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(an icon in the care of St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in Amsterdam)

St. Boniface (680-754) was probably born in at Crediton in Devonshire. He was baptized Winfrid. About the age of five, he decided that he wished to enter the monastic life, being inspired by preaching monks who had visited his family. He was a good monk, and a brilliant scholar-he was made the director of the school at the abbey of Nursling.

Over time, the kinship he felt for his pagan relatives in northern Europe led him to wish to undertake a missionary trip to Friesland. His abbot reluctantly agreed after considerable persuasion. He landed at Doerstadt in the spring of 716. However, King Radbod was at war with Charles Martel. St. Willibrord had been obliged to leave Friesland for his monastery of Echternach. St. Boniface consequently used his time to examine the situation and to speak to King Radbod. Having accessed the situation, he realized the futility of staying and returned home in the autumn. His monastic brothers were overjoyed to have him back. They tried to force him to stay by electing him abbot on the death of Abbot Winbert. He refused. In 718, he left for Rome, carrying letters of commendation from Bishop Daniel of Winchester. He was well received by Pope Gregory II, who kept him there for a year, and then sent him forth with a general commission to preach God’s word to the heathen. Gregory II also renamed him Boniface.

Shortly after leaving for Germany, he heard that Radbod was dead. He then returned to his original mission in Friesland where he aided St. Willibrord for three years. St. Willibrord tried to make him his coadjutor and successor, but St. Boniface declined-insisting that his commission had been a general one and that he was not authorized to accept any fixed see. He also felt that he was too young.

He returned to Germany where he worked both on Christianizing both the pagans and the nearly pagan Christian population. His work went so well that he was summoned to Rome and consecrated a regional bishop with no fixed see, but a general jurisdiction over Germany on St. Andrew’s Day, 722.

His next thirty-two years were spent in tirelessly building up the church in Germany, and in reforming the Frankish church which was then in a very bad way. It had been ailing badly before Charles Martel-the bishoprics being fought over by regional great families. However, Charles Martel made the situation far worse-stealing the property of the churches, and what was worse appointing his cronies as bishops, godless men but loyal. Simony was rife. One bishop even fought a battle and personally killed the slayer of his father. In the course of his labors, he had to fight heretical bishops and clergymen, self-ordained bishops, “New Age” style holy men, clergy who performed both pagan sacrifice and the Christian mysteries. He arranged the first Frankish synods in over eighty years to help clean up the Frankish church. He also inspired many Anglo-Saxon missionaries to come over to help in the evangelization effort, the cream of Anglo-Saxon monasticism who helped him build churches and monasteries-thereby greatly raising the cultural level of many areas. It is a thrilling career, but not directly connected to the Church in the Low Countries during these years, so I will refrain from going into more detail other than a story of St. Boniface known to every Dutchman (and believed by many falsely to have taken place in the Netherlands-myself included until I began my research).

The event actually took place on the summit of Mount Gudenberg at Geismar, near Fritzlar in Germany. Many Hessians had converted to Christianity. However, some continued secretly and some openly to continue various pagan practices, while others “forsook all the profane practices of heathenism."

With the counsel and advice of the latter persons, Boniface in their presence attempted to cut down, at the place called Gaesmere, a certain oak of extraordinary size called by the pagans of olden times the Oak of Jupiter. Taking his courage in his hands (for a great crowd of pagans stood by watching and bitterly cursing in their hearts the enemy of the gods), he cut the first notch. But when he had made a superficial cut, suddenly the oak’s vast bulk, shaken by a mighty blast of wind from above crashed to the ground shivering its topmost branches into fragments in its fall.

As if by the express will of God (for the brethren present had done nothing to cause it) the oak burst asunder into four parts, each part having a trunk of equal length. At the sight of this extraordinary spectacle the heathen who had been cursing ceased to revile and began, on the contrary, to believe and bless the Lord. Thereupon the holy bishop took counsel with the brethren, built an oratory from the timber of the oak and dedicated it to St. Peter the Apostle.”

In 753, at age roughly seventy-three, he laid down his archbishopric of Mainz, leaving it to his successor, St. Lull

This shirt is old and faded
All the color's washed away
I've had it now for more damn years
Than I can count anyway
I wear it beneath my jacket
With the collar turned up high
So old I should replace it
But I'm not about to try

This shirt's got silver buttons
And a place upon the sleeve
Where I used to set my heart up
Right there anyone could see
This shirt is the one I wore to every boring high school dance
Where the boys ignored the girls
And we all pretended to like the band

This shirt was a pillow for my head
On a train through Italy
This shirt was a blanket beneath the love
We made in Argeles
This shirt was lost for three whole days
In a town near Buffalo
'Till I found the locker key
In a downtown Trailways bus depot

This shirt was the one I lent you
And when you gave it back
There was a rip inside the sleeve
Where you rolled your cigarettes
It was the place I put my heart
Now look at where you put a tear
I forgave your thoughtlessness
But not the boy who put it there

This shirt was the place your cat
Decided to give birth to five
And we stayed up all night watching
And we wept when the last one died
This shirt is just an old faded piece of cotton
Shining like the memories
Inside those silver buttons

This shirt is a grand old relic
With a grand old history
I wear it now for Sunday chores
Cleaning house and raking leaves
I wear it beneath my jacket
With the collar turned up high
So old I should replace it
But I'm not about to try


Artist: Carpenter Mary Chapin
Song: This Shirt
Album: State Of The Heart