city, founded by the Spanish only a few decades earlier, was among the major political and religious centers of South America. His father, Juan de Porres, was a Spaniard of noble family. His mother, Ana Velázquez, was a free Black woman from Panama. He had a sister, Juana. Martin was born out of wedlock, and in a colonial society sorted by race and legitimacy he faced difficulties from the start. By one account his father left the family after Juana's birth, and his mother supported the children by taking in laundry.

Around the age of twelve he was apprenticed to a barber-surgeon. In the Iberian world of that day barbers also performed minor surgery and cared for the sick, so this was practical training in nursing rather than a university medical education, and he later put it to use for the poor. He also spent long hours of the night in prayer.

In 1594, at fifteen, he asked to enter the Dominican convent of Our Lady of the Rosary in Lima. Peruvian law at the time barred people of African and Native American descent from becoming full members of religious orders, so he was received as a donado, a volunteer who did menial work in return for wearing the habit and living with the community. He swept and cleaned, worked in the kitchen and the laundry, and went on practicing barbering and healing. After several years the prior, Juan de Lorenzana, chose to overlook the law, and Martin was allowed to make his religious profession as a lay brother in 1603.

His fame grew from the care he gave to everyone who came to him, whatever their origin or standing, from his life of prayer and fasting, and from his kindness to animals. He is credited with founding an orphanage and a children's hospital. Many stories of healings and extraordinary events gathered around him, among them levitation, being in two places at once, and an ability to communicate with animals, and these are to be distinguished from facts that can be verified. Popular images show a dog, a cat and a mouse eating from one dish, and he is remembered as the saint of the broom.

Martin died in Lima on 3 November 1639. Pope Gregory XVI beatified him in 1837, and Pope John XXIII canonized him on 6 May 1962. He is a patron of Black and mixed-race people and of those working for racial harmony and social justice, as well as of barbers and innkeepers.

Saint Martin de Porres, pray for us.