St Paul tells us that he thought he had everything under the Lord. He was born a Jew in the tribe of Benjamin. He was a member of the privileged group of the Pharisees. In his righteousness, he persecuted the Church. He thought that he was following God’s plan and that he was one of the privileged few who was blessed and chosen by God. Then he got knocked off his horse - literally. The truth of our Lord Jesus Christ was revealed to him. His world was turned upside down. He came to the faith and it led him down a different road. But he does not bemoan or begrudge those things he lost. In fact, he is able to rejoice in what he lost, because in his faith in Christ, he was able to lose what was unimportant and gain the greatest treasure of all. Through the stories of the different saints we hear about, we are able to learn more about our faith and about the values of our kingdom.
While in the eyes of the Jews, Paul was born in a place of privilege, the saint we celebrate today, St Martin de Porres, was born under very humble circumstances. It took a while for the Church to officially recognize the sanctity and holiness of Martin, since he was born in the late 16th century and was not canonized as a saint until the 1960s under the papacy of Pope John XXIII. Born of a Spaniard father and an African mother in the colonial era in Peru, Martin was disowned by his father during most of his years growing up, living in extreme poverty with his mother and sister. Often ridiculed and discriminated against due to his mixed racial heritage, he did not have a lot of opportunities to earn a living. He gravitated to the Dominican religious order, but lived in great humility. He would welcome visitors to the abbey, take care of the poor and sick, and nursed back to health sick animals.
Martin is often depicted in religious art wearing a Dominican habit, holding a broom, with a mouse and dog at his feet. There is a story told about Martin that he was ordered to poison a group of mice who had infested the linen supply room at the abbey. With his great love for animals, Martin made a deal with the mice. He led them out of the storage room into the courtyard, where the mice were able to live peacefully, where he brought them a meal each deal. Martin would carry the broom with him wherever he went. When he entered the house of a poor person or an invalid, he would clean up their room with his broom as a sign of love, Christian charity, and humility.
Martin's reputation grew. People all over Peru - commoners, Church officials, and the upper class alike - came to him for spiritual counseling, for material aid, for spiritual direction, and for cures for their illnesses. When he died after an illness at the age of 60, all of Peruvian society turned out for his funeral. It was fitting that in the midst of the Vatican II meetings that were taking place in the Vatican and in the midst of the Civil rights movements sweeping the world in the 1960s, that is when Martin de Porres was canonized. Martin found his way in life through Christ. We are to do the same.
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