Nov 3 – Memorial for St. Martin de Porres, religious
St. Martin (1579-1639) was the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman, Juan, and a young freed black slave, Anna Velasquez. He grew up in poverty and spent part of his youth with a surgeon-barber from whom he learned some medicine and care of the sick.
At the age of 11, he became a servant in the Holy Rosary Dominican priory in Lima, Peru. He was promoted to almoner and begged more than $2,000 a week from the rich to support the poor and sick in Lima. He was placed in charge of the Dominican’s infirmary, and was known for his tender care of the sick and for his spectacular cures. His superiors dropped the stipulation that “no black person may be received to the holy habit or profession of our order” and Martin took vows as a Dominican brother in 1603.
He established an orphanage and children’s hospital for the poor children of the slums. He set up a shelter for the stray cats and dogs and nursed them back to health. He lived in self-imposed austerity, never eating meat, fasting continuously, and spent much time in prayer and meditation with a great devotion to the Holy Eucharist. He was a friend of St. John de Massias.
He was venerated from the day of his death. Many miraculous cures, including raising the dead, have been attributed to Brother Martin, the first black saint from the Americas.
- Patron Saint Index
Rm 9:1-5
Lk 14:1-6
…it is the truth — my conscience in union with the Holy Spirit assures me of it too.
Do you love your Conscience? I know this is an odd question. What is ‘Conscience’? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as, “a person’s moral sense of right or wrong, viewed as acting as a guide to one’s behaviour”. Perhaps another name for Conscience is Wisdom. In the biblical sense, Wisdom is seen as the ability to see reality as God does — to have a God-given and God-centred discernment to the practical issues in life. Wisdom is in fact, the Holy Spirit. So Wisdom is not a thing or quality, but it is a Person — it is the Spirit of the Living God. Thus, our conscience is the inner barometer, guided by Wisdom, that orders our daily conduct.
Do you then love your Conscience? Paul, in his letter to the Romans points to his conscience, being in union with the Holy Spirit, as guiding his desire to speak the truth to convince his Israelite brethren of Christ, who is the Son of God. He would do this even if it caused him persecution — and he is not ignorant of what persecution entails since he once played the role of persecutor. Many of the Saints we honour are ones who have, despite their imperfections, sought to live their lives in close unity with their Conscience and the Holy Spirit. We are uplifted and shown the way by their single-minded desire to keep seeking to follow God’s will for their lives!
The First Reading and the Gospel passage today points out to us that as Christians, we need to live by our Conscience, by seeking God’s Wisdom that will inform us on all matters of living, our conduct with our family, our work, our mission in life. It shall also order all our relationships in life. In Luke’s account of the Gospels, Jesus tests the Pharisees about the principal of keeping the Sabbath holy for God (that no kind of work should be done at all), even if there was a life at stake?
Clearly, his hypothetical question was meant to try the ‘moral ground’ on which the legalistic Pharisees stood and challenge the basis on which they adhered to God’s Laws. Were their actions flowing from a truly God-centred Conscience guided by Wisdom and Love for God and other, or by their stubborn self-important illusion of moral authority? To Jesus’ questions, they could find no answer.
For those who believe in God, the Pharisees included (as faithful, misguided, or unloving as they come), our knowledge of, and relationship with, God would have awakened and ignited our Conscience to the moment-to-moment tensions of our reality. Our Conscience would highlight the sometimes incongruence and idiosyncrasies of our own actions. Do we surrender to feelings of shame and guilt if we recognise this? What do we do then? It does not have to be grave moral decisions of whether or not to commit fraud, adultery, slander or gossip. The day-to-day moments are critical and can be quite hard already.
Sometimes, for me, these moments could be as simple as to say an apology to a loved one, or to accept criticisms which though jarring, have grains of truth. Do we thank our Conscience for bringing out room for change and growth to the fore? Do we laugh at another’s conscience? Do we mock those who authentically practice listening to their conscience, as a way to dull one’s own fear of ignoring the same?
Collectively, as a community and society, if we do not encourage each other to honour and live by our conscience, we would run the risk of destroying the fabric of common human fraternity to the point of failure. Sure, it is not easy. Nothing that is Truthful, of Beauty, and Good ever came from taking the easy road. May we not allow our personal lives to run down to the point of failure too — for then, it will be too late.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Debbie Loo)
Prayer: We pray for our personal lives and choices, that we seek to honour and give thanks for this God-given gift of Conscience that guides all of human race to seek Truth, Beauty and Goodness. May we not ignore our Conscience and stray to the point of failure.
Thanksgiving: Thank you God, for the gift of my Conscience. For when I did not yet know you, I was still able to sense the shadows of Truth, Beauty and Goodness. Thank you God, for putting Your imprint into the souls of all whom you have created.
OXYGEN 
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