Saints of Lima

Today is the feast of St. Turibius (or Toribio) of Mogrovejo.  Most people, I think, respond to that factoid with, at best, the question "Who?", or more likely, "So what?"

The significance of St. Toribio is that he was bishop of Lima at a time when four other people in Lima were living, all five of whom have been canonized as saints.  Throughout history, how many cities, much less a recently colonized city in the "New World," less than a century after Columbus' famous voyage of discovery, can claim five recognized saints living there at the same time?  (In the case of one of them, as you'll see further on, it's a bit of stretch, but he too

 deserves inclusion.)

Toribio (1538-1606) was born a Spaniard, lived the first two-thirds of his life as a lay jurist, and suddenly, in 1580 at age 42, he was quickly ordained a priest and bishop and sent to Lima as its second bishop.  As with so many missionaries, he had to struggle with the pastoral care of his people in the face of oppressive colonization.  Lima was the center of Spanish colonization of South America, and already as only the second bishop of the diocese he inherited chaos and corruption.  He learned the local language, made frequent visits to even the remotest regions of his 18,000-square-mile diocese, and his pastoral reforms echoed those of St. Charles Borromeo in Milan, his contemporary.  He had a special concern for the sick and the poor, as well as healthy religious communities.   His feast is today, March 23; in Ordinary time it has the rank of an obligatory memorial, but Lent bumps it down to an optional commemoration.  

The well-known and popular saints of Lima, Martin de Porres (1575-1639) and Rosa (1586-1617) were  contemporaries, as well as the lesser-known Francisco Solano (1549-1610) and Juan Macias (1585-1645).

Martin de Porres, the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a freed slave from Panama, is often pictured in the habit of a Dominican lay brother with a broom, indicating humble servant status.  In reality, he was a skilled, even though informally educated, physician and surgeon, who was as famous for his medical practice as for his spirituality.  His feast is celebrated on November 3.

Rosa of Lima, native born and also associated with the Domincans as a member of the lay Third Order, modeled her spirituality on St. Catherine of Siena, and engaged in excessive physical mortifications that would today be considered pathological.  Her spirituality, reputation, and influence derive more from her well-organized works of charity and care for the poor, rather than her penitential practices, and her work has been called "the beginning of social service in Peru."  Unlike the other four, all of whom lived into their sixties, she died relatively young, at age thirty-one.  Santa Rosa, California, is named after her.  The Roman Calendar celebrates her feast on August 23.

Juan Macias was a poor Spanish 

shepherd who, in midlife, made his way to Peru were he worked for two years before he decided to become a Dominican lay brother.  Like Rosa, who died five years before he left Spain, he too practiced extreme and health-threatening austerities.  But like his friend Martin, he dedicated his work totally to serving the poor.  (Although a younger contemporary of Toribio's, he did not come to Peru until about fourteen years after the bishop died.)  He was canonized as recently as 1975 by Pope John Paul II, and his feast is celebrated on September 16, but only locally; it is not on the universal calendar.

The lone Franciscan of the group, Francisco Solano, was sent as a missionary to Peru in 1589 at age forty, and then to Lima five years later.  While he related well to the native population in the rural missions, playing music and dancing with them, as well as defending them against the exploitation of the Spanish overlords, in the big city he became something of a rabid, puritanical reformer.  Although he was credited with prophecy and working miracles, he was distinctly unpopular because he frequently stormed into theaters and gambling houses loudly condemning the going-on there.  The mission in Sonoma, California, is named after him.  His feast is on July 14, but only on local calendars.

Five saints, among the first in the Western Hemisphere, in one place at the same time.  This deserves to be better known.

I've based my few words on the accounts in the recent edition of Butler's Lives of the Saints.  There's lots more of good stuff to know about them, and if these great, though sometimes eccentric, people capture your imagination as they have mine, you can explore quite extensively with Google.