St. Martin de Porres - a timely reminder

We’ve been into quite a few churches along the way. All of them catholic churches so far. I was brought up in the Church of England, and we were a “high Anglican church” parish, meaning we had a lot of statues in the church, and there were “smells and bells” during communion each week. Yet, in comparison to the churches we’ve been in here in Portugal and Spain, ours would have been considered quite unadorned.

Today I continued to ponder the lives of the saints and martyrs, and came across the first statue of a Black saint that we’ve seen.

This statue of St Martin de Porres was in Igrexa de San Miguel de Bouzas in Vigo. You’ll see he is holding a broom. There is a very informative Wikipedia page about his life and legacy (which gives context to the presence of the broom) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_de_Porres. Here is another booklet describing his life - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G52mWRknl3mLOvAEc3fqF-fGGn_sH9Ou/view

Reading his story has reminded me that discrimination and the fight against it has been around for centuries, all across the globe. In Lima, Peru where he was born in 1579 and lived his whole life, “descendants of Africans and Native Americans were barred from becoming full members of religious orders.” Eventually, after Martin had served the order faithfully for 8 years, the Prior of the order decided to disobey that law and allow Martin to take his vows as a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic. And yet even amongst fellow members of his order he was subjected to racist taunts.

Learning about St. Martin de Porres today has reminded me of another Martin… Dr Martin Luther King Jr. He taught us that the arc of the moral universe is long and that it bends towards justice. Recent events remind us yet again that the bending towards justice has always been resisted by those wanting to preserve their privilege and power. This is not a new story, it is the same old story. And it is incumbent upon those of us who seek justice for all to keep pressing forward. The protests across the U.S on Saturday demonstrated that there are millions of us willing to do that.

Today I’m grateful to have learned about the life of St. Martin de Porres… totally unexpected and inspirational.