Saint Martin de Porres 7 Day Glass Candle

The Son of a Nobleman and a Freed Slave. The Healer of Lima. The First Black Saint of the Americas.

Juan de Porres was a Spanish nobleman and a knight of the Order of Alcántara. Ana Velázquez was a freed Black woman from Panama. Their son, born in Lima in 1579, was given his father’s surname but not his father’s status. In the brutally stratified world of colonial Peru, Martin de Porres grew up knowing exactly where the society he lived in had decided to place him and he spent his entire life quietly, radically, and miraculously refusing to stay there.

He trained as a barber-surgeon, the medical trade of his time. He entered the Dominican monastery of the Holy Rosary in Lima as a lay helper, the lowest possible position, the one available to someone of his heritage. He swept floors. He did laundry. He worked in the infirmary. And while he did all of this, the miracles began.

He healed the sick through prayer and touch. He bilocated appearing simultaneously in Lima and in places thousands of miles away. He levitated during prayer. He communicated with animals. He fed hundreds of poor people every day from the monastery kitchen, stretching provisions that should not have been enough to feed everyone who came. He established a hospital. He founded an orphanage. He cared for the sick and the dying regardless of their race, their status, or their ability to pay.

When the monastery ran short of funds, the prior suggested selling some of the lay brothers’ services to raise money. Martin offered himself first. I am only a poor mulatto, he said. Sell me. He was not sold. But the offer, made without bitterness, without performance, with the simple clarity of a man who had already given everything tells you everything about who Martin de Porres was.

He was canonized in 1962. He is the patron of Peru, of Lima, of mixed-race people, of the poor, of barbers, of healers, and of all who do the unglamorous, essential, holy work of caring for those the world has decided do not matter.

The Saint Martin de Porres 7 Day Glass Candle carries his healing, humble, radically generous energy through seven full days of burning.

Traditional Petitions

• Racial justice and equality — the first Black saint of the Americas; petitioned for those who suffer racial discrimination and for interracial harmony
• Healing and medicine — extraordinary gifts of healing; patron of physicians, nurses, barbers, and all who work in the healing arts
• The poor and the marginalized — petitioned for provision, care, and the protection of those society has cast aside
• Barbers and hairdressers — his own trade before the monastery; patron of the barbering profession
• Animals — his love of animals and his gift of communicating with them; petitioned for animal welfare and healing
• Mixed-race people and those of African and Indigenous descent — claimed with particular love by those who share his heritage
• Social workers and those who serve the poor — his entire life was an act of radical, unglamorous service
• Humility and hidden holiness — petitioned by those seeking the grace of faithful, humble, unrecognized service
• Public health workers and those who care for the sick in community settings

How to Work This Candle

Come to Saint Martin de Porres with the needs of the body, the community, and the spirit. He worked in all three simultaneously and he responds to all three. Write your petition naming what you need: the healing, the justice, the provision for someone who has nothing, the blessing on your work of service. Place it beneath the candle. Dress the top of the glass with Saint Martin de Porres oil or a gentle healing oil — lavender, healing herbs, a blend that carries the quiet power of the infirmary rather than the drama of the battlefield. His colors are black and white, the colors of the Dominican habit he wore with such humility. His feast day is November 3rd, a powerful day to begin a working with him, particularly for healing or for justice. Light the candle with the quiet confidence of someone who has asked the right saint for the right thing. Martin de Porres spent his life doing the work that needed to be done without asking for recognition. He will do the same for you.

Each candle is approximately 8 inches tall and burns for up to 7 days.