It's hard to describe all the charisms of St. Martin de Porres, or cover all the gifts he received from the Lord. The more we read about him, the more we realize what a powerful instrument of God he was. He had the gifts of bilocation, healing, multiplication of food, reading men's minds, raising the dead, levitation, ecstasy, visions, inner locution; it goes on and on. Martin de Porres was one of the most powerful and yet one of the gentlest Saints in the history of our Church, and without doubt, a true disciple of the Lord in the New World. We will try to give you just a taste of how the Lord worked in this hemisphere through this Saint.

Martin was born in 1579, in Lima, Peru. It was only 83 years after Columbus placed a small Spanish flag on the island of San Salvador, claiming it and the entire new world for the Catholic Queen, Isabella, as it was she who had financed this expedition in thanksgiving to God for deliverance of Spain from the Moors. In 1535, the city of Lima was founded, and in 1551, the Dominicans Saint Martin de Porres began a university there.