Martyr, Bishop and Apostle of Germany
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Boniface. According to the legend of Thor and the Thunder Oak Tree, it was St Boniface, in the year 723, who cut down the oak tree sacred to the god of thunder. This action is said to mark the beginning of Christianization in old Germany, and the origin of the Christmas Tree tradition.
Saint Boniface is known with the name of Boniface but his real name was Willibald and his fame came to us, above all for being the apostle of Germany. He was born in 680 in the territory of Wessex, England in a deeply Christian family. He was always a perfect Anglo-Saxon.
When Willibald was only five years old he asked his parents to allow him to move in with a group of monks that passed through Wessex and to live the kind of life that they lived. At the beginning, his parents put some resistance, but when he was seven years old, he was allowed to live with the monks. He spent seven years with them and received a solid Christian formation; when he was 14 years old he moved to the monastery of Nursinling, Diocese of Winchester, and entered as Benedictine of that religious order. He devoted himself to his intellectual and religious training. Then, he was honored as a theology teacher.
Shortly after, Boniface founded the convent of Fritzlar on the territory of Hesse. In year 725 he returned to Turingia and, continuing his missionary work and founded the monastery of Ordruf. He presided a council where it was Carloman, son of Carlos Martel and uncle of Carlomagno that supported him on his venture. In year 737, he returned to Rome and the Pope raised him to the dignity of Archbishop of Maguncia. He continued his evangelizing mission and a great amount of collaborators joined him. There were also women that arrived from England to contribute to the conversion of the German country, that were racially related to them. Among these women, there were some that stood out as Saint Tecla, Saint Walburga and a cousin of Boniface, Saint Lioba. This was the origin of the convents of women. Boniface continued founding monasteries and celebrating synods, both in Germany and France, as a result of which both territories were intimately united to Rome.
The old preacher had reached the age of eighty and wished to return to Frisia (present Holland). Fifty-two of his fellow priests were with him. They crossed many channels, until they came to the heart of the territory. When disembarking near Dochum, thousands of inhabitants of Frisia were baptized. On Whit Sunday they had to receive the sacrament of the confirmation. Boniface was reading, when he heard the sound of people approaching. He went out thinking that they would be the newly converted, but what he saw was an armed mob with evident determination to kill him. The missionaries were attacked with lances and swords. Boniface shouted: “God will save our souls”. One of the criminals fell upon the old archbishop, who raised mechanically the gospel book that he had in his hands, as a way to protect himself. The sword divided both the book and the head of the missionary. This happened on June 5th of year 754.
The grave of Saint Boniface is in Fulda, in the monastery that he founded. He is represented with an ax and a demolished oak tree at his feet, in memory of the tree that gentiles worshiped as sacred and that Boniface struck in Hesse. He is the apostle of Germany and the patriarch of the Catholics of that country.
Today let’s remember St. Boniface as he bears out the Christian rule: To follow Christ is to follow the way of the cross. For Boniface, it was not only physical suffering or death, but the painful, thankless, bewildering task of Church reform. Missionary glory is often thought of in terms of bringing new persons to Christ, It seems – but is not – less glorious to heal the household of the faith.
Heaven is out goal.
Source: St Boniface Roman Catholic Church, Pembroke Pines, FL.
Source: Emmanuel Catholic Church, Delray Beach, FL