Saint Saint Martin de Porres, Religious

Martín de Porras Velázquez OP (9 December 1579 – 3 November 1639) was a Peruvian lay brother of the Dominican Order who was beatified in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI and canonized in 1962 by Pope John XXIII. He is the patron saint of Black people, mixed-race people, barbers, innkeepers, public health workers, all those seeking racial harmony, and animals. He was noted for his work on behalf of the poor, establishing an orphanage and a children's hospital. He maintained an austere lifestyle, which included fasting and abstaining from meat. Among the many miracles attributed to him were those of levitation, bilocation, miraculous knowledge, instantaneous cures, and an ability to communicate with animals. Martin was born in the city of Lima, Viceroyalty of Peru, Spanish Empire, on 9 December 1579. He was the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman, Don Juan de Porras y de la Peña, and Ana Velázquez, a freed slave of African and Native descent. He had a sister named Juana de Porres, born two years later in 1581. After the birth of his sister, the father abandoned the family. Ana Velázquez supported her children by taking in laundry. Martin grew up in poverty and, when his mother could not support him, he was sent to a primary school for two years, and then placed with a barber surgeon as an apprentice. He spent hours of the night in prayer, a practice that increased as he grew older. Under Peruvian law, descendants of Africans and Native Americans were barred from becoming full members of religious orders. The only route open to Martin was to ask the Dominicans of Holy Rosary Priory in Lima to accept him as a "donado", a volunteer who performed menial tasks in the monastery in return for the privilege of wearing the habit and living with the religious community. At the age of 15, he asked for admission to the Dominican Convent of the Rosary in Lima and was received first as a servant boy, and as his duties grew he was promoted to almoner.