Saint Martin de Porres

3 November  ·  Optional Memorial  ·  White

The friar looks up out of an oval of cloud with a long rosary at his breast, and four figures sit on the heavy frame around him, one of them crowned with feathers and carrying a bow, for the New World. The engraved Latin calls him Brother Martinus de Porras, a tertiary of the Order of Preachers, dead at Lima in 1639, and says that the Dominican General Chapter held at Rome in 1656 announced his prodigious life and most happy death. The engraver made him pale, and he was not: his mother was a freed slave of African descent.

The inscription on the engraving, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1950.14.1015

His life

He was born in Lima on 9 December 1579 and baptised in the church of San Sebastián, the son of Juan de Porres, a Spanish nobleman, and a freed slave of African descent. At fifteen he went to the Dominicans and was received as a lay helper, given the humblest work of the house; on 2 June 1603 his superiors admitted him as a full lay brother. He nursed the sick and brought food, clothing and medicine to the weak, and he spent long hours in adoration before the tabernacle. Lima called him Martín de la Caridad, Martin of Charity, because he helped with all his strength the farm labourers, the Black people and the people of mixed race of the city. He died on the evening of 3 November 1639, with the friars praying around him.

In 1945 Pius XII named him patron of all the social institutions of Peru. John XXIII canonised him on 6 May 1962, and the next day told the pilgrims who had come for it that Martin de Porres had been the angel of Lima. Lima called him Martin of Charity, and charity is the one office every one of us is free to take.

Vatican City State, “Saint of the Day: 3 November, Saint Martin de Porres”: vaticanstate.va; John XXIII, homily for the canonisation, 6 May 1962, and address to the pilgrims, 7 May 1962: vatican.va

In Scripture

⁴Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up, ⁵Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil: ⁶Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth: ⁷Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

1 Corinthians 13:4–7, Douay-Rheims (Challoner).

The day in the next three years

Near this day

• All Souls
• Saint Charles Borromeo
• Saint Martin of Tours
• All Saints

The saints of the year  ·  The feasts  ·  The Rosary

Written and checked by the Monstrance editors; sources cited. Scripture in the Douay-Rheims (Challoner). Every painting is in the public domain, and each caption follows the record of the institution that holds it.