Old Testement

St Martin de Pores

Saint Martin de Porres (December 9, 1579 – November 3, 1639) was a Dominican cooperator brother who was beatified in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI and canonized on May 6, 1962 by Pope John XXIII.

Martin was born in Lima, Peru, as the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a young freed slave woman, possibly Afro-Peruvian, born in Panama. He had a sister Juana born in 1581. He grew up in poverty, and at the age of 11 was taken in by the Dominicans as a servant boy. As his duties grew he was promoted to almoner, and then put in charge of the infirmary. His piety and miraculous cures led his superiors to drop the racial limits on admission to the Order and he was made a full Dominican brother. It is said that when his priory was in debt, he implored them: "I am only a poor mulatto, sell me. I am the property of the order, sell me please!" Martin was deeply attached to the Blessed Sacrament, and according to a biography of him in "The Saint Martin De Porres Prayer Book" (p147-152), he was praying in front of it one night when the step of the altar he was kneeling on caught fire. However, the story goes, throughout all the confusion and chaos that followed, he remained where he was, unaware of what was happening around him.

His work on behalf of the poor was tireless: he established an orphanage and a children's hospital. He maintained an austere lifestyle, which included fasting and forswearing meat. His devotion to prayer was notable even by the pious standards of the age. 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 a friend of St. John de Massias and Saint Rose of Lima. When he died in 1639, Saint Martin was known to the entire city of Lima; word of his miracles had made him known as a Saint to every resident of the region. After his death, the miracles and graces received when he was invoked multiplied in such profusion that his body was exhumed after 25 years and found intact, and exhaling a fine fragrance. Letters to Rome pleaded for his beatification; the decree affirming the heroism of his virtues was issued in 1763 by Clement XIII; Gregory XVI beatified him in 1836, and in 1962 Pope John XXIII canonized him. The poor and the sick will never fail to find in him a friend having great power over the Heart of God.

On top of St. Martin is a dove that represents the Holy Spirit that set St. Martin on fire with love for Jesus and him in the distressing disguise of the poor. Cascading downward from the Holy Spirit are twenty light blue beads representing the twenty mysteries of the rosary, which St. Martin contemplated everyday and were an important facet of his transformation unto Jesus. In the bottom of the window under the central are two large circles. The on e on the left contains the Holy Eucharist and the one on the right contains the chalice with the precious blood of Christ. St. Martin de Porres spent whole nights in adoration and contemplation of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. In the center of these two circles is the Dominican Shield which, contains three Latin words which mean to praise, to bless and to preach. St. Martin was a shinning example of all these words on the Dominican shield.