Portal mural (detail, left): three friars

One of the apostolic twelve Franciscan friars to arrive in New Spain in 1524, Toribio de Benevento (1482-1569) was one of the twelve apostolic Franciscan friars to arrive in New Spain in 1524, here depicted in the Sala de Profundis of the monastery at Huejotzingo between comrades García de Cisneros (left) and Martín de Valencia (right).

Famously, de Benevento assumed the Náhuatl name of “Motolinia” meaning “the poor one”, thus conveying Franciscan privation and humility to the indigenous he was attempting to convert. As the Primitive (Christian) Church was central to Franciscan evangelization in New Spain, in assuming his new name perhaps de Benevento had St. Paul in mind. When preaching in Cyprus and Galatia around 46-48 AD Paul had also changed his name in order to be more accepted by the locals.

“Some have speculated that he deliberately set aside this name, with its highborn overtones, in order to use a Greek word connected to the adjective paulos, “small, little” – a sign, perhaps, of a deliberate humility, “the least of the apostles”. (Wright, N.T., Paul, A Biography, New York, Harper Collins Publishers, 2011, p. 116)