Saint Martin de Porres

Born in Peru in 1579, the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a freed black slave, Martin de Porres embodies quite literally the often conflictual encounter between the cultures and races of very different worlds.  But as a barber-surgeon and Dominican tertiary with the heart of Jesus his Lord, Martin knew how to become an instrument of universal reconciliation through active mercy, ardently loving and serving the poor and the sick.  He truly "regarded others humbly as more important than himself, putting their interests before his own,"(Phil 2:3-4) and so he emptied himself through works of outpoured love.  Let us, too, welcome this same action of transforming grace in our own lives.

Meditation by Father Simeon.