St. Martin Of Tours Coloring Page

"St. Martin’s mission was to complete the destruction of paganism...all of Gaul heard from him. In all its provinces he overthrew the idols one after another, reduced the statues to powder, burnt or demolished all the temples, destroyed the sacred groves and all the haunts of idolatry. Martin, consumed with zeal for the House of God, was obeying none but the Spirit of God. 

Where he found scarcely a Christian on his arrival, he left scarcely an infidel at his departure. The temples of the idols were immediately replaced by temples of the true God. For...as soon as he had destroyed the houses of superstition, he built churches and monasteries. It is thus that all Europe is covered with sanctuaries bearing the name of St. Martin." 

"If you look at the normal biographies of St. Martin, you will see that they generally don’t present this aspect shown by Dom Guéranger. They recount the famous case of St. Martin on horseback, stopping before a poor, cold beggar, and then tearing his mantle in half to share it with him. For a sentimental Catholic this episode summarizes the entire life of St. Martin.

I agree that it was good and noble to do that, but to take this as his whole life is to present a reality different from what actually happened. If it only demanded this kind of charity toward the poor to be a saint, we could leave aside every other concern and concentrate only on dividing mantles to give to the poor. It would be very easy.

But this is not all that sanctity calls for. To present it as such is to distort the picture for persons and close them to the full reality of the lives of the saints. It is a poison, a kind of idolatry of sentimentality where there is no place for Catholic militancy.

St. Martin, who was so saintly and had so many merits, including a great hatred for the pagan idols, certainly would likewise abhor this modern idol of sentimentality."