A converted soldier, founder of monasticism in France. Tireless evangelizer

Today, the Church remembers St Martin, Bishop of Tours (316-397). Born of pagan parents, he was directed by his father to a military career. Still an adolescent, Martin came into contact with Christianity and, overcoming many difficulties, he enrolled as a catechumen in order to prepare for Baptism. —St Martin is known most of all for an act of fraternal charity. While still a young soldier, he met a poor man on the street numb and trembling from the cold. He then took his own cloak and, cutting it in two with his sword, gave half to that man. Jesus appeared to him that night in a dream smiling, dressed in the same cloak.