But when the kindness and generous love
of God our savior appeared,
not because of any righteous deeds we had done
but because of his mercy,
he saved us through the bath of rebirth
and renewal by the Holy Spirit....
While on a Viking Cruise up the Rhine River, our tour guide in Cologne didn't know she had a retired chaplain of a VA hospital in the group. She told us that Saint Martin of Tours is the patron saint of Cologne; and asked if anyone had heard of him. I raised my hand and proceeded into an extended lecture about the patron saint of Veterans, whose feast day happens to fall on America's Veterans Day.
That renaming, for good or ill, displaced the former name, "Armistice Day;" which recalled the end of the "Great War." However, the "Great War" would continue with a Second and more devastating world war, (The third, when it comes, will almost certainly destroy all human life.)
Saint Martin points the way out of that cul-de-sac. We need not go to war again; nothing good would come of it. Although he was a Roman soldier and known for his courage in face-to-face combat, Martin of Tours adopted the pacifism of the Christian faith and resigned from the army. He was ordained as a priest and bishop, and dared to call the priests of his diocese to repentence for their laxity. When several bishops, who in that chaotic era enjoyed civil authority, wanted to execute several heretics, he defended their freedom of thought and conscience.
So long as there is sin in human life there will be war. Denying that sin exists -- calling it misunderstanding or mental illness -- only increases the certainty of another war. A woman asked me recently, "Why can't we all just get along?" I replied, "Because we can't."
Without God's deliberate and direct intervention -- which we call grace -- we can only expect more chaos, violence, and war. And so we learn to imitate the saints and beg God to teach us how to be both merciful and just like Saint Martin of Tours. We pray that our Veterans may live and die in peace while our VA -- no longer needed -- recedes into irrelevance.
