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Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Martin Bishop of Tours, 316-397 and Veteran's Day

                                                                    Psalm 119:94




am 
yours, 
Oh, 
that 
you would save me! 
Born of pagan parents, at the age of 10, Martin, became a Christ-ian catechumen. (Baptism w as not something that you just sashayed in and did in the early church!)  At 15, as the the son of an Army  veteran, Martin was conscripted into the Roman Army. One winter  night in Amiens he met a half naked, shivering beggar. Having nothing else to give him, Martin cut of this own cloak in two & gave half to him. (Until I saw this picture I never could figure out how a half of a cloak could help either one!) At night, in a dream, he saw Jesus wearing his half cloak. Over time, he came to see his military service came  to be odds with his  Christian faith and he left the Army.  And the rest, as they say, is history/his story.  We remember him today as Bishop of Tours and one of the founders of the Celtic Church which spread the Gospel through-out the British Isles  & elsewhere.

On this Veterans Day,  
as we recall the guns of World War 1, “the war 
to end all wars,”  falling silent at 11am on this 11th day of the 11th month, of 1918, pray especially for all service men & women  &  vete-rans, for military chap-lains, for conscientious objectors & all who work for  peace. Pray also for a spirit of generosity to the poor.  

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