Saint Martín de Porres

On 3 November, two days after All Saints, the Church remembers Saint Martín de Porres, the Dominican lay brother of Lima, Peru, whose life you can meet in the lesson called All of it was good. Today we look at something he teaches with a very ordinary tool: a broom. Paintings and statues almost always show Martín with a broom in his hand.

Why a broom? In the convent Martín did the everyday work of the house, and sweeping was part of it. It is the kind of job nobody notices or thanks. Martín did it with care and with joy, because he did everything as a gift for Jesus. He had understood what Jesus taught his apostles: the greatest among them is the one who serves. On the night before he died, Jesus got up from the supper table, took a towel, washed the feet of his friends one by one, and then told them to do the same for one another. No job is too small when it is done out of love.

The accounts of Martín’s life say that he went around Lima asking for alms to feed the poor, and that no one who came to the convent door was sent away. The Church calls actions like these works of mercy: giving food to the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, visiting the sick. And she teaches that the home is the first school of Christian life, where we learn active charity. A family can practice the works of mercy without leaving the house: sharing the meal, visiting a sick grandparent, doing the chores nobody wants.

Martín reminds us that holiness is not only for people who do great things. It also looks like a clean floor, a shared meal and a kind word, done every day with a happy heart. The next time you pick up a broom, you are in good company.