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 11^th.

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).

Thus, as many of our people here in Louisiana as possible ought to attend this special event in St Martinville on 11 November.  The legislative session itself ought to be canceled that day so that the focus, as much as possible, can be on St Martin, with the State legislators and Gov Landry himself attending all the events at the church that evening as an example to be followed by all Louisianans.

The Western world, as Rod Dreher, himself a Louisianan, has noted in his writings (roddreher.substack.com), has become spiritually withered.  People, their souls desperately parched, are guzzling down all kinds of spiritual poisons to try to satisfy their thirst.  Hence all the interest in the occult, paganism, etc., that is rising all around us.

Our gathering around the holy relics of the saints, and the processing of them about our communities, are ways to re-open channels of God’s Grace into this world, to re-enchant it in the proper way, for the Holy Spirit remains present in the bodies of holy men and women even after their souls depart from them, a foreshadowing of the resurrection to come.

And it is something more as well.  Dr Steve Turley has been writing lately about what he calls ‘cultural security’.  For example:

‘ . . . Populations are increasingly embracing the need for border security, economic security, and cultural security, particularly in our globalist world that tends to erode all of those securities. This is why throughout the West, particularly in Europe, Christianity is once again returning to the public square.

‘Even in the most secularized parts of Europe like Sweden and the Netherlands, Christianity is reemerging as the preeminent principle for the recovery of a distinctively European culture and politics. That preeminence, even in the most secularized parts of Europe, is once again placing Christianity and Christian identity right smack in the middle of the public square’ (‘Conor McGregor’s Presidential Bid: A Turning Point for Irish Populism!’, turleytalks.com).

Our keeping of St Martin’s Day here in Louisiana is a significant way of securing Louisiana’s Christian culture and identity, of protecting them from the corrosive ideas and actions of the globalists and other malefactors.

So once again, we plead with everyone near to St Martinville or far away, go there if you can and celebrate St Martin’s Day on November 11^th with all the humility and joy that our ancestors once knew, and help strengthen Christendom in our little corner of Dixie.  May the Lord bless Louisiana through the prayers of St Martin for our faithful celebration, in 2024 and in all the years to come!