St. Martin

I know quite a few great guys named Marty, but never actually knew much about this saint. However since my kids are 1/4 French from their Dad’s side, I think it is important to teach them about saints from their heritage. St. Martin seems to be for France what St. Pat is for the Irish.

There are several wonderful stories about St. Martin. At one time in his life he was a soldier and once he was out in the evening carrying his lantern when he came upon a very poor, shivering, naked man. So St. Martin took off his own very fine cloak and cut it in half with his sword to share it with the man.

It turns out that the man St. Martin shared with was Jesus Christ! If you have kids who have a tough time sharing, this might be a great little story to share with them! I sure intend to make good use of it particularly with Miss Rosie who in typical 4-year-old fashion needs a good lesson on sharing.

St. Martin was eventually chosen to become a bishop, a job he did not want. When the people started looking for him to make him their bishop, he hid in the poultry house but the geese outed him! I think it is hilarious that so many geese dishes are popular on St. Martins’ Feast Day – revenge from the Saint? Perhaps many bishops might agree with that!

There are tons of great ideas, recipes and crafts for today. We might do some of them and we are having lemon chicken (as I am not really interested in finding a goose!) and definitely a dessert I will insist the kids “share.”

But I have lots of links for St. Martin’s Feast Day saved in del.icio.us files and I’ll be saving more as I find them today for the feast!

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