St. Martin de Porres: The Apostle of Charity and Father of the Poor
Feast Day: November 3 | Patron of Social Justice, Racial Harmony, Barbers, Public Health Workers, and People of Mixed Race
Birth Into Poverty and Rejection
St. Martin de Porres was born in Lima, Peru, on December 9, 1579, to Don Juan de Porres, a Spanish nobleman and adventurer, and Ana Velasquez, a freed daughter of slaves from Panama. Born of a liaison between a Spanish grandee and a free Black woman and later abandoned by his father, Martín de Porres faced societal stigma because of his biracial identity and impoverished background.
Like many others, Martin de Porres might have grown to be a bitter man, but he did not. It was said that even as a child he gave his heart and his goods to the poor and despised.
This is the first great miracle of Martin’s life — not a healing, not a bilocation, but the triumph of grace over bitterness. Into conditions that would have crushed most souls, God planted a heart of extraordinary charity.
Childhood and the Making of a Healer
Ana Velasquez supported her children by taking in laundry. Martin’s childhood poverty did not embitter him but made him sensitive to the plight of the poor, and especially the orphans to whom he would devote much of his time and resources. Even as a child, Martin would give the family’s scarce resources to the beggars whom he saw as less fortunate than himself.
When Martin turned eight, his father had a change of heart and decided to claim his two children despite the gossip to which it subjected him. He made sure that both were afforded a good education and had enough money for the family not to suffer hardship.
When Martin de Porres was 12, his mother apprenticed him to a barber-surgeon. Martin learned how to cut hair and also how to draw blood — a standard medical treatment then — care for wounds, and prepare and administer medicines.
Even in this humble apprenticeship, Providence was at work — forming in Martin’s hands the very skills of healing that would later make him an instrument of God’s mercy for thousands.
The Call to the Dominicans — and the Law That Said No
By Peruvian law, people of African or indigenous heritage were not allowed to become full members of religious orders. Because his mother was a freed slave, Martin was unjustly barred from entering religious life.
Increasingly, he prayed, until he was spending hours each night in conversation with God. The Lord was stirring his heart, calling him in love, but Martín was a poor, black boy with no father, in a country where the law prohibited descendants of the African slaves from becoming professed members of religious orders.
When he was fifteen, Martin approached the Dominican monastery in Lima to become a donado — a volunteer who took on menial labor and lived with the community. He was, essentially, the community’s servant boy. Martin worked with a willing heart and took upon himself the work of several servants, tending the laundry and doing kitchen work.
The law of men said no. The law of love said yes. Martin chose love — and began eight years of the humblest possible service, asking nothing in return.
Accepted Into the Order: Grace Over Law
Eight years of the humblest service, cutting the friars’ hair, scrubbing, sweeping and tending to the needs of the poor, showed the prior, Juan de Lorenzana, that this “servant boy” had an extraordinary heart. So when Martín was 24 and asked to be admitted as a professed brother, de Lorenzana decided to ignore the law and allow this young mulatto to take vows.
Not all of the friars agreed with their prior. Not all had allowed the light of the Gospel to penetrate their heart to an equal degree. “Mulatto dog,” some called him. One of the priests mocked him for his illegitimate birth. While Martín suffered these taunts, they did not disturb his peace. He was God’s servant and the servant of his brothers, even if they were cruel.
When the friary fell into debt and the prior set out to sell some of the friary’s valuables, Martín begged his brothers, “I am only a poor mulatto, sell me.” They did not sell him. But the offer reveals everything about the soul of this man — a heart so emptied of pride that no humiliation could reach it.
The Infirmary: Where Prayer Became Flesh
When he was 34, Martín was put in charge of the priory’s infirmary. There, all the love that had filled his heart through prayer could spill over in compassion for others. He cared for the sick friars, but also for others — noblemen and slaves.
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.”
Martin was praised for his unconditional care of all people, regardless of race or wealth.
