Beloved Members of St. Martin’s,
This coming Sunday, we will celebrate our patronal feast for St. Martin of Tours, whose actual feast day is November 11. As you may know, St. Martin’s Day is also, always, Armistice Day for World War I, and now celebrated here in the US as Veterans’ Day. Due to his devotion to peace, his feast day was traditionally a day when battles would cease. That is why the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month was chosen as the start of the cease-fire, or armistice, that ended the fighting in World War I.
Martin was a man of not so much contradictions as reversals during his life on the pathways to follow Jesus. And this year, my favorite way for you to know something about St. Martin’s life is through the magic of LEGO!
Here is a link to a 60 second LEGO overview of some of St. Martin’s life. Please enjoy! This video will also explain the choice of the gospel for St. Martin’s Day.
In the Roman Catholic Church, St. Martin is, simultaneously, the patron saint of
soldiers and conscientious objectors,
the US Army Quartermaster Corps,
inn-keepers and tailors,
France and South Africa, wine-makers and recovering alcoholics,
beggars and poor people, the people who help alcoholics and the people who help the poor, weavers of wool, tailors, and equestrians (horse-riders),
geese and horses.
(in Spanish-speaking countries he is called San Martin Caballero, or St. Martin, Horseman)
Whew! That’s a lot of responsibility for one saint.
Maybe that’s to remind us that being a follower of Christ means being engaged with all of the cares and concerns of the world.
In Christ,
Mother Leslie+
PS—Do you know what the image is, and where it can be found?