Saint Martin de Porres and the Miracle of the Mice
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.
When you look at a prayer card, or the canonization painting of St. Martin, you see him wielding the broom, as we said before. Then you see the dog. But to his right, on the floor, there is a dish, with a cat and a mouse and a dove all eating from it at the same time. The mouse is a very important symbol of the ministry of St. Martin de Porres. It began with a problem.-St. Martin's wardrobe room.
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