The year in Louisiana is ending much like it began: A special session of the Louisiana Legislature threatens to overshadow a Christian holy day. In January it was St Genevieve of Paris’s Feast Day. In November it is an even more solemn yet joyful day: the Feast Day of St Martin of Tours, Louisiana’s Patron Saint (and the patron of her Mother Country, France, as well), November 11th.
We shouldn’t let our desire for tax reform, as important as that is, cause us to overlook this important day. All the more so, as it will be celebrated in a wonderful manner in St Martinville at the St Martin de Tours Catholic Church, which houses a bone relic of our patron. Per the church web site:
‘Join us on Monday, November 11th, 2024, at 6:00 PM for an evening of prayer and celebration in honor of the Feast of St. Martin de Tours. The festivities will begin with Holy Mass in French, followed by an outdoor procession with a relic of St. Martin. After the procession, we will enjoy duck jambalaya, a traditional French meal for the Feast of St. Martin, along with live music. The evening will conclude at 8:00 PM with a fireworks display.’
Folks need to understand just how profound an announcement this is. It is in very fact the reappearance of the original Christendom of our ancestors. North and south, east and west, in traditional Christendom honoring saints in this way has always been an integral part of how Christians worship God, honor His friends (the saints), and sanctify time and space and land and themselves.
For instance, we find the following tradition surrounding the relics of St Agatha of Catania, Sicily (+251):
‘On the first anniversary of Agatha's death, Mount Etna erupted and Catania was on the brink of being engulfed by a stream of lava. Christians and pagans alike rushed to the Saint's tomb, lifted the veil from the sarcophagus and bore it like a shield to confront the river of fire, which stopped immediately. The same miracle has been repeated many times in the course of the centuries, and hence Saint Agatha is fervently venerated by the people of Catania as the patroness of their city, and she is honored as much in the East as in the West’ (Hieromonk Makarios, ‘The Life and Veneration of the Holy Virgin Martyr Agatha’, johnsanidopoulos.com).
This kind of holy celebration still happens on a large scale every year in some places of Christendom. One of the largest is one we have mentioned before that takes place in Iaşi, Romania, where the relics of St Parascheva draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims on her Feast Day. Over a quarter of a million attended this year on 14 October 2024, despite the fact that they had to wait upwards of 16 hours before they could stand before her relics (‘250,000+ venerate relics of St. Parascheva in Romania (+VIDEO)’, orthochristian.com). . . .
The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2024/10/garlington-stirrings-of-authentic-christendom-in-louisiana/.
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The previous essay was also published at https://identitydixie.com/2024/10/16/spiritual-warfare-in-the-corridors-of-government/.
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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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