Vigils Reading – St Martin of Tours

ST MARTIN,

A MAN OF PRAYER

From a letter by Pope John XXIII2

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If St Martin was a bishop and a zealous pastor who can well be imitated in

the practice of charity, he was also and first of all a monk. You might even say

that the only reason he was such a marvelous man of action was that he was first

of all a man of prayer. And from this point of view too, he has a great lesson to

give to the Christians of today.

Eager for solitude and union with God, this giant of the apostolate lived in

constant prayer: “he never turned his mind away from prayer,” according to the

expression -later picked up by the liturgy- of his contemporary and first

biographer Sulpicius Severus, who adds that once he was elevated to the

episcopacy, the servant of God “remained what he had been before and bore the

dignity of bishop without abandoning the design of life and the virtue of a

monk.”

Was not his principal means of evangelization to found churches and

monasteries everywhere?… And thus it was that, thanks to him, monasticism

was introduced into France.

Throwing light on this side of the activity of the great convert-maker is a

way of reminding us of the immense benefits that the monks brought to their

country; it is a way of drawing their attention, which is so easily distracted at the

present time by the agitated pace of modern life, back to the lasting greatness

and beauties of monastic life; it is a way of inviting them to hold this form of life,

and, in general, the grace of a religious vocation, high in their esteem…

The example of St Martin, which has been confirmed by the experience of

centuries, shows what invaluable instruments for spiritual elevation cloisters

are in Christian society and what an effective contribution they make to the

apostolate of the Church.…

May the great Bishop, model of the monk and the pastor, succeed in

stirring up a new spirit of fervor for the service of God.