Greetings and a blessed Martinmas to you all. Things still press heavily around the household and I haven’t gotten out online as much as I’d like. However, a Martinmas greeting seems in order. Despite the unseasonably warm weather we’re having here, Martinmas served for the Gallican church the same function that St Andrew’s day does in the Roman and later traditions: the harbinger of Advent, the Winter Lent. Even the RCL in it’s warm fuzzy modernity seems to recognize this and the mass readings will begin taking an eschatological turn until Advent is upon us again.

So, with Bach ringing in our ears, it’s time to “Bestelle dein haus”–get your house in order; the Approach is almost upon us. The tension of holding together the historical Approach at Bethlehem and the eschatological Approach at the End of Time is best accomplished through the mediation of the spiritual Approach, the coming of Christ into the heart of each believer.

Let us follow, then, Martin’s words and example and–furthermore–the path he exemplified. As the Father of Gallican Monasticism he passed down an orthodox Christianity strongly rooted in the best traditions of Stoicism, emphasizing the cultivation of virtue as the preeminent path into the mind of Christ.