Obedience and Charity: A Tension Resolved by Love
During an epidemic, when Martín had been forbidden from transporting the sick for fear of contagion, he was found tending to a bleeding Indian in his room. The prior began a hefty reprimand, but Martín’s answer disarmed him: “Forgive me and please instruct me, for I did not know that the precept of obedience took precedence over the precept of charity.”
This response is one of the most theologically profound moments in Martin’s life. He was not being defiant — he was being transparent. His conscience was so formed by love that he genuinely could not conceive of a law that would require him to abandon a bleeding man. The prior, confronted with such purity, had no answer. How could he hold back a heart so alive with compassion?
The Apostle of Lima’s Poor
In addition to his untiring work in the infirmary, Martín distributed food and alms to the poor and needy in Lima. He ministered to the waves of newly enslaved Africans being brought to the city and raised money for the dowries of poor girls so they could marry.
At times, the food he gave out seemed to increase miraculously — he fed 160 people every day — and his medical care would sometimes lead to surprising cures and healings: miraculous cures were attributed to him, even when he only offered a simple drink of water.
He was instrumental in founding an orphanage, took care of slaves brought from Africa, and managed the daily alms of the priory with practicality, as well as generosity.
Martin became a formidable fundraiser, obtaining thousands of dollars for dowries for poor girls so that they could marry or enter a convent.
The Friend of Animals
He had great compassion for all people, regardless of their race or status, and his loving care extended to animals, including stray cats and dogs, beasts of the field, and even kitchen vermin.
He would excuse the raids of mice and rats on the grounds that they were underfed; he kept stray cats and dogs at his sister’s house.
St. Martin is often portrayed with mice because, according to one story, the monastery was tired of their rodent problems and decided to set traps. Martin was so distressed that he spoke to the mice and cut a deal with them — that if they would leave the monastery, he would feed them at the back door of the kitchen.
In Martin’s tenderness toward animals we see a reflection of Eden — a soul so restored by grace that the original harmony between humanity and creation began to reappear around him.
The Supernatural 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 loved all-night vigils, frequently praying by lying down as if crucified, sometimes kneeling but, miraculously, a foot or more off the floor.
While in prayer, some saw him enveloped in light or levitating. He could read souls and was given miraculous wisdom and knowledge that led the most learned of men to seek his counsel.
Bi-locations were reported, and some arriving from Europe and Africa claimed that he had appeared to them there, before they arrived in Peru.
Many of his fellow religious took Martin as their spiritual director, but he continued to call himself a “poor slave.”
Here is the paradox that runs through all authentic Catholic sanctity: the greater the gifts, the deeper the humility. Martin was given extraordinary charisms precisely because he wanted none of them for himself.
Friendship With St. Rose of Lima
He was friends with St. Rose of Lima, another lay Dominican. Martin was a close friend of St. Rose of Lima. Both of them were great healers and Peruvian saints.
Two of the New World’s greatest saints — one a noblewoman, one a servant of mixed race — united in the love of the same God, bearing the same Cross, building the same Kingdom. Providence arranged this friendship as a sign: in Christ, every wall between human beings falls.
Death and the City’s Grief
That heart followed the precept of charity — love of God and love of neighbor with a single, unified love — until Martín’s death at the age of 59.
His funeral was attended by thousands of Peruvians from all walks of life who vied to get a piece of St. Martin’s habit as a relic. These pieces of the saint’s habit have been associated with innumerable miraculous cures.
Twenty-five years after his death, Martin’s body was exhumed and found to be incorrupt.
Beatification, Canonization, and Eternal Recognition
He was beatified in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI and was canonized in 1962 by Pope John XXIII.
At his canonization, Pope John XXIII declared: “He tried with all his might to redeem the guilty; lovingly he comforted the sick; he provided food, clothing and medicine for the poor; he helped, as best he could, farm laborers and Negroes, as well as mulattoes, who were looked upon at that time as akin to slaves: thus he deserved to be called by the name the people gave him: ‘Martin of Charity.’”
What His Life Says to Ours
Racism is a sin almost nobody confesses. Like pollution, it is a “sin of the world” that is everybody’s responsibility but apparently nobody’s fault. One could hardly imagine
St Martin de Porres pray for us.