On June 5th, the Church celebrates the memory of St. Boniface, whose apostolic zeal, crowned by martyrdom, brought the Germanic people to birth in Christ.
Newsdesk (June 5 2021 14:15, Gaudium Press) Let us pause for a moment to contemplate this providential man whose mission it was to evangelize the people beyond the river Rhine and to offer his life as a holocast for them.
A short while after being evangalized by St. Augustine of Canterbury, England was captivated with Benedictine graces. It was during this time, around the year 680 Vinfrido was born to an Anglo-Saxon family and was quickly enamored with the Benedictine way of life.
Benedict at the age of five
At the tender age of five, Vinfrido wanted to enter an abbey. His father however felt he was still too young and only two years later was the boy permitted to enter the monastery at Nursling.
Educated according to the wise rule of “ora et labora” (pray and work), the Vinfrido learned Latin, metrics, poetry and exegesis. As a teenager he became a teacher of Latin grammar, composed several poems in Latin and wrote some treatises.
Vinfrido was ordained a priest in the year 710, when he was probably thirty years old.
When the Council of Wessex was convened, he received a delicate mission with the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which he was so successful that his fame soon began to spread. When he realized this, he asked his abbot for permission to become a missionary, thus renouncing all worldly prestige.
The first mission fails
The eyes of the holy priest were fixed on the uncultivated people, who were full of vigor. Having first entrusted himself to the care of numerous religious communities, who prayed for the success of his undertaking, in 716 he landed on the coasts of Friesland, near present-day Utrecht.
After some months of helping Bishop Vilibrordo in his apostolate, he was forced to return to his homeland, without achieving much success.
Aiming to arm himself with the most powerful means, which neither the underworld nor heaven could resist, he traveled to Rome in 718 to ask Pope Gregory II for letters of support.
Aware of the value of Vinfrido, the Pontiff retained him for a while, but in the following year, with a letter dated May 15, 719, he designated him to Germania with the objective of taking the Word of God to people still immersed in the darkness of idolatry. At the consecration of this mandate he was given the name Boniface.
Cutting down the sacred oak
Upon arriving into the heart of Germanic territory, Boniface realized the great work to be accomplished by him. The small Christian community that existed there was in such a state of decay that its members would even participate in services and banquets honoring the pagan god Thor.
Tirelessly he set out to attract them to the true religion and, as a first step, requested help from his dear monks in England, many of whom, heeding his appeal, soon rushed to those wild and unknown lands. Thanks to them, the regions of Hesse and Thuringia became the recipients of constant preaching and missions.
At a certain point, the Saint decided to cut down Thor’s “sacred” oak, to prove to those souls the powerlessness of idols and to uproot the false religion.
Raising from the mountain of Gudenberg in Geismar, west of Fritzlar, the oak was the symbol of Germanic paganism. But Boniface, boldly defying the fury of the barbarians, took an axe and began to strike at that symbolic tree.
Immediately, Heaven showed its approval for his enterprise and at that very instant a fierce wind began to blow and knocked down the tree, breaking it into four pieces.
Seeing this manifestation of the true God, a jealous God who judges justly, a great number of pagans converted to the Catholic Faith. A chapel dedicated to St. Peter was then erected on the very site formerly occupied by the oak tree.
Bishop and organizer of a spiritual army
After three years of a fruitful apostolate, Gregory II summoned Boniface to Rome to impose on him the dignity he had so often refused: the episcopate.
The same unpretentiousness that had led the saint to deny this honor so many times, impelled him to bow before the will of the Vicar of Christ. On November 30, 722, the Supreme Pontiff ordained him bishop of Germania, a vast diocese that included the entire trans-Roman region.
Enjoying the Pope’s esteem and counting on the valuable support of Charlemagne’s grandfather Charlemagne, Boniface dedicated himself to winning more souls to the flock of Christ. In addition to Hesse and Thuringia, Bavaria and other parts of the Germanic territory also benefited from his zeal.
The venerable bishop founded the monastery of St. Michael of Ordhuff and took up residence there. Realizing the effectiveness of the example of religious life in civilizing the people there, he built many monasteries. From 740 to 778, twenty-nine monasteries were built in Bavaria.
At the head of this spiritual army he placed his faithful Anglo-Saxon collaborators, who had come to his call at the beginning of the mission and he persevered with them.
Reform of the Frankish Church
Boniface’s zeal knew no bounds and went beyond the already enormous limits of his diocese. At the request of Carlomano, son of Charles Martel, he traveled to Austrasia and convoked a synod there, which would go down in history as the Concilium Germanicum.
At the time, there was a great moral relaxation in those regions inhabited by the Frankish people, still ruled by the Merovingian dynasty. Using this council and other synods convened later, the holy bishop restructured the dioceses, gathered all the monasteries under the Benedictine rule and charisma, and obtained a partial restitution of the Church’s goods, used by Charles Martel in his constant wars.
With the assistance of the counts, he also prohibited the remainder of pagan customs.
To crown and affirm these reforms, in 747 he convened the General Council of the Frankish Empire, in which the unity of the Faith was established, and concluded it with a letter of submission and fidelity to the See of Peter.
“Behold the day long longed for!”
Approaching the eighth decade of his life, St. Boniface was not satiated with his love for God. His heart burned with desires for new achievements for the Holy Church.
Leaving St. Lull as his successor in the Archdiocese of Moghurt, St. Boniface decided to face again the challenge with which he had begun his mission: the conversion of Friesland.
In the spring of 754 he left for Friesland, accompanied by about fifty monks, to evangelize people even more savage than those with whom he had lived until then.
After a few months of arduous but fruitful apostolate, the Saint decided to gather all the converts in the city of Dokkum, in what is now Holland, in order to administer to them the sacrament of Confirmation.
It was the year 755. At the appointed time, the religious saw a fierce band of bandits approaching them instead of the Christians.
The faithful bishop was reading a book in his tent, at the time. Seeing the bestial horde advancing on them, he stood up courageously and said: “Behold the day long desired, the time of our end has come; take courage in the Lord. Be strong, do not be terrified by those who kill the body but cannot kill the immortal spirit; rejoice in the Lord and anchor the anchor of your hope in God, who will soon give you the reward of the eternal prize and a place in the heavenly kingdom with the citizens of heaven, who are the Angels.”
Using the book to defend himself, he was struck on the head. Then standing before his Lord he received his well-deserved reward.
When the Christians of Friesland heard of this, they hastened to collect the precious relics of the martyrs: Saint Boniface and the fifty-two who with him rose victoriously to Heaven.
The body of the father of the Germanic peoples was transferred to the Abbey of Fulda, but not without resistance from the faithful of the dioceses of Utrecht and Mogunica, who wished to have him with them.
Thus culminated the glorious epic of that boy who, in the silence and discipline of the Benedictine cloister, discovered the secret of triumph over himself, over barbarism, and over hell.
Text adapted from the magazine Heralds of the Gospel, n. 222, June 2021.
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On June 5th, the Church celebrates the memory of St. Boniface, whose apostolic zeal, crowned by martyrdom, brought forth the Germanic people to Christ. Newsdesk (05/06/2021 14:15, Gaudium Press) Let us pause in these lines to contemplate the providential man whose mission was to Christianize the people beyond the Rhine and to offer his life for them… View article
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