Saint Martin: European Saint

The Catholic Thing

By Michele McAloon
Born on the plains of Pannonia, in present-day Hungary, raised in Italy, and eventually becoming known in modern-day France as the apostle to the Gauls, Saint Martin of Tours (316 AD - 397 AD) left a legacy that spans the European continent. The name of the man who only ever wanted to be a holy hermit adorns many towns, schools, churches, and even bottles of wine from the Czech Republic to Croatia to France.
November 11, his feast day, is an auspicious date in the history of Europe and the world. In 1918, the "war to end all wars" was declared ended on this date in Compiegne, France, a mere four hours away from Tours. The soldier saint would have smiled. He knew from experience that the cycle of human quarrels and violence never ends, Only the names change: barbarism, Arianism, Nazism . . . or Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Fallen Man's recurrent interaction with sin is endless.
The young Martin was born to a high-ranking and successful Roman legionnaire at a time when Christianity was young. Surrounded by Christian servants throughout his youth, he noticed the markedly different behavior between those who followed Christ and those who worshiped Roman deities. At ten, he requested baptism, but his father, who remained adamantly loyal to the pagan gods of Rome, wouldn't allow it.
As a young man, Martin attended what was basically a Roman military academy and became a cavalry officer in Milan. As a Roman Legionnaire, Martin was assigned to present-day Amiens where he was baptized and given minor orders. It was also there that he would have an experience that would change his life forever.
Returning from maneuvers, Martin saw an impoverished and lightly clad beggar lying before the city gate. He offered half of his Roman cloak to the wretched soul. Later, he dreamed that the man to whom he had given the cloak was Christ himself.
Two years later Martin resigned from the army and returned home to try to convert his father. He failed but did have the happiness of seeing his mother baptized before her death. Returning to Gaul, Saint Martin became a disciple of Saint Hilary of Poitiers, a renowned bishop of the time.
Despite Saint Martin's desire to live a simple, holy life as a monk, his fame grew owing to his piety and his ability to perform miracles. Against his will, he was made a bishop. Legend says that he hid in a goose pen to avoid meeting the emissaries who were bringing the news of his elevation. To this day, families all over Europe gather together to feast on roast goose - oddly reminiscent of our Thanksgiving - on the eleventh of November.
As a bishop, he lived an impoverished life, tirelessly trying to convert the Germanic tribes that had settled in the forests of northern France. Hagiography, therefore, often associates him with trees.
In one such account, pagan woodsmen were cutting a pine tree and challenged Bishop Martin to stand under the tree as it was being felled. If he remained unharmed, they promised to convert. The woodsmen were in the Church the next day being baptized by St Martin himself.
Saint Martin's reputation was so great that he became a friend and advisor to many who would become pillars and saints of the Church, including Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, and Saint Jerome. He entered eternity on November 8, 397.
During the Middle Ages, his tomb became a site of pilgrimage and miracles, often for those traveling the Camino of Saint James to Compostela in Spain.
In northern Europe, daylight is short in November. Night falls early and fast. Beginning with All Saints Day, the steel grey dome of the winter sky lowers and remains, seemingly impenetrable to light for several months. Mozart's Requiem is featured in concert halls, an ode to the memory of a once-agricultural society that recognized the harvest was over and the world was falling asleep until the Resurrection of the spring.
Oddly, it is also in the midst of the darkness of an increasingly post-Christian Europe that Saint Mart...