View
Blessed Assistance
Anthony Esolen on the Un-humanitarian Charity of Martin de Porres
Brother Martin," writes the biographer of St. Martin de Porres, a Peruvian mulatto who lived during the seventeenth century, shortly after the conquistadores had done their ruthless and efficient work, "was no philanthropist, no humanitarian."
That sentence is, I think, a shibboleth: no one but a Christian would understand it. For the biographer, J. C. Kearns, O.P., has just spent many pages describing Martin's vigor in assisting the sick and the poor of Lima. Early in life, he had learned all he could about medicine, so that he could tend to the sick, applying balm and poultices to their sores with his own hands. He became the infirmarian at his Dominican priory. His days, says Kearns, "were literally crowded with action—even the nights were devoted to vigils by the bedsides of the sick." Martin learned to subsist on as little sleep as possible, so that he could be up and doing corporal or spiritual works of mercy, including many hours of intense prayer for the healing of souls.
And he was more than a physician making the rounds of the city. Avarice and lust take their toll upon a people, and children bear the worst of it. Lima was overrun with orphans, prey to hunger and disease, and to the vile degradation of the prostitute. Martin, whose Spanish father had rejected him when he was a small child, was touched by their plight. "The civil authorities," Kearns notes, "had given up the problem as hopeless."
That is but an honest evaluation of the case. For the civil authorities alone, with the tools they possess, problems like that one are in fact hopeless. In seventeenth-century Lima, as in twenty-first-century Detroit, poverty is hopeless, the rehabilitation of criminals is hopeless, the wholesome education of street children is hopeless—all these and many more diseases of the human spirit, for the authorities, are hopeless. To heal a wound, you must touch the wound; to heal a heart, you must touch the heart. And that is what no program or law or bundle of entitlements can do.
Personal Charity
So Martin pleaded the case of these children. He went to the people. He told them of a dream that heaven had sent him, of a school and an orphanage to take care of the boys and girls both physically and spiritually. So eloquent was his plea that the viceroy and the archbishop sanctioned his plans. Wealthy persons opened their purses. A Don Mateo Pastor and his wife gave the astonishingly large sum of two hundred thousand pesos—what would have constituted a rich dowry for fifty young brides. And thus was founded the Orphanage and School of the Holy Cross.
This wasn't a matter of abstract reasoning. The rich people didn't apply political philosophy to the situation. They didn't deduce the size of their gifts by utilitarian calculus. They gave to the children by giving to Martin, whose indefatigable charity made him to be trusted implicitly. That is, their gift was at one remove, but still deeply personal.
There's more. Martin de Porres helped people in large and visible ways. He also helped them in the small ways that are beneath the notice and the dignity of the humanitarian. He went about with his bag of medicaments, but also with a broom, sweeping the cloisters and seeking out "the most neglected places that he might rid them of litter and set things in order." When someone reproached him for it, saying that it was work befitting a servant, Martin replied that he "was the most despicable of all the slaves." In that he was in accord with the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas, who said that so long as we remember that all of our virtue comes as a gift from God, we may without falsehood believe ourselves "in all ways unprofitable and useless" with regard to our own capabilities.
Steps of Degeneration
Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on culture from the online archives
30.6—Nov/Dec 2017
Christ, Individualism & the Meaning of Cultural Diversity by Anthony Esolen
35.2—Mar/Apr 2022
on Fatigued Christians Deciding to Engage the Culture by Keith Lowery
20.7—September 2007
Paul Didn’t Build Bridges to Popular Culture by Russell D. Moore
more from the online archives
33.3—May/June 2020
Maternal Body: A Theology of Incarnation from the Christian East by Carrie Frederick Frost
Fertile Ground: A Pilgrimage Through Pregnancy by Laura S. Jansson by Agnes R. Howard
24.5—Sept/Oct 2011
on Wondering or Wandering Through College Education by Anthony Esolen
23.6—November/December 2010
Darwin, Design & Thomas Aquinas
The Mythical Conflict Between Thomism & Intelligent Design by Logan Paul Gage
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
