Martinmas
So Sunday was Martinmas. It also happened to be Veteran’s Day. Someone pointed out to me the wonderful coincidence that St. Martin of Tours was himself a soldier. Incidentally, it was also the weekend that local Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts collected bags for food for distribution to the poor in their Scouting for Food campaign. Of course, St. Martin is best known for his kindness to a poor beggar. It’s wonderful how God takes care of the details like that.
Collecting food for the poor and honoring our veterans – a fitting way to remember the example of St. Martin.
Now since we made lanterns a couple of days ago, I certainly wasn’t going to let the Feast of St. Martin, or Martinmas as it’s called, pass by without a Lantern Walk.
First, Boo and Pumpkin Girl made a super easy Meatball Soup from the Pampered Chef’s kid’s cookbook. Once that was made, we armed ourselves with the Cub Scout Songbook and set off with our lit lanterns attached to sticks.
We started off singing “This Little Light of Mine” which just seemed appropriate. A few more well known songs, like three versus of “Yankee Doodle”, and “The Brave Old Duke of York” and we were good and warmed up. Our heavy jackets helped, too. But we really got going singing in rounds. “Down By the Station,” “Three Blind Mice” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” were the favorites. Those songs have nothing to do with St. Martin, but the tradition is to walk along with your lit lanterns, singing songs, and those were the songs we knew.
We finished off with another round of “This Little Light of Mine,” then returned for our nice, warm soup. Boo remembered to pray the homeless who were out in the cold that night.
