St. Boniface, Mainz
by Cornelius Floemaert
SAINT BONIFACE
The title of my thoughts is, “Saint Boniface.”
His regular name was Wynfrid - but that was changed to
Boniface - by a pope. It means, “Do
Good!”
That might be a great message for all of us each morning:
Do Good!”
I don’t remember ever saying anything about Saint
Boniface in a sermon - so for a change of pace, I’d like to make a few comments
about St. Boniface - today on his feast day.
He was a missionary.
He was a Benedictine who spent most of his life as a priest and bishop
on the road.
He was an Englishman - but wanted to spend his life as a
missionary in mainland Europe. He ends up being the Patron Saint of Germany.
In a way, he does not fulfill Jesus’ words about rending
to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s - as we heard in today’s
gospel. He was much more directly connected the Carolingians - descendents of
Charlemagne and connected to Charles Martel and Pippin - names we might remember from our high
school classroom days with European
history. The name I always remember is
Pippin the Short. I liked names
like that. I also remember Charles the Bald.
Boniface’s dates are c.
675 till June 5, 754. So he’s a
bright light in a dim or dark age period of history.
He founded monasteries and dioceses and he did a lot of
things Rome was hoping he would do in
mainland Europe.
There are 40 some copies of a life of Boniface from a guy
named Willibroard - 4 of which are thought to be direct from the originals.
Saint Boniface's feast day is celebrated on June 5th "in the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Anglican Communion, and the Eastern Orthodox Church".
There are some 140 Letters of Boniface - but we don’t have
the return letter or the letter they are answering.
He was murdered along with a group of other missionaries
and monks on this day in 754. He was
reading the scriptures at the time of the murder.
He is pictured with a sword going through a bible he had
in hand.
No it didn’t save him, but he preached it to help bring
salvation to others.
After his death he becomes well known in both Germany and
England.
There are churches in his name in England as well as
Germany.
We Redemptorists had a German national church in his name
in Philly - but like so many churches people moved out and moved on.
So that’s a few ideas about Saint Boniface.
He had some problems with Irish Missionaries over in
Germany - but I don’t to go there.
