Saint Martin’s Day

November 11, 397 –
St. Martin of Tours, another in the series of anorexic visionaries, patron saint of France, soldiers (he is known as the he man’s saint), reformed alcoholics and winemakers, died on this date. When the armistice fell on the Saint Martin’s Day, November 11, 1918, the French people saw it was a sign of his intercession in the affairs of France.

Martin, after another one of his life long practice of fasting, has a dream about Jesus wearing the cloak he had recently given to a naked beggar. Pieces of Martin’s actual ‘cloak‘ were revered as holy relics and the derivation of the name of the priest who looked after these relics became ‘chaplain‘.

My father-in-law always reminded us that today is the day when the grapes you pressed and bottled turned into wine. That is not to say that he was discussing transubstantiation – which he and the old ladies in the back row of church saying their decades of the rosary clearly understood. But coincidentially – on November 11, 1215, The Fourth Lateran Council met on this date and adopt the doctrine of Transubstantiation, meaning that bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ.

This means all Catholics are essentially cannibals on a prescribed feeding schedule, but who am I to judge a theology of which I am a nominal member.