St Martin de Porres 
School Saints
"We are all called to be saints." Pope Francis
At St Martin de Porres Catholic School we are inspired every day by a range of saints. We look up to them as role models as the kind of people we strive to be. Strong in faith, character, resilience and an overwhelming love of other people.
St Martin de Porres
Juan Martin de Porres was born in Lima, Peru in 1579. He was raised in poverty. His father was a Spanish gentleman and his mother was a black former slave from Panama. Martin wished to be a missionary.
When Martin was twelve years old, he served as an apprentice to a barber/surgeon. He learned not only how to cut hair, but how to draw blood. Martin applied to the Dominican Order to be a "lay helper". He felt he was unworthy to become a religious brother.
After nine years, the community requested that he make a full religious profession. He then became a Dominican Brother. Martin led a daily life of prayer and penitential practices.
St. Martin was instrumental in founding an orphanage and took care of slaves. He worked daily in the kitchen, laundry and infirmary. A formidable fundraiser, he obtained thousands of dollars for dowries of poor girls so that they could marry, or enter a convent.
Martin was a spiritual director to many of his fellow religious brothers. He was also a good friend to a fellow Dominican, St. Rose of Lima.
St. Martin was given extraordinary gifts form the Holy Spirit. His ecstasies lifted him into the air, light filled the room where he prayed, instantaneous cures were common and he was known for a remarkable rapport with animals.
On November 3rd, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of St. Martin de Porres.
House Saints
St Thomas More
St Thomas More was a very close friend of the English king Henry VIII. They shared a great love of learning and the king trusted St Thomas More completely: he helped the king to rule the country.
In 1533, however, Henry VIII decided that he should be in charge of the church in England and not the Pope. St Thomas More disagreed with the king and their friendship was over.
In 1535, St Thomas More was executed because he refused to accept Henry VIII as the head of the English church.
St Edmund Campion
St Edmund Campion was born in London in 1540 and was extremely clever, attending university at the very young age of 15. After leaving England, St Edmund Campion became a Catholic priest in 1578.
Although he knew that it was dangerous to be Catholic in England at that time, he was determined to return home and support English Catholics. He came back in 1580 and was caught and arrested in Oxford.
The government offered to spare him if he gave up his Catholic faith, but he refused. St Edmund Campion was executed in 1581.
St John Wall
St John Wall was born in Lancashire, England in 1620. When he was young, he went to France to train as a Catholic priest and was ordained there in 1645.
He returned to England in 1656 and had to practice in secret, as it was still very difficult to be a Catholic in England at that time. He was arrested in 1678 and put in prison, simply for being a Catholic priest.
The government offered to spare him his life if he would give up being a priest. St John Wall refused and so he was executed in 1679.
St Margaret Clitheroe
St Margaret Clitheroe was born in York in the north of England in 1555. She was an ordinary woman, who married a butcher and had two children.
She was a Catholic at a time when it was very difficult to be a Catholic in England. She was caught helping Catholic priests to hide from the government and was arrested.
She refused to speak, as to do so could have resulted in her children being hurt and forced to tell the government all that they knew.
She was executed on 25th March 1586. She died protecting her children and being true to her faith.
Class Saints
Each class has their own patron Saint that they look towards each to day for inspiration and guidance.
Class-Saints (ID 1052)
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Reception - Saint Francis of Assisi
Reception - Saint Francis of Assisi
Saint Francis of Assisi was born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone and nicknamed Francesco. He was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher who founded the men's Order of Friar Minor, the women's Order of St Clare and the Third Order of St Francis. Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.
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Year 1 - St Bernadette
Year 1 - St Bernadette
Marie Bernarde Soubirous, also called Bernadette, was the first born daughter of a miller from Lourdes, France. She is best known for the Marian apparitions of a "small young lady" who asked for a chapel to be built at the cave-grotto where apparitions are said to have occurred between February and July 1858.
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Year 2 - St Juan Diego
Year 2 - St Juan Diego
St Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, a native of Mexico, is the first Roman Catholic indigenous saint from the Americas. He is said to have been granted an apparition of the Virgin Mary on four separate occasions in December 1531 at the hill of Tepeyac. Juan Diego's mantle (cloak) is said to have been impressed by miracle with an image of the Virgin. This is the basis of the cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
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Year 3 - St Padre Pio
Year 3 - St Padre Pio
Pio of Pietrelcina, Italy, commonly known as Padre Pio, was a friar, priest, stigmatist and mystic of the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. Padre Pio became famous for bearing the stigmata for most of his life.
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Year 4 - St Alphonsa
Year 4 - St Alphonsa
Saint Alphonsa was a Syro-Malabar Catholic Franscican nun who is now honoured as a saint. Sister Alphonsa became the first native Indian to be canonised. Her Baptismal name is Anna.
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Year 5 - St John Bosco
Year 5 - St John Bosco
St John Bosco, popularly known as Don Bosco, was an Italian Roman Catholic priest of the Latin Church, educator and writer of the 19th Century. In Turin, he dedicated his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents and other disadvantaged youth.
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Year 6 - St Maximilian Kolbe
Year 6 - St Maximilian Kolbe
Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe was a Polish Conventual Franscican Friar, who voluntered to die in place of a stranger in the German death camp of Auschwitz, located in German-occupied Poland during World War II.