Bulletins

November 11, 2018

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Having cast our ballots this past Tuesday to choose who will participate in governing us, we resume the letter written by Saint Louis King of France to his son Philip III. As of today, the Feast of St. Martin of Tours, we have covered most of the holy letter.

Dear son, I advise you that you try with all your strength to avoid warring against any Christian man, unless he have done you too much ill. And if wrong be done you, try several ways to see if you can find how you can secure your rights, before you make war; and act thus in order to avoid the sins which are committed in warfare.

And if it fall out that it is needful that you should make war (either because some one of your vassals has failed to plead his case in your court, or because he has done wrong to some church or to some poor person, or to any other person whatsoever, and is unwilling to make amends out of regard for you, or for any other reasonable cause), whatever the reason for which it is necessary for you to make war, give diligent command that the poor folk who have done no wrong or crime be protected from damage to their vines, either through fire or otherwise, for it were more fitting that you should constrain the wrongdoer by taking his own property (either towns or castles, by force of siege), than that you should devastate the property of poor people. And be careful not to start the war before you have good counsel that the cause is most reasonable, and before you have summoned the offender to make amends, and have waited as long as you should. And if he ask mercy, you ought to pardon him, and accept his amends, so that God may be pleased with you.

Dear son, I advise you to appease wars and contentions, whether they be yours or those of your subjects, just as quickly as may be, for it is a thing most pleasing to our Lord. And Monsignor Martin [St. Martin of Tours] gave us a very great example of this. For, one time, when our Lord made it known to him that he was about to die, he set out to make peace between certain clerks of his archbishopric, and he was of the opinion that in so doing he was giving a good end to life.

St. Louis, King of France, pray for us!
St. Margaret of Scotland, pray for us!
All you holy Christian kings and queens, pray for us!
St. Elizabeth of Hungary, pray for us!
All you holy Christian princes and princesses, pray for us!
St. Martin of Tours, pray for us!
All you holy Christian soldiers, pray for us!

Fr. Christopher J. Pollard

p.s. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13,8). Amen? Amen!