Boniface
was born Winfrid around the year 680 to a respected and noble English
family, and it was to his father’s great displeasure that, at the young
age of five, his son devoted himself to the monastic life.
Educated
at the monastery school close to Exeter, with further studies guided by
the monks and, later, directed by the learned Abbot Winbert at the
Abbey of Nursling in Winchester, Boniface became a very learned and
popular scholar. His popularity and skill in teaching attracted many
other students and scholars, for whose benefit he wrote the first Latin
grammar known to have been compiled in English. After continued studies,
he was ordained to the priesthood at the age of thirty.
Convinced
of his calling to be a missionary, Winfrid declined the position of
abbot at the monastery of Nursling and obtained from his superior
permission to travel to Frisia to assist the famous missionary, St.
Willibrord, who had been struggling for a long time to bring the Gospel
home to his people. However, the mission ended in failure and Winfrid
was forced to return to England a few months later.
Refusing to
give up though, Winfrid set out for Rome to ask the Holy Father himself
for an official mission and the backing of the Church. Pope Gregory II
consented, gave him the new name of Boniface, and assigned him to work
in German Thuringia, where the Church was in bad shape, isolated, and
subjected to superstition and heresy. However, Boniface received no help
from the local clergy and once more traveled to Frisia to join
Willibrord and to be trained by the expert missionary. He was so helpful
that St. Willibrord wanted to make Boniface his successor; but after
three years of formation, Boniface still felt the pull of the missionary
work in Germany that he had left behind. Returning first to Rome where
he was consecrated bishop by the pope, Boniface set out once more for
Hesse.
Boniface had enormous work ahead of him. The pagans,
though attracted to Christianity, were still bound by fear and
superstition to their old religion and gods. To prove to them the
falseness of their beliefs and the reality of the one true God, Boniface
called the people together and, approaching the “sacred” oak of
Geismar, struck it down with an axe, whereupon it split into four parts
and fell to the grown in the shape of a cross. Yet, there stood
Boniface, still holding his axe, unharmed by their gods.
The work
of evangelization and conversion advanced steadily thereafter; and in
answer to his appeal, monks and nuns enthusiastically began to arrive
from England to assist him.
Boniface also lent his own support to
the Frankish Church which was also in sad need of repair, setting up
councils and synods and instituting reforms which revitalized the Church
there.
One day, while camped in the open fields near the banks
of the little river Borne with his attendants, he was awaiting the
arrival of some confirmandi when they were attacked by a hostile band of
pagans. The saint exhorted his companions to faith and courage and they
all died the death of martyrs. St. Boniface’s body was taken to Fulda
where it still rests.
Saturday, June 5, 2021
St. Boniface of Mainz
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