News Item: : Feast of St. Martin of Tours
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
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Tuesday 11 November 2014 - 17:48:26

St. Martin of Tours is well remembered for sharing his cloak with the beggar who - it was later revealed to him in a dream - turned out to be the Lord Jesus Christ. The feast of St. Martin of Tours is particularly consoling for us. I have mentioned a few times that Dad left little notes in his Missal, breviary and in other books before he died. He has inserted one into the Divine Office for the Office for the Dead. One side of his note explains how the liturgical prayers had comforted him with God's promises of the Resurrection. The other side of his note instructs the reader to turn to the letter of Sulpicius Severus for the Feast Day of St. Martin of Tours.

One finds there a powerful testimony relating to the grace of a holy death.

Severus' letter recounts the final hours of St. Martin on this earth. A particularly poignant line exclaims: 'Father! Why are you deserting us? To whose care are you leaving us in our grief? The wolves in their savagery will fall on your flock! When you, our shepherd are dead, who will save us from their teeth? Oh, we know you are weary for Christ, but that reward of yours is sure and it will not grow less for the waiting. Oh, pity us, whom you are leaving desolate.'

I must say that I consider my father to have been blessed to have been spared the dreadful apostasy and confusion which has taken hold and spread in the Church during the months following his death. How much the wolves have come among us! How shepherdless and desolate we do feel. On the night before his funeral, a trusted priest friend led the Rosary beside Dad's casket. He consoled me that Dad had been taken by God to spare him from events soon to unfold in the Church and world. How prophetic his words soon became.

But there is much comfort towards the end of Severus' letter which also calls to mind Dad's deathbed hours. Severus relates: 'He lay, with all his being intent on Heaven, holding his unconquered soul fast to its prayer. The priests around his bed wished to turn him over on his side to ease his poor body but he stopped them: 'Brothers, let me go on looking at Heaven, not at the earth; my soul will be pointing to God when its moment of departure comes'... He saw the devil standing near and cried out, 'Blood-stained beast, what are you doing here? You will find nothing of yours in me, you living death. I go to the arms of Abraham.' These were his last words. Then he surrendered his soul to God.'

A poor sinner like the rest of us, Dad tried as well as he could to lead his family, friends and neighbours to love Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Church. He also showed us how to die with Christ; a lesson which he has reaffirmed from beyond the grave by recommending this reading on the life and death of St. Martin of Tours.

In these days of trial for the Church and society, may we each reject Satan, that blood-stained beast and living death who Scripture tells us was a murderer and a liar from the beginning; and may we die to ourselves that we might live for God. Keep the Faith!

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This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.776 )