Martinmas: 11:11, 11-11, and Other Palindromes

Merry Martinmas!

The Church today celebrates the Memorial of St. Martin of Tours, Bishop and Confessor, a feast which has become known as Martinmas in many places around the world.

St. Martin, known also as "The Glory of Gaul," was born around 316 in Hungary. As patron of beggars, vintners, equestrians, soldiers, tailors, innkeepers, alcoholics, and geese, St. Martin is usually depicted in art on horseback, handing half of his cloak to a beggar or relinquishing his arms (a symbol of his unwillingness to fight any longer except as a "Soldier of Christ").

There is an apocryphal story of Martin meeting up with the devil while walking to Rome. (Apocryphal though it may be, it is also quite entertaining.) The devil mocked Martin for not riding on a donkey as a Bishop should, and out of retribution St. Martin turned the devil into a donkey and rode him all the way to Rome, urging him on with the Sign of the Cross. Obviously angry, the devil cursed the Saint with this double palindrome:

Signa te Signa: temere me tangis et angis,

Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor.

(Cross, cross thyself, you plague and vex me without need,

For by my labors you shall soon reach Rome, the object of your wishes.)

For all intents and purposes, St. Martin's Feast was considered by many the first day of Winter alluding to the snows (either present or pending) of that season. If the cold of the season has not set in, one was said to be experiencing a "St. Martin's Summer."

St. Martin's Feast Day coincides with the end of the Octave of All Souls, but also marks the beginning of harvest time. Thus, in many places St. Martin's Day, or Martinmas, is much like the American holiday of Thanksgiving. The celebration of the earth's bounty is often accompanied by a pre-Advent carnival of sorts, a final celebration before the pending penitential season.

In Germany, Martinmas celebrations begin at the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of this eleventh day of the eleventh month. Bonfires are built, and children carry lanterns in the streets after dark, singing songs for which they are rewarded with candy.

Source: Fish Eaters

To all of you, I wish a very Merry Martinmas! I leave you with three of the lessons from the Latin breviary of the extraordinary form for the Feast of St. Martin.

Lesson iv from the Second Nocturn

Martin was born at Sabaria in Pannónia. When he was ten years old he went to the Church, in spite of his heathen father and mother, and by his own will was numbered among the Catechumens. At fifteen years of age he joined the army, and served as a soldier first under Constantius and then under Julian. Once at the gate of Amiens a poor man asked him for an alms for Christ's name's sake, and since he had nothing to his hand but his arms and his clothes, he gave him half of his cloak. In the night following Christ appeared to him clad in the half of his cloak, and saying : While Martin is yet a Catechumen, he hath clad me in this garment.

Lesson v from the Second Nocturn

At eighteen years of age he was baptized. He gave up thereupon the life of a soldier, and betook himself to Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, by whom he was placed in the order of Acolytes. Being afterwards made Bishop of Tours, he built a monastery wherein he lived in holiness for a while in company of four-score monks. At the last he fell sick of a grievous fever at Cande, a village in his diocese, and besought God in constant prayer of this dying body. His disciples heard him and said : Father, why wilt thou go away from us? unto whom wilt thou bequeath us in our sorrow? Their words moved Martin, and he said : Lord, if I be still needful to thy people, I refuse not to work.

Lesson vi from the Second Nocturn

When his disciples saw him, in the height of the fever, lying upon his back and praying, they entreated him to turn over and take little rest upon his side while the violence of his sickness would allow him. But Martin answered them : Suffer me to look heavenward rather than earthward, that my spirit may see the way whereby it is so soon going to the Lord. At the moment of death he saw the enemy of mankind, and cried out : What are you come here for, you bloody brute? You murderer, you'll find nothing in me. With these words on his lips, he gave up his soul to God, being aged eighty years. He was received by a company of Angels, who were heard praising God by many persons, especially by holy Severinus, Bishop of Cologne.