Saint Boniface

Today we celebrate of St. Boniface, who is also known as the apostle of the Germans.

St. Boniface was an English Benedictine monk who decided to give up his opportunity to be elected abbot to devote his life to the conversion of many Germanic tribes.

The two main personality characteristics that stood out that St. Boniface showed include; his Christian orthodoxy and his fidelity to the pope of Rome.

St. Boniface was born during the year 675, and his orthodoxy and fidelity existed due to the many different conditions that St. Boniface encountered during his first missionary journey during the year 719 at the request of Pope Gregory II.

During that time paganism was a very popular way of life. During his journey the Christianity that he was able to find had either taught paganism or had many faults and issues within its teachings. The clergy were responsible for these issue that were in existence within the Christianity that St. Boniface found, since many members of the clergy were in many instances uneducated, and questionably obedient to their bishops. In some cases their own ordinations were questionable.

These finding that St. Boniface had found, were very difficult to see and he had to report it during the year 722 on his first return visit to Rome.

When St. Boniface had reported his findings the Holy Father gave him the order to reform the German Church. The pope later decided to send out some letters of recommendation to many religious and civil leaders.

St. Boniface eventually decided to admit that his work would have been unsuccessful, from a human viewpoint, he said that he needed an important letter of safe-conduct from Charles Martel, who was a very powerful Frankish ruler, and the grandfather of Charlemagne.

St. Boniface was later made a regional bishop and he was authorized to organize the whole German Church. During that time St. Boniface was very successful.

While St. Boniface was in the Frankish kingdom, he was met with many different great problems because of the lay interference in the bishops’ elections, the worldliness of the clergy and lack of papal control.

Sadly, during St. Boniface’s final mission to the Frisians, St. Boniface and his 53 companions were massacred and killed while he was preparing converts for confirmation.

In order for St. Boniface to be able to restore the Germanic Church to its fidelity to Rome and to convert all of the pagans, St. Boniface had set out to complete his work while being guided by two principles.

The first principle that he followed was to be able to restore the obedience of all of the clergy to their bishops in union with the pope of Rome.

Also, the second principle was to be able to establish many houses of prayer which took the form of Benedictine monasteries.

Eventually, a great number of Anglo-Saxon monks and nuns decided to follow him to the continent, where he decided to introduce the Benedictine nuns to the active apostolate of education.

St. Boniface passed away on June 5, 754 and his feast day is celebrated on June 5. St. Boniface is the patron saint of Germany.

Prayer to St. Boniface:

St. Boniface intercede that we may be able to defend the truth and make it out duty to protect every child in this world from any harm or heresy that they may encounter. Help us to help others find out about Christ and the amazing graces and blessings He can provide for us in our lives.

Amen

St. Boniface pray for us

St. Joseph pray for us

May we continue to strengthen our journey to sainthood and keep others in our prayers.

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Works Cited

Information (read from, not taken):

Franciscan Media. "Saint Boniface. ”Saint Boniface | Franciscan Media. Accessed 5, June 2021.

Images:

Saint Boniface. June 5, 2021. Saint Boniface - Google Search.