Patrick Comerford
The Season of Lent began on Ash Wednesday (14 February 2024), and this week began with the Third Sunday in Lent (Lent III, 3 March 2024).
The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (7 March) remembers Saint Perpetua, Felicity and their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage in the year 203.
Throughout Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated in Common Worship.
Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, A reflection on an early, pre-Reformation English saint;
2, today’s Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
Early English pre-Reformation saints: 23, Saint Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton
Saint Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton, is commemorated in the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship on 5 June. He was born Wynfrith at Crediton in Devon ca 675, and took the name Boniface when he entered the monastery in Exeter as a young man. He became a Latin scholar and poet and was ordained when he was 30.
Boniface rejected a safe ecclesiastical career in England and, in the year 716, became a missionary to Frisia, following in the steps of Willibrord. