John Macias

John Macías (Spanish: Juan Macías) was born in 1585 in Ribera del Fresno, in Extremadura in western Spain. Both of his parents died while he was still a small child, and he was brought up by an uncle. He spent his youth as a shepherd in the countryside of Extremadura and was already known for a simple, devout life, especially a strong attachment to the Rosary. In early adulthood he left Spain for the Spanish Americas, traveling by way of ports on the Caribbean coast before settling in the Viceroyalty of Peru.

After a period of secular labor in Peru, including work with livestock, he sought admission to the Dominican Order in Lima. In 1622 he entered the convent of Santa María Magdalena as a lay brother, or cooperator brother, and made profession the following year. He was never ordained a priest. For more than twenty years he served as porter of the convent, the brother stationed at the gate. That office brought him into daily contact with the poor of Lima, whom he fed in large numbers from the community’s alms. Contemporary lives attribute to him the multiplication of food and other charisms, including unusual knowledge of distant or hidden events, and they describe a severe penitential regime alongside long hours of prayer.

Macías belonged to the same Dominican generation in Lima as Martín de Porres, a fellow lay brother at the nearby priory of Santo Domingo, and the two men are consistently presented in the sources as close spiritual friends who shared a reputation for charity toward the city’s poor and enslaved. Macías died in Lima on 16 September 1645. A local cult developed soon afterward among Dominicans and the faithful of Peru. He was beatified by Pope Gregory XVI in 1837 and canonized by Pope Paul VI on 28 September 1975. His relics are venerated in the Basilica and Convent of Santo Domingo in Lima, in the same Dominican church associated with Saints Rose of Lima and Martín de Porres. His feast is kept on 18 September, and he is remembered above all as a model of Dominican lay brotherhood and of practical care for the poor.