A Few Words

Weekly Bulletin of the Catholic Community at the Family Foundation School

Pauca Verba (a few words)

Number 47 – November 8, 2009

Listen to this incredibly beautiful life of Saint Martin de Porres whose feast day was this past Tuesday, November 3.

Martin de Porres was born in Lima, Peru in 1579. His father was a Spanish nobleman of Panama. His mother, however, was a freed black slave named Anna. Martin apparently took after his mother in appearance, and his father refused to acknowledge his “mulatto” child until many years later. Martin was apprenticed to a barber, a profession which at the time combined hair-cutting with surgical and medical skills. Martin quickly mastered his trade, but at the age of fifteen he applied for admission to a Dominican monastery. Rather than enter as a lay brother, he applied for the lowliest position as a donado or volunteer helper, responsible for such menial tasks as sweeping the walkways and cleaning latrines.

Despite his extreme humility, Martin could not long disguise his talents and abilities, especially his medical skills. Before long he was given charge of the monastery infirmary. Through his ingenious knowledge of herbal remedies and homemade medicines Martin earned a wide reputation as a gifted healer. But his medical protocol was reputedly supplemented by miraculous healing powers. Many stories were told of his mysterious diagnostic abilities and his power to heal illnesses by his mere touch or presence.

Martin did not confine his healing ministry to the monastery. He cared for the sick and injured wherever he found them, especially the wretched poor who lived in the streets of Lima with no one to care for them. Martin was apt to carry them back to his room and lay them in his own bed. At one point his superior ordered him to stop this practice. When he was found to have broken the command, he was severely scolded but meekly answered: “Forgive my mistake, and please be kind enough to instruct me. I did not know that the precept of obedience took precedence over that of charity.” From then on Martin was given liberty to follow his own best sense. But it was not the only time Martin’s holy simplicity put his superiors to shame. Once when the monastery was in debt he offered himself to be sold as a slave. The prior was deeply moved. “Go back to the monastery,” he told Martin, “you are not for sale.”

Martin’s charity was poured out on all those who were counted as nothing – Indians, the poor, the sick. He had a special ministry to African slaves, to whom he would deliver gifts of food and drink, healing their sick, consoling them in their miserable bondage. But even animals were the objects of his loving service. He treated sick animals with the same devotion he extended to humans. Sick and hungry dogs, donkeys, and turkeys were among his patients. And it is said that he was able to communicate with the creatures. When the monastery was once infested with mice, Martin caught one and asked it respectfully to lead its fellows out of the monastery and into the garden where he would personally provide for their needs. Within minutes, a horde of mice abandoned the monastery, just as he had requested. Ever after, Martin kept his side of the bargain, bringing food and leaving it for them. Once, in the kitchen, one of the monks was surprised to discover a dog, a cat and a mouse, all eating simultaneously from the same bowl that Martin had provided – an image of the “peaceable kingdom” that flourished in his presence.

After nine years Martin’s superiors finally prevailed upon him to become a full lay brother. It was recognized by all his brothers in the monastery, and before long throughout Lima, that Martin was one of God’s special friends. His humility, piety, and generous charity were all the theme of countless stories, many of which circulated even during his life. Innumerable witnesses later testified to his supernatural gifts. These included the power of levitation during prayer, the gifts of healing, of miraculous learning, and of clairvoyance, and the power to pass through locked doors and to become invisible at will. As if these abilities were not sufficient, it was also claimed that Martin had the gift of bilocation – the ability to be in more than one place at the same time. Witnesses frequently claimed to have met him in distant corners of the globe – China, Mexico, North Africa – when all the time he had never left Lima.

On both the natural and moral planes, Martin seemed in so many ways to exceed the limits of the possible. His piety was fueled by an equally extreme asceticism. He subsisted almost entirely on bread and water. He slept on the ground and generally treated his body with contempt. The accounts of his nightly rituals of self-flagellation are particularly painful to read. When questioned about such practices, which were considered wildly excessive even by the prevailing standards of a sixteenth century monastery, Martin would mumble something about the immensity of sins to be atoned for. What sins could afflict the conscience of this holy brother? Slavery, the scorn heaped on the poor and the Indians, the existence of so much injustice…Martin did not set himself apart from the sins of his age, and he punished himself accordingly.

Like St. Francis he was a living parable of the reign of God. The certified facts as well as the legends that surround his life all reflect a witness to God’s predilection for the “little ones” of the world, the poor, the weak, the powerless, the off-scouring of an ostensibly Christian society. He is the patron of all who work for Social Justice.