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Martin de Porres was the unwanted child of a Spanish grandee and a freed African slave. He was born in Lima, Peru in 1579. When only fifteen years old he began his long relationship with the Dominican Order beginning as a tertiary and later becoming a brother with vows.
Martin had a deep longing for God and an overwhelming desire to help all who were poor and destitute. Because of his great love for the natural world and his attunement to plants and their healing properties he became an herbalist.
Surgery in his day was quite primitive so he began treating illness with herbs and became a master herbalist.
He founded an orphanage for homeless children and staffed it with the best teachers, nurses and guardians he could find. On the hills of Lima he planted orchards to feed the poor. Martin loved animals, and like St. Francis of Assisi considered them children of God.
Like St. Francis his love for the animals was well known and he could be seen walking along the streets of Lima with a following of animals who were magnetized by his loving radiance.
He died at the age of sixty of a prolonged high fever. He remains today one of the most beloved saints of the Americas.
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