St. Martin de Porres

Who they were

Martin was born in Lima, the son of a Spanish nobleman and Ana Velazquez, a freed Black woman, and his father's initial refusal to acknowledge him is in the baptismal register. Peruvian law barred descendants of Africans from full religious profession, so Martin entered the Dominicans at the bottom, as a servant, and stayed cheerful about titles his whole life while the reality inverted around him.

Trained as a barber surgeon, he became the priory's infirmarian and then, effectively, the medical service of Lima's poor, treating Spaniard and African and Indigenous patients identically, which was itself the scandal and the sermon. The order eventually professed him fully in defiance of the law. The animal stories, of which the mice negotiation is the famous one, are the affectionate tradition they sound like. The documented feeding, nursing, orphanage founding, and dowry raising need no embroidery. He was canonized in 1962 and named a patron of social justice.

Why people turn to St. Martin de Porres

Anyone facing discrimination. He is the Church's designated patron of interracial harmony, which lands with particular weight in this city. Barbers, nurses, and animal lovers all have a formal claim on him.

How to ask their intercession

By name, for the situation where you are being treated as less. His feast on 3 November is a natural day for it.