St. Martin's Day

The 11th day of the 11th month of the year was for the longest time and for the shortest of times, reason to celebrate, (I'll come back to the other reasons next time,) but there was a time when today was a much bigger deal than it is today.

Oh, I know, we're (post-)moderns now and all that mumbo-jumbo, hocus-pocus religious superstition has all been superseded by ... well, by what? rational, objective, de-mythologized ... nothing. Yes, the emptiness we feel so strongly these days has something to do with the so-called "detritus" that we sent to slag heap some time ago. Old "holidays" and (what's worse!) Feast Days are well-deserved, forgotten relics of a by-gone age ... or are they?

We live in a post-industrial -- and as many like to claim, a new, information-based society (though, actually I should say "economy", since we even banned the ghost (read: spirit) of a society some time ago). All those once-important autumn, or harvest, festivals are no longer important, even though once, at a minimum, they marked the passing of the year, and above all, the passing of our consciousness from one temporal phase to another.

Today is St. Martin's Day, which I'm sure most of you don't know, so I'm here to remind you.

Saint Martin (of Tours, who died in 490), a former Roman soldier is known once cutting his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm, to save the beggar from dying from the cold. The beggar was allegedly Jesus. Not unsurprisingly, he's the patron saint of the poor (and hence more relevant today than ever). In his honor, the medieval church mandated fasting three days a week from today till Epiphany (which I've mentioned before); that is a period of 56 days, but mandating 40 days of fasting (cf. Lent).

Here in Germany, goose is the traditional dish. (OK, OK, my vegetarian and vegan friends will have to close an eye, but I'm still working from the top of the food chain and still have my -- in your eyes -- "weaknesses".) This is because -- as the legend tell us -- when trying to avoid being ordained bishop he had hidden in a goose pen, but was betrayed by the cackling of the geese.

My goose dinner will have to wait a few weeks for other reasons, but the point of all of this is that we have a day that was meant to inspire us to stop, reflect, and acknowledge the Christian "truth" that it's good to help those less fortunate than ourselves, and to stop, reflect and give thanks (it is after all, harvest time) for all that we have.

You can think what you want about the "evils" or "redemption" of religion ... it doesn't matter, really. Any time -- and for any reason -- that we can stop and reflect on what might be good not only for ourselves but for others or that gives us pause to give thanks for all that we have is time well spent.

We used to be reminded of these things as a matter of course. It seems today that I have to keep reminding us. But, that's OK, the reason for pausing is irrelevant. That we pause, that we reflect, and that we give thanks is all that really matters.