ST.
MARTIN DE PORRES OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS
St. Martin de Porres was
born in Lima, Peru on December 8, 1579, the illegitimate child of Don Juan de
Porres, a Spanish knight, and Ana Velasquez, a freed Negro woman
from Panama. St. Martin inherited the features and dark skin of his mother
which upset his father. Left to the care of his mother and despite their utter
poverty, St. Martin was an exceptional child who had an immense love for the
poor and afflicted. At the age of twelve, he was apprenticed to a
barber-surgeon from whom he learned the art of medicine as it was practiced in
those days, allowing him to bring to the poor the benefit of his knowledge
without any fee. When he was fifteen, he became a
tertiary helper of the Dominicans. Such was his charity, obedience, and
humility that after nine years, the friars insisted upon his becoming a regular
lay brother. Soon he became a model religious whose spirit of penance was
extraordinary, spending nights in spiritual reading, prayer, and penitential
exercises. Most obedient and humble, he tried to conceal the miraculous favors
God bestowed upon him. He nursed the sick, including plague victims of any
race, and miraculously healed them by his mere touch, prayers, and the Sign of
the Cross. This led to his being called a saint who brought the poor to Jesus
Christ and angel of mercy and compassion. Moreover, he had the gift of prophecy
and invisibility. He could read the people’s hearts and understand unexpressed
desires even at great distances. He experienced visions and ecstasies. At
certain times, God allowed the friars to see him accompanied by angels or
enveloped in light during ecstasy. He had bilocations and levitations. Although
he never left Lima, he personally assisted the sick and distressed people in
France, Alegria, Mexico, the Philippines, China, and Japan. Aware of his boundless charity,
his superiors grave him free hand to distribute the convents daily alms of food
to the poor and abandoned. Sometimes he increased the food supplies
miraculously. He cared for the slaves who were brought to Peru from Africa and
visited the hovels of the wretched, the miserable, and the dying. Filled with
love and sympathy for mankind, everywhere he went St. Martin brought comfort and
consolation to all classes in every condition of life. Selfless, practical, and
capable, he used the money and goods that he solicited carefully and
methodically in his charities. It was through his efforts that the Orphanage of
the Holy Cross was built for the poor and homeless children of Peru. Thus, he
was affectionately called the “Father of the Poor.” He also showed a great
control an care for animals, which surprised Spaniards, extending his love even
to rats and mice whose scavenging he excused on the grounds that the poor
little things were insufficiently fed. St. Martin was a close friend of
St. Rose of Lima and St. John Massias. When St. Martin died at the age of sixty
on November 3, 1639, the grief of all in Lima was terrible to behold. He was
carried to his grave by prelates and noblemen. Numerous occurred at his tomb
and his body was found to be incorrupt twenty-five years after his death.
Canonized on May 6, 1962, St. Martin is the patron saint of social
justice; racial relations; public education, health service and TV in Peru; and
Italian barbers and hairdressers. His feast day is on November 3.
St. Martin’s true humility and true charity are antidotes
to the ills of the cruel, proud, and corrupt world we live in. How sad that
today there is a Tertiary who is the exact opposite of St. Martin and an
absolute disgrace to the Dominican Order. In the guise of holiness and wearing
the Dominican habit, the charlatan deceives the elderly, the ignorant, the
poor, even the educated and some professionals, and the priests and nuns who
are hypnotized by his voice and vulgar, immodest, indecent speech. The spell he
casts on them is so strong that they no longer see the difference between
right and wrong, good and evil.
Using the Name of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Saints (notably Saint Philomena whose official national center of the Living Rosary in the Philippines is a victim of his shameless double-dealing and brazen corruption), his ultimate goals are to amass a lot o money, and to be given a mansion, an expensive car, and a big lot. His attitude, after all, is “ you owe it to me.”
Proud, irrationals, no respecter of anyone, resentful of any form of contradiction; corrupt, greedy, selfish, envious, unethical; obscene, mean, harsh, rough, discourteous, undignified; deceitful, manipulative, and ungrateful, he attacks on air and in public the people who helped him (particularly the Living Rosary), he used, manipulated, and took advantage of by twisting the truth to suit his own ends and glorify himself. Without any fear of God, Who unravels all in his heart, which is hidden from the pitiful public, and Whose Law of Retribution or Divine Justice is constantly at work, he refuses to recognize the One, True, Almighty God Who knows all his motives, sees all he does, and hears all he says.
Using the Name of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Saints (notably Saint Philomena whose official national center of the Living Rosary in the Philippines is a victim of his shameless double-dealing and brazen corruption), his ultimate goals are to amass a lot o money, and to be given a mansion, an expensive car, and a big lot. His attitude, after all, is “ you owe it to me.”
Proud, irrationals, no respecter of anyone, resentful of any form of contradiction; corrupt, greedy, selfish, envious, unethical; obscene, mean, harsh, rough, discourteous, undignified; deceitful, manipulative, and ungrateful, he attacks on air and in public the people who helped him (particularly the Living Rosary), he used, manipulated, and took advantage of by twisting the truth to suit his own ends and glorify himself. Without any fear of God, Who unravels all in his heart, which is hidden from the pitiful public, and Whose Law of Retribution or Divine Justice is constantly at work, he refuses to recognize the One, True, Almighty God Who knows all his motives, sees all he does, and hears all he says.