A continuation of the reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Jesus said, will anyone of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to a servant when he comes in from the field, come at once and sit down at table? Will the master not rather say to a servant, prepare supper for me and gird yourself and serve me until I eat and drink, and afterwards, you shall eat and drink? Does the master thank the servant because he did what he was commanded? So you also, when you have done everything that is commanded you, say, we are unworthy servants.
We have only done, what was our duty, and this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. My well chosen remarks this morning will have two divisions unlike Gaul. I'm sure that Amy Vanderbilt in her latest edition of a book on etiquette would not approve of these words of our lord. This is a pretty harsh picture.
There are many harsh things that Jesus Christ said, and his the mode of life that he presented is far from being, something short of severe and at times harsh. We forget this. However, this text needs very careful handling. Notice our lord said the master doesn't thank his servant for doing what he's supposed to do. I think Amy Vanderbilt would have to agree with that.
You don't thank a good waiter for doing what he's supposed to do. You thank him for something that he does beyond the call of duty. But there's a difference between expressing thanks, which means that you're giving praise or or consideration beyond the call of duty, and showing appreciation. They are two totally different things. I don't have to thank the servant for doing his duty, but I can show my appreciation for what he did.
After all, we have it on pretty good authority that for those who try and succeed in living the right kind of a life, when their day of reckoning comes, they will re hear the words of god saying, come because and receive all these rewards because this is what you did. He doesn't thank you, but he shows appreciation. And believe me, in many ways, is more important than thanks because there's never any excuse for not showing appreciation. That's worse. It's it's just being barbarians to be insensitive to what's going on around us and to be unfeeling, and and it's not enough, you see, to feel.
Appreciation means not only that you you understand and do have an evaluation of something or or something that has been done or of a person who's accomplished something, it's not only that you have those sentiments as James would say, but that you express them. I've met people who've told me face to face that the hardest word they have to use in English language is thank you. Well, I've never understood it, but that's a fact. And appreciation is much more than that. Appreciation means that you are aware and are evaluating something.
You appreciate it. You esteem it. You evaluate it. You criticize it. Criticizing meaning to judge.
So let me tell you, this text of our Lord can't be used to what in the slightest, tiniest bit to ex to excuse us from being dull and blind appreciation and not showing appreciation. You can't quote our lord on that, and there's nothing in this text to justify. Having said that, with some considerable enthusiasm, I pass on now the second point of my well chosen remarks. That has to do with the saint we are celebrating whose feast we are celebrating today, Saint Martin of Tours. Well, our paths crossed even though he's the fourth century saint in about 1930 when I had the great honor and privilege city of Tours.
This is 1930, he died in March, roughly. By that I mean it's pretty close. He was born about, oh, I don't know, 03/16, 03/17, something something like like that. That. He was born in Hungary, notice.
He's not a Frenchman any more than Saint Patrick's, an Irishman. When I got there, I didn't know much about Saint Martin of Tours. Who in the heck was he? And we were go I was going around gallivanting as usual. When I came to a church through which a road was running, and here was the it looked like a very old church, instead of pulling the whole thing down to make room for a new road, a nice wide street and avenue, they had simply taken out part of the church, put the road through it, and built a new cathedral dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours.
Now the thing now I'm not exaggerating this. That happened in around 1930 or thereabouts. And the thing that struck me wasn't anything they said about Saint Martin of but the living memory of that man. Here it was around 1930, he died in in around March or so, I know it's the fourth century, and I the people on the street are talking about him as if he was around. His memory was so alive.
Now you say, well, he's the patron saint of France. Yes. That's true. But that doesn't explain it, and I don't know how to explain it. I only know that that impression I got of the living presence of a man of the fourth century in a a modern city of the twentieth who thought so much of his cathedral that they they wouldn't destroy it, but they would keep what they could and build a new one, that that was a living presence.
Now there are, of course, many legends about Saint Martin of Tours, But the one of the things about his life that strikes me is the is the wanderlust of it. He's born a pagan in Hungary. He's brought up in his early boyhood in Pavia, Italy by his parents. He winds up in Poitiers. He spends five or more years as a soldier.
He becomes a monk. He goes through the minor orders and wants to be he has no ambitions of any sort. He wants to be remember, this is before Saint Benedict's time. He wants to simply lead the life of what we today call a monk. Possibly, he's the one who introduced that kind of life to France.
I don't know, but it's it's before Saint Benedict, that's for sure. Now, what's remarkable is that this man was rather compelled, something like Saint Ambrose, by the people of Tours to become their bishop. When he became their bishop, he, for a while lived as a bishop of Tours. And what did he do? With about 80 of his companions, he withdrew from the city of Tours to a more modest dwelling and tried to live a monastic life, as it's called, with his companions.
At the same time, however, being the bishop and being and as far as I can make out, being remembered chiefly for his pastoral efforts. Now when we say that, what do we mean? That's a good word. Of course, it means a shepherd, one who pastures his flock or sheep. Well, there are a lot of things we don't like about that today.
People sitting in the pews don't like to be thought of a sheep being led around by somebody. In the front, a couple of sheepdogs behind. That's not a very nice twentieth century picture of the church. So what do we mean? Well, word, of course, will have various meanings in practice according to the times.
Let's face it. But there's one thing it's got to have. It's got to have that inspiration and dedication of the pastor to his flock. He is the pastor, he's the bishop. And the bishop that forgets that, that he is the bishop.
The people aren't bishops. He is their leader. And a leader supposed to be out in front, not pushing pushing from the rear or even put the engines of the new cars in the front of the car now, you know. Someone's discovered that's the best place for an engine. That's the best place for a leader too, out in front, not pushing, leading.
And so, the thing that strikes me and what I would have been able to find out, but assume his life is filled with legends, is his pastoral, his love of the people for for getting the word of God to them, for multiplying parishes, for for making them active, and and above all, for bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to the people. Remember, there there weren't a lot of Xerox machines around in those days. It had to be taken by word-of-mouth or by pictures on the wall or on windows. You can see some of this at Chartres. In many of the thirteenth century cathedrals, those windows weren't designed simply so that someone in the twentieth century could roam around there in sunset and say, how beautiful, how lovely.
They were meant to teach. That and look at the windows in Sharp. And, certainly, that's what this man was aiming to do, to teach, to teach, to bring the word of god to those who would never hear it otherwise. So that when today when we celebrate him as pastor, you are bringing to mind a very diversified man. You see, one of the things that strikes you is the use of the word national or state.
What country did he belong to? The word country doesn't have a meaning in his day as we have it today. Here he wanders from Hungary down to to Italy, back to France, back to Italy, over to Germany and Trier. He wanders all the way. He and this was a commonplace thing.
So that in in in so many ways, he was truly Catholic. And today, as we celebrate this great saint, the patron saint of France, and certainly a man who in 1930 had a living memory in tour, I I'm not exaggerating this. We let us think of him in the present tense. Present tense. We think of our world as confused.
Well, let me tell you, any time that I have dipped in a very ignorant way into the history of the church or into any history, I find mostly confusion. Mostly confusion. This business of la docto actus acti, that is is the, you know, the person who who is so joyous in in remembering the past and takes such joy in it, a lot of that past is imagination, even wishful thinking. So that when we speak and think today of the confusion which is around us, it isn't too bad. Not when you look at it in a certain perspective of the church.
Now just here we are in Garrett Park, 1980. We are here commemorating a man who died at the last part of the fourth century. We are dealing with him as a living presence as indeed he is. Here is a man whose whose relics, or at least on three separate occasions, were dispersed. The last time, 1793.
But in some way or other, they've been recovered. This is confusion. Here's the man whose one church has been just split in two, but another one's gone up and the church endures. And so we're living and are part of a very viable institution. How do I know Jesus Christ said so?
In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.