Saint Martin Of Tours, The Apostle Of France

by D. G. M. Jackson

WHEN the parish priest of Macleod, near Rosanna, in the Archdiocese of Melbourne decided to dedicate his newly-built Church-school in honour of Saint Martin of Tours, there were few Catholics in that suburb, or even in Victoria; who realized that he was reviving the memory of a saint whose name stands at the very beginning of the Faith in the English-speaking world. For, even before Saint Augustine was first sent by Pope Saint Gregory to preach Christianity to the pagan King Ethelbert of Kent, his Frankish Catholic wife, Queen Bertha, had had an old British Christian Church in Canterbury repaired, in which his chaplain, Liudhard, sang Mass for her and her ladies. That Church was dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. His name was already mighty as a wonder-worker among the Gauls, and had reached the British Christian world, too, in the last days of its Kings’ valiant struggle before they went down before the Saxons and the light of Christ was extinguished for a space in the lands east of Wales and Cambria.

28 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2012