Pope Benedict on St. Martin of Tours

From today’s Angelus at Saint Peter’s in the Vatican, via Asia News Italy:

Beneath a cold and rain swept winter’s sky, the pontiff recalled that today the Church celebrates St Martin of Tours, the first person in the history of the Church to become a saint not because of a cruel martyrdom for the faith, but because he dedicated his life to evangelisation and charity.

The Pope outlined the life of St Martin: “Born to a pagan family in Pannonia, modern day Hungary, around 316 his father destined him for a military career.  In his adolescence he encountered Christianity, and overcoming many obstacles he joined the catechumens to prepare himself for Baptism.  He received the sacrament in his early twenties, but was forced to remain in the army where he gave witness to his new way of life: respectful and understanding of all those he met; he treated his servant as a brother and avoided vulgar entertainment. On leaving the military he made his way to Poitiers, France, to the Bishop and Saint Ilarian. Ordained by deacon by him, he chose a monastic life and founded along with some disciples one of Europe’s oldest monasteries in Ligugé. Ten years later the Christians of Tours, deprived of a pastor declared him their Bishop.  From then on, Martin dedicated himself with ardent zeal to evangelising the rural countryside and formation of the clergy”.

But above all Benedict XVI recalled the famous gesture of charity of the saint: his sharing of his cloak with a poor beggar “shriven and trembling with the cold”. “That night – continues the pope – Christ appeared to him in a dream, smiling and wearing that same cloak”.

St Martin’s gesture clarified the pope, follows Christ’s logic, who multiplied bread for the starving crowds and gifted himself in the Eucharist.  This is why he became a model for the global community: “St Martin helps us to understand that only through a common commitment to sharing, can we answer to the great challenger of our time: that is to build a world of justice and peace, where every human being can live in dignity.  This can only happen if a global model of authentic solidarity prevails, capable of insuring that all of the worlds’ people have food, water, healthcare, but also work and recourse to energy as well as culture and scientific and technological knowledge”.