A Week Full of Martins

A time for Martins

If we grew up in a rural area, we likely had a purple martin house on the top of a tall pole.  One of the stories from our farm concerns the cat that scaled the pole and got its head stuck in the hole.  I can’t recall how they rescued the cat and maybe you don’t want to know. 

In Collinsville, Vincent and Martha Herr had the most martin houses that I have ever seen.  Vince and Martha lived about the funeral home they ran until turning it over to the next generation.  Their living quarters exited out onto a large flat roof.  There, around the edge of the roof were several houses with purple martins darting in and out.  Vince and Martha could sit out there and enjoy the aerial show as these insect catching members of the swallow family reduced the pest population.

Well, this week we commemorate several Martins.   However,  I don’t think any of them were of the purple variety.

Martin de Porres is remembered as a renewer of society.  The son of a Spanish knight and a freed black slave from Panama he lived in the mid 1600’s.  He apprenticed as a barber-surgeon in Lima, Peru and was known as a healer.  Martin was also a lay member of the Dominicans and a gardener.  He is noted for his care of the poor, regardless of race.  His own religious community described him as the “father of charity.”

Another Martin of note was born in Hungary in 316 and became Bishop of Tours.  One winter day, a beggar approached him for aid.  Martin cut his cloak in half and gave a portion to the beggar.  Later, he came to understand that he had seen the presence of Christ in the beggar.  He was elected bishop of Tours in 371.  Prior to his life in the church he was a member of the military and when he sought to be released he was imprisoned for a time.  As bishop he developed a reputation for intervening on behalf of prisoners and heretics who had been sentenced to death.  His day falls on November 11, the anniversary of the ending of WWI and a time to remember all veterans.

The Lutheran connection with the Martins is that on November 10^th, 1483 Hans and Margarette Luther became the parents of a baby boy.  The baby was baptized the next day, on St. Martin’s Day and named after Martin Bishop of Tours.

Finally, on the 9^th we commemorate Martin Chemnitz who lived from 1522-1586.  The Treasury of Daily Prayer notes, that after Martin Luther, Martin Chemnitz “is regarded as the most important theologian in the history of the Lutheran Church.  When doctrinal disagreements broke out after Luther’s death in 1546, Chemnitz gave himself wholly to the restoration of unity.  He became the author of the Formula of Concord (agreement) in 1577 that settled the disputes.  He used his keen intellect and encompassing knowledge of Scripture and the Church Fathers to analyze doctrine and answer Roman Catholic charges against the Lutherans.

Enjoy this week of the Martins and thank God for their contribution to the life of the church.  As for the Purple Martins, they have all left their houses and are wintering in Brazil.