By Corazon Damo-Santiago
Saint Martin De Porres was born in 1579 in Lima, Peru. His father, Don Juan de Porres, was a Spanish nobleman who became governor of Panama. His mother, Anna Martin, was a freed black slave.
Don Juan, embarrassed at the dark complexion of his illegitimate son, a mullato who took after the features of his mother, abandoned them, but years later acknowledged Martin as his son.
Anna provided Martin a Christian education. At 12, he apprenticed to a barber-surgeon, making him work with combined basic medical and surgical skills.
At 15, he applied as a lay helper at a Dominican monastery and was assigned to do menial tasks: sweeping the cloisters, cleaning the latrines and also as a wardrobe keeper.
Dominican friars then had a policy that “no black person may be received to the holy habit or profession of our Order.”
His charity, obedience and humility impressed the community that after nine years they insisted that he become a lay brother—a full religious—and dropped the racist rule. When he was assigned to take charge of the infirmary in the monastery, his ingenious knowledge about herbal treatments and homemade medicine was discovered. His reputation grew because of his mysterious diagnostic skills and his power to heal by his mere touch.
A brother confronted him when he took a sick and worn-out beggar for treatment in his cell. Confident that it was a charitable act, he retorted: “Compassion, my dear brother, is preferable to cleanliness. Reflect that with a little soap, I can easily clean my bedcovers, but even with a torrent of tears I would never wash from my soul the stain that my harshness toward this man would create.”
Charity to the core
Saint Martin de Porres’s life reflected God’s compassion for the poor, the powerless, the weak and the little ones.
He cared for the poor in the slums and children in the hospitals. He had a special ministry for Indians and Africans who were looked down upon as undesirables, cognizant not only of their basic needs, but their miserable bondage, as well.
The black slaves from Africa who were brought to Peru had wretched lives since the owners had the power of life and death over them. He relieved everyone who approached him for healing through his miraculous touch and prayers.
His remarkable charity also included dogs, cats, turkeys, donkeys and even mice that he founded a shelter for stray animals.
Robert Ellsberg in All Saints narrated how Martin caught a mouse in the monastery and talked to it respectfully. He requested it to lead others out of the monastery into the garden and promised to feed them. Within minutes, a horde of mice abandoned the monastery. The saint kept his promise and brought food for them in the garden.
Admonished by his superior for overdoing charity, he knelt and said: “Forgive my error and please instruct me, for I did not know that the precept of obedience had precedence over that of charity.”
Martin Relph, who wrote Martin’s biography, considered him to be a saint for people of mixed races, too, an inspiration to people who advocate racial harmony.
Indeed, like Saint Francis of Assisi, “he was a living parable of the reign of God,” Ellsberg noted.
Spiritually gifted
Martin heard stories about martyrdom and desired to work in foreign missions. Not destined for martyrdom, he “made a martyr of his body,” attuned to the excessive spiritual practices of the 16th century monasteries.
He lived on water and bread and never ate meat. He slept on ground and subjected himself to a nightly flagellation and levitates during his rigorous prayer life. Asked why he had to be harsh with himself, he would mumble that there were many sins to atone for.
His life was a witness to how God endowed him with spiritual gifts. In addition to his miraculous healing power, he had the power to be invisible at will, pass through locked doors and bilocate himself.
There were authenticated cases that he assisted sick people in “Mexico, Algiers France, China, Japan and the Philippines” although he never left Lima, Peru. Witnesses also have claimed that they met him in “China”, Mexico and North Africa.”
Endowed with prophetic gift, he could see through the future and read the hearts and desires of people “even in great distances.” So he was requested to help resolve theological problems in his Order and of bishops, as well.
Although he tried to conceal his miraculous favors, “God permitted friars to see Martin accompanied by angels, enveloped in light during ecstasy,” A.J.M. and J.K. Mausolfe noted in Saint Companions for Each Day.
Even in his tomb, miraculous happened.
Martin, the charitable
When Martin died on November 3, 1639, Peru mourned, from the Viceroy to beggars. On the 25th anniversary of his death, his body was exhumed and found still supple and incorrupt.
Beatified in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI, he was canonized by Pope John XXIII on May 6, 1962. Martin, the charitable, was acclaimed the Patron of Social Justice because he worked for the equal rights of all classes of people.
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Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris College in Calauan, Laguna.
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