Nov 11 – Memorial for St. Martin of Tours, bishop
St. Martin (316-397) was born to pagan parents. His father was a Roman military officer and tribune. Martin was raised in Pavia, Italy, where he discovered Christianity and became a catechumen in his early teens. He joined the Roman imperia army at the age of 15, serving in a ceremonial unit that acts as the emperor’s bodyguard, and was rarely exposed to combat. He became a cavalry officer and was assigned to garrison duty in Gaul.
Trying to live his faith, he refused to let his servant wait on him. Once, while on horseback in Amiens in Gaul (modern France), he encountered a beggar. Having nothing to give but the clothes on his back, he cut his heavy officer’s cloak in half, and gave it to the beggar. Later, he had a vision of Christ wearing the cloak.
Martin was baptized into the Church at the age of 18. Just before a battle, Martin announced that his faith prohibited him from fighting. Charged with cowardice, he was jailed, and his superiors planned to put him in the front of the battle. However, the invaders sued for peace, the battle never occurred, and Martin was released from military service at Worms.
On a visit to Lombardy to see his parents, he was robbed in the mountains but managed to convert one of the thieves. At home, he found that his mother had converted, but his father had not. The area was strongly Arian, and openly hostile to Catholics. Martin was badly abused by the heretics, and at one point, even by the order of the Arian bishop. Learning that the Arians had gained the upper hand in Gaul and exiled St. Hilary of Poitiers, his spiritual teacher, Martin fled to the island of Gallinaria (modern Isola d’Albenga).
In 361, Martin learned that the emperor had authorized Hilary’s return, and Martin ran to him and became a hermit for ten years in the area now know as Ligugé. A reputation for holiness attracted other monks, and they formed what would become the Benedictine abbey of Ligugé. He preached and evangelised through the Gallic countryside. Many locals held strongly to the old beliefs, and tried to intimidate Martin by dressing as the old Roman gods and appearing to him at night, but Martin continued to win converts. He destroyed old temples, and built churches on the land.
When the bishop of Tours died in 371, Martin was the immediate choice to replace him. Martin declined, citing unworthiness. Rusticus, a wealthy citizen of Tours, claimed his wife was ill and asked for Martin. When he arrived in the city, he was declared bishop by popular acclamation, and was consecrated on Jul 4, 372.
He moved to a hermit’s cell near Tours. Other monks joined him and a new house, Marmoutier, soon formed. He rarely left his monastery, but sometimes went to Trier to plead with the emperor for his city, his church, or his parishioners. Once when he went to ask lenience for a condemned prisoner, an angel woke the emperor to tell him that Martin was waiting to see him; the prisoner was reprieved.
Martin himself was given to visions, but even his contemporaries sometimes ascribed them to his habit of lengthy fasts. An extensive biography of Martin was written by Sulpicius Severus. When he died, he was buried, at his request, in the Cemetery of the Poor. Martin was the first non-martyr to receive the cultus of saint. His relics rested in the basilica of Tours, a scene of pilgrimages and miracles until 1562, when the cathedral and relics were destroyed by militant Protestants. Some small fragments on his tomb were found during construction excavation in 1860.
St. Martin of Tours is patron against poverty, alcoholism, hotel-keepers, quartermasters, soldiers, among others.
Prayer to Continue to Fight for God
“Lord, if your people still have need of my services, I will not avoid the toil. Your will be done. I have fought the good fight long enough. Yet if you bid me continue to hold the battle line in defense of your camp, I will never beg to be excused from failing strength. I will do the work you entrust to me. While you command, I will fight beneath your banner.” – St Martin of Tours, Italian Soldier, Hermit, Bishop
- Patron Saint Index
Wis 2:23-3:9
Luke 17:7-10
They who trust in Him will understand the truth, those who are faithful will live with him in love.
What is truth? I have been asking myself the same all year. If someone is habitually mean-spirited, disrespectful, and downright rude to you, and you finally say enough is enough, is the ‘truth’ that you are ‘petty’ and ‘unforgiving’? Or is the ‘truth’ that you are standing up for yourself?
When someone within your family circle is a narcissistic, manipulative bully, is the ‘truth’ that you are protecting your loved ones from their poison, or that you are tearing up the household for calling them out? When we let bad behaviour slide to ‘keep the peace’, aren’t we enabling the most dysfunctional person in the circle to keep behaving badly? To keep being a bully?
I have asked God these questions countless times in my life, but this year especially. I have railed, and raged and prayed. Things have come to a point where I don’t think I can brook the disrespect any longer. So, I have cut this person off completely. She is no longer welcome in my house. She is no longer invited to break bread at my table. Am I the ‘unprofitable servant’ for not being more tolerant? I have tolerated it for more than 10 years. Could I have done more? Ten years is quite a long time, perhaps I’ve done enough? At what point does doing more actually make things worse? What is the ‘truth’, and on this earth, where God’s work is done by human hands, who becomes the arbiter of ‘enough’? Bullies keep bullying when no one takes them to task. Aren’t we all complicit in that bullying, if we tolerate it and continue to say nothing?
Did God command me to stand up against the bully in the family? I don’t know. Am I doing this for myself, for God, or for another of her victims, who has been a target for much longer than I have? I can’t answer that either. But I DO know that my conscience cannot rest if I don’t say something. I also know that I will become deeply unpopular with the rest of the family for rocking the boat. The bully paints herself as a perpetual victim, so I’m pretty certain that the narrative, ‘her truth’, will be that I am the one creating discord by calling her out. I’m sure I will end up standing alone in all of this. I can only pray for God’s faithfulness, and His promise that those who trust in Him and who are faithful unto Him, He shall lift up and guide down His chosen paths. I can only pray for God’s faithfulness and for His truth to show itself.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Sharon Soo)
Prayer: We pray for all who are dealing with bullies in their lives. We pray for God to bless them with His protection, His strength and His wisdom. We pray for God’s faithfulness, that He comes to them and teaches them what to say, when they are confronted.
Thanksgiving: We give thanks for God’s faithfulness, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, who guides us and lifts us up above the human circus ring.
OXYGEN 
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