Fr Matthew Reese

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today is the Feast of St Martin of Tours. It is also, in this country, Veterans Day—though of course, everywhere else in the English-speaking world, today goes by a different name: it is Remembrance or Armistice Day. (The American usage did not change from Armistice to Veterans Day until an Act of Congress in 1954).

The convergence of these two holidays is no accident.

Martin, the Bishop of Tours in France, died in 397, and over the following millennium, he became one of the principal patron saints of Europe.

Though Christianity was no longer illegal by the time of his birth, it was still scandalous for this young man—from a politically influential military family—to pursue baptism and reject the Roman cults. Nevertheless, Martin still entered the calvary, and served for several years after his conversion, before determining that his military service and Christian witness were irreconcilable: “I am the soldier of Christ: it is not lawful for me to fight,” he is quoted as saying in one of the Vitae.

It was during those years—while still a Catechumen—that Martin famously cut his military cloak in half to clothe a half-naked beggar along the road.

In the waning days of an empire gradually collapsing under its own weight, Martin made a radical choice to renounce his influence and stability and purse an ascetic life. He became a pupil of the great bishop and theologian, Hilary of Poitiers, and in time a bishop himself. In the centuries after his death, Martin came to be venerated across Europe, and most especially France, as an exemplar of Christian moral virtue.

So, it was no accident when the European high commands picked Martinmas—the eleventh month, on the eleventh day, on the eleventh hour—for the cessation of a war that had caused some thirty million military causalities, and some eight million civilian deaths.

Tragically, it was not the War to End all Wars and Europe still echoes with cannon fire today.

Armistice Day—Martinmas—is not just a day to remember the end of the Great War. It is a day to recommit ourselves to peace. To put down our swords and pick up the banner of Christ.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Matthew