St. Boniface

St. Boniface was born Wynfrith in the kingdom of Wessex, England, about 675. He entered Benedictine life as a boy, was educated at Exeter and Nursling, and became a gifted teacher of Scripture. He could have remained a scholar of the English Church. Instead he asked to preach the Gospel among peoples who still mixed Christ with the old gods.

A first journey to Frisia in 716 failed: the mission field was at war. In 718 he went to Rome. Pope Gregory II gave him the name Boniface, a papal mandate, and later episcopal consecration. From then on he was not a freelance preacher. He was a bishop of the Roman Church sent to plant dioceses, not merely to baptize and leave.

In Hesse and Thuringia he preached, confirmed, and cut down sacred oaks — the most famous at Geismar, dedicated to Donar (Thor). The tree fell; the people saw that Christ, not the thunder-god, was Lord. He founded monasteries as schools of the Faith, above all Fulda with St. Sturm. He reformed clergy who had grown slack, held councils, and bound the young German Church to Rome and to the Rule of St. Benedict.

He was a counselor of the Frankish court and a spiritual father to many, including St. Adele. In old age he returned to Frisia, the land of his first failure. On June 5, 754, near Dokkum, while preparing converts for Confirmation, he was killed with his companions. He would not let his clerics fight. Tradition says he held up a book as a shield. He is buried at Fulda.

The Church keeps his feast on June 5. England gave him; Germany received a pastor; the whole Church received a martyr who would rather die with a Gospel in his hands than live as a comfortable monk at home.

Liturgical Celebration

The Church commemorates St. Boniface on June 5, the day of his martyrdom at Dokkum in 754. He is a principal patron of Germany and of Fulda, where his relics rest. England honors him as one of her greatest missionary sons.

Traditions and Customs

On this feast, pray for missionaries, for the Church in Germany, and for the courage to name false gods — including the respectable ones. Fulda and many German dioceses keep processions and Masses in his honor. The oak became, in Christian memory, a sign of conversion, not of destruction for its own sake.

Prayer and Devotion

Ask St. Boniface for zeal that is obedient, for bishops who plant rather than wander, and for a death, if God wills, still at the work. Pair his memorial with St. Benedict, whose Rule he carried into the forests of the north.