Boniface and Columbkille

Summer Vespers, Week One

A Reading from Ecclesiasticus:

Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us. The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through his great power from the beginning. Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring prophecies: Leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their knowledge of learning meet for the people, wise and eloquent are their instructions: Such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing: Rich men furnished with ability, living peaceably in their habitations: All these were honored in their generations, and were the glory of their times.

There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them. But these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not been forgotten. With their seed shall continually remain a good inheritance, and their children are within the covenant. Their seed standeth fast, and their children for their sakes. Their seed shall remain for ever, and their glory shall not be blotted out. Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore. The people will tell of their wisdom, and the congregation will shew forth their praise.

Homily:

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I think it important that we tell the stories of the saints, for at least two reasons. One is so that we know our brothers and sisters in the faith, the tales of our ancestors. We are a people called out by God from the nations, a New Tribe of Israel. We have existed on every continent and in every age since the time of Christ, and our forebears in the faith stretch back a further 2000 years to Abraham and Sarah.

The stories of the saints are our stories, our inheritance, our family. To know them is to know that we are never alone, nor could we ever be alone, amidst such a great cloud of witnesses as surrounds us throughout this life and into the Age to come.

And the other reason we tell the stories of the saints is to show that Christ is alive and Risen, still at work in His Body the Church, still surging throughout Creation in His people and His Spirit. We are the Body of Christ. We are His hands and His feet. We are the voice that forgives. We are the apostles who bring healing to the nations. We are the prophets who stand in calm defiance before all the assembled powers of sin and death and hell. We are God’s saints.

This week brings us the memorials of two remarkable men, sainted sinners unleashed by Christ, one as Apostle to the Germans, the other as missionary to the Scots.

Winfrith was born somewhere around the Year of Our Lord 675 in Wessex, greatest of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in Britain. He was called as missionary to the pagan hordes of Germania, himself being of Germanic extraction. He came in the midst of winter, at the Yuletide, when the priests of Nordic gods were preparing to sacrifice a child of noble birth at the Thunder-Oak, sacred to Thor. But as the pagan priest raised his hammer to strike the fatal blow, Winfrith caught the bloody instrument with the hook of his bishop’s crozier and smote it to pieces upon the rock of the altar.

“Hearken, sons of the forest!” cried he. “No blood shall flow this night save that which pity has drawn from a mother’s breast. For this is the birth-night of the White Christ, the son of the All-Father, the Savior of mankind. Fairer is He than Baldur the Beautiful, greater than Odin the Wise, kinder than Freya the Good. Since He has come sacrifice is ended. The dark Thor, on whom you have vainly called, is dead. Deep in the shades of Niflheim he is lost forever. And now on this Christ-night you shall begin to live. This blood-tree shall darken your land no more. In the name of the Lord, I will destroy it!”

And so he took an axe to the Thunder-Oak and felled it with gusto, pointing out to the gathered crowd a small fir tree behind the broken stump. “This little tree,” Winfrith proclaimed, “a young child of the forest, shall be your holy tree tonight. It is the wood of peace, for your houses are built of the fir. It is the sign of an endless life, for its leaves are ever green. See how it points upward to heaven. Let this be called the tree of the Christ-child; gather about it, not in the wild wood, but in your own homes; there it will shelter no deeds of blood, but loving gifts and rites of kindness.”

Thus were the people of Germany liberated from bondage to their dark and terrible gods. And for the Good News he brought, the people called Winfrith now by a new name: Boniface, the one who brings the “good fate” of Jesus Christ. And in commemoration of his shattering the hammer of Thor, the fir tree has remained a Yuletide symbol of new life in Christ among the Germans—who have by now shared with the whole world the ethereal beauty of their Christmas tree.

Our second saint of the week has, if anything, an even more colorful career. Columba, or Columbkille—“Dove of the Church”—was really more of a hawk. A broad and brawny monk of Ireland, fond of a good swordfight, he took it upon himself to study a magnificent new Psalter in the monastery of a neighboring chieftain. The chieftain soon found, however, that Columbkille was copying the manuscript word for word, and jealous of his own abbey’s prestige as a pilgrimage site, the abbot cast him out. Later on, a petty feud between the rival chiefs led simmering resentments about the manuscript to boil over into bloodshed—a conflict known forever after as the Battle of the Book.

An ecclesial trial was convened in the aftermath to determine who was at fault, and at which a miraculous vision of the Archangel Michael was said to have appeared. “Fear not,” the angel reassured the assembled churchmen, “for those lives lost in the battle have one and all been welcomed into Heaven. Nevertheless, Columbkille’s penance for this bloodshed must be a soul saved for every life lost in the fight.”

And so this warrior-scholar-monk gathered to himself 12 companions and set out from Ireland to what is today Scotland, bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the pagan British Picts north of Hadrian’s Wall. Here they founded an abbey on the Holy Isle of Iona, the base from which Christianity would spread throughout Great Britain—all the way down even to Wessex, the future home of a devout young man named Winfrith.

A fighter, a mystic, an artist, and a penitent, Columbkille is indeed a saint for our times: a flawed man full of life, who knew the ways of both sword and pen; who adventured bravely, fought bravely, failed bravely, and was forgiven entirely.

May we draw inspiration from the examples of Sts Boniface and Columbkille. But even more so may we know that we are all of us sainted sinners, flawed men and women who are nevertheless depthlessly loved by God, and who are one and all called to lives of high adventure in Him. Repent and believe the Good News! Raise the pen. Raise the sword. Raise the Christmas Tree on high. And let us raise our voices in songs of thanksgiving to Christ who is our Lord, our King, and our God.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.