Love God, serve God

Today is St Martin of Tours’ Feast Day.  St Martin bore a great love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, the faith and the poor.  He was a soldier in his youth prior to becoming a priest and bishop. 

“Love God, serve God:
everything is in that.”~ St Clare of Assisi

St Martin of Tours

Bishop, Patron of Soldiers

Italy ~ 316-397

Feast Day – Nov 11

The most famous episode of the military period in Martin's life is his meeting with a poor man almost naked in the dead of winter, and trembling with cold. Martin did not have a penny to give him, but he remembered the text of the Gospel: “I was naked, and you clothed Me.”

“My friend,” he said, “I have nothing but my weapons and my garments.” And taking up his sword, he divided his cloak into two parts and gave one to the beggar. The following night he saw Jesus Christ in a dream, clothed with this half-cloak and saying to His Angels: “It is Martin, still a catechumen, who covered Me.” Soon afterwards he was baptized.

Interesting fact: Martin Luther was named after St. Martin, as he was baptized on November 11 (St. Martin's Day), 1483.

St Martin of Tours, ora pro nobis! 

Let us join in prayers of gratitude for the generosity, sacrifice,

heroism and bravery of all of our veterans – past and present!

 

Armistice Day (also known as Remembrance Day) is on 11 November and commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning — the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918.

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson first proclaimed an Armistice Day for November 11, 1919. In proclaiming the holiday, he said

"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."