Who would have thought that the illegitimate son of a former African slave and wealthy Spanish nobleman who had been rejected at birth by his father, would have been held up to the church as a teacher, example and guide for the Second Vatican Council? Such a saint was Martin de Porres who was born in Lima, Peru, in 1579, but wasn’t canonized until 1962, a few months before the Second Vatican Council was due to begin, almost four centuries after his birth.

Martin’s experience of his father’s rejection of him from a young age, led his feet into local churches to share his heartache with Jesus on the cross. Over time, he developed the ability to choose an attitude of positivity even when called hurtful names such as, “a mulatto dog.” He knew that Jesus had been insulted, ridiculed and condemned to death as a criminal, saying before He died, “Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing”.

When Martin was eight years old, his father, Juan de Porres, came into his life again to take him and his sister to live with him in Ecuador. It was heartbreaking for the young boy to leave his mother in Lima and to set sail for a distant land with a father whom he hardly knew. When he was twelve, his father decided that his son should return to live with his mother in Lima where he could serve his apprenticeship as a barber. In those days, barbers not only cut hair and trimmed beards, but also learned the elements of rudimentary pharmacology: using herbal remedies to cure illnesses and various methods to staunch bleeding and stitch knife wounds. During these years of apprenticeship, Martin grew spiritually and gained a reputation as a holy healer: people flocked to him from far and wide and when they expressed gratitude to him, he would say, “I may cure but it is God who heals.”

During these years, Martin’s love of God grew into a desire to give himself totally to Him in the Dominican Monastery in Lima, Peru, when he was fifteen. There he performed menial tasks as a servant, cleaning the infirmary, nursing the sick and caring for wounded or stray animals like another St. Francis of Assisi.

Finding great consolation in being able to spend hours of private time in prayer with Jesus, Martin would hide away in a space behind the tabernacle in Church or in the privacy of his cell. He radiated goodness and was beloved by men and women, rich and poor who received all kinds of help from the holy mulatto.

Martin de Porres died on November 3, 1639. He is truly a saint for our time.