Martinmas and Veteran’s Day

Spread the love
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Today is the feast of St. Martin and in the US it is also Veterans Day. It seems very fitting!

The feast of St. Martin because is filled with legend and mysticism and even some humor!

St. Martin is a patron saint of the poor and outcast. As legend tells, the soldier Martin discovered a poor beggar one night, shivering, and cold. Martin gave the man half his cape for warmth. The next night, he dreamed that he saw Christ wearing the same piece of his cape. After that, he spent the rest of his life serving those in need, bringing light and warmth to those in darkness. November 11th is his feast day, originally celebrated in many French households with a festival of lanterns.

We made our own lanterns a few years ago.

  adayinnovember 123adayinnovember 125 adayinnovember 129
A votive candle is fastened inside the jar with a bit of wax – and voila!

Last year we did something a bit different.  I bought an inexpensive glass vase from Pat Catan’s.  Then we found a template under St. Martin Transparency (googled it!) and transferred that to the black paper.  We glued that to the globe and then used Mod Podge to put the glitter in the background for the winter effect!
november 2014 043

november 2014 042

november 2014 041

Today’s peg saint!  Complete with the goose that gave Martin away!

november 2014 039

november 2014 038

From the Rhythm of the Home Blog. St Martin of Tours (Comper)

Legend has it that when the people wanted to make him the bishop, he strenuously objected and tried to hide from the crowd. But he made the mistake of hiding in the goose house and the cackling from these noisy birds gave the saint away and the emissaries from Tours were able to find him and convince him to become the new bishop.   St. Martin was so annoyed that he killed one of the geese and cooked it for his dinner that day!

november 2014 044

Legend also has it that  St Martin reputedly met Satan on a trip to Rome. He changed the Devil into a donkey and rode him into Rome. The donkey said: Signa te signa. Temere me tangis et angis./ Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor. (Cross thyself, you plague and vex me without need; for by my efforts you are about to reach Rome, the object of your travel.) Each of the Latin sentences is a palindrome, that means they read the same forwards or backwards.

HT English Diary.

A more sombre superstition that I have read in a number of places says that if you are at the back of the church on Martinmas Day, you will see a glowing over the heads of people in the congregation who will not be alive by next Martinmas Day. 

Follow Elena LaVictoire’s board St. Martin of Tours on Pinterest.

Today is also the day to remember our beloved Veterans.
viewerviewer

Mr. Pete’s Uncles and Father.

Isadore LaVictoire PFC

Grave marker Isadore J LaVictoire PFC US Army

See all my links about this feast on Pinterest and Diigo.

(Visited 22 times, 1 visits today)

Recommended Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Free Email Updates
We respect your privacy.