St. Martín de Porres was born in Lima, Peru, on December 9, 1579. His father, Don Juan de Porres, was a Spanish conquistador and his mother, Ana Velázquez, was a freed slave from Panama, of African or possibly part Native American descent. Seeing that the child had African rather than European features, Don Juan de Porres refused to acknowledge his paternity. Martín was baptized the day he was born, with notation on the baptismal certificate reading "father unknown". He was raised by his mother in extreme poverty, on the very lowest rungs of early Spanish colonial society; in the eyes of the nobility, a mark of illegitimacy was exceeded in shamefulness only by a child's racially mixed heritage.

Stories of Martín's remarkable generosity apparently began to surround him even in childhood; sent to the local market by his mother, he would often give away the contents of his basket to homeless persons before reaching home. By the time he was 10 he was spending several hours of each day in prayer, a practice he maintained for the rest of his life. He once asked his landlady for the stumps of some candles she had discarded, and she later saw him using their meager light to behold a crucifix before which he knelt, weeping.

Perhaps as a result of the boy's spiritual accomplishments, Don Juan de Porres acknowledged Martín when he was eight years old, that he was Martín's father. 

Ana recognized in her son the signs of an intense spiritual quality, and she tried to obtain for him an education beyond mere subsistence level. When Martín was 12, he was apprenticed to a barber—a profession that in sixteenth-century society involved much more than cutting hair. Young Martín learned the rudiments of surgery: administering herbal remedies, dressing wounds, and drawing blood—something that was thought to be curative at the time.

At 15, Martín decided to devote himself to the religious life. He applied to join the Convent of the Rosary in Lima, a Dominican monastery. Racial restrictions dictated that he be given the position of "tertiary" or lay helper, which he enthusiastically accepted.  Martín was able to exercise his medical skills after being put in charge of the monastery infirmary, and he was often given the monastery's basic chores such as cleaning, cooking, and doing laundry.

Both before and after joining the monastery, Martín suffered incidents of harassment that may well have been racially motivated. The monks for whom he was cooking would hide the kitchen's potholders, and one of the early stories surrounding the young holy man was that he could then pick up the pots with his bare hands and not be burned. Another story concerned Martín's tendency toward self-denial and his determination to identify himself with the lives of Peru's indigenous poor.

Cleaning a toilet one day, he was asked by a monk whether he might not prefer life at the splendid offices of the Archbishop of Mexico. Martín responded by quoting the biblical Psalm 84: "I have chosen to be an object in the house of my God rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners." He qualified this remark by saying that he was not referring to the Archbishop as a sinner, but rather simply that he himself preferred menial tasks. Martin wore robes until they fell apart, refusing the luxury of new ones.

Many stories attest to Martín's exceptional piety. He was said sometimes to be surrounded by a bright light when he prayed, and to be levitated off the floor of a chapel by sheer religious ecstasy. He subsisted for days on bread and water and would do penance for sins by whipping himself with chains. Martín was said to be capable of bilocation (being in two places at once), and individuals from both Africa and Mexico swore that they had encountered him in their home villages even though he was never known to have left Lima. Patients under his care spoke on several occasions of his having walked through locked doors in order to render medical help.

Other tales of the miracles and wonders worked by Martín, however, were more specific to his time and place. He was said to have a supernatural rapport with the natural world. The most famous single story connected with Martín had to do with a group of mice (or rats) that infested the monastery's collection of fine linen robes. Martín resisted the plans of the other monks to lay poison out for the mice. One day he caught a mouse and said, "Little brothers, why are you and your companions doing so much harm to the things belonging to the sick? Look; I shall not kill you, but you are to assemble all your friends and lead them to the far end of the garden. Everyday I will bring you food if you leave the wardrobe alone"—whereupon Martín lead a Pied Piper-like mouse parade toward a small new den. Both the mice and Martín kept their word, and the closet infestation was solved for good. Martín loved animals of all kinds and seemed to have unusual skills in communicating with them. He would apply his medical skills to the treatment of a wounded dog found wandering the streets with the same energy he would devote to a sick human.

Many other stories of Martín's goodness pertained to his unwavering efforts to help Lima's poor and ill, often against the wishes of his superiors at the monastery. A sick, aged street person, almost naked and covered with open sores, was taken by Martín to his own bed at the monastery. A fellow monk was horrified, but Martín responded,  "Compassion, my dear Brother, is preferable to cleanliness. Reflect that with a little soap I can easily clean my bed covers, but even with a torrent of tears I would never wash from my soul the stain that my harshness toward the unfortunate would create."

St. Martín died of a fever in Lima on November 3, 1639, at the age of nearly 60. Despite his renown throughout Latin America, recognition from the Catholic church was slow to come. In 1837 he was beatified, and his feast day is celebrated on November 3. He was canonized as a saint by Pope John XXIII on May 6, 1962, with a contingent of 350 African-American Catholics in attendance. When canonized, he was designated the patron saint of universal brotherhood. On a more earthly plane, he was also the patron saint of interracial relations, social justice, public education, Peruvian television and public health, trade unions in Spain, mixed-race individuals, and barbers and hair stylists in Italy.

Paintings of St. Martín often depict him with a mouse, dog, or cat, coexisting in peace—or sometimes with a broom, symbolizing his devotion to everyday tasks.


Information taken from the following sites:
https://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-Mi-So/Porres-Mart-n.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_de_Porres


"I have chosen to be an object in the house of my God rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners."

-Psalm 84.10