When I served as a missionary in Ecuador from 1996 to 1999, I learned about St Martin de Porres, who lived in the neighboring country of Peru. The Spanish conquistadors had conquered the Incan empire in Peru in the year 1532, not many years before Martin de Porres was born in Peru in 1579. Martin’s Father was of Spanish ancestry. His mother was a freed woman who was from Panama, probably of African and indigenous ancestry. Being of mixed race and living in colonial South America, Martin faced a lot of discrimination and racism, but he followed the call to serve God with great humility and courage. He became a Dominican brother at the urging of the other Dominicans after feeling that he was not worthy to do so We all can learn a lot about Jesus from the life of Martin de Porres, a man who loved animals, who would clean out the houses of the poor with a broom that he would carry around with him. Martin died in the early 17th century, but his canonization in 1962 by Pope John XXIII showed how he always lived in the hearts of the people for many centuries. He is the patron saint of social justice.
We have been hearing from St Paul’s letter to the Romans these past several weeks. In our reading from Romans today, Paul speaks about how our faith asks us to love one another, to love our neighbor as ourselves. That is certainly exemplified in the life of St Martin de Porres.
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