Deepertruth: Stand In The Gap With Us And Saint Boniface

Stand In The Gap With Us And Saint Boniface 6/5/2024.  Boniface, who was baptized Winfrid, lived in the eighth century. He was a brilliant monk in a Benedictine monastery in England. He was the head of a school, but he thought God wanted him to be a missionary. He went to Frisia (Northern Netherlands and Germany) to begin his work.

Boniface is known as the “Apostle of Germany” for his tremendous missionary efforts spreading the faith through that region of Europe during the Dark Ages. He was born in England in 680, and baptized with the name Winfrid. At the age of 5, he had his first encounter with educated monks when several visited his home.

Boniface, known as the apostle of the Germans, was an English Benedictine monk who gave up being elected abbot to devote his life to the conversion of the Germanic tribes. Two characteristics stand out: his Christian orthodoxy and his fidelity to the pope of Rome.

How absolutely necessary this orthodoxy and fidelity were is borne out by the conditions Boniface found on his first missionary journey in 719 at the request of Pope Gregory II. Paganism was a way of life. What Christianity he did find had either lapsed into paganism or was mixed with error. The clergy were mainly responsible for these latter conditions since they were in many instances uneducated, lax and questionably obedient to their bishops. In particular instances their very ordinations were questionable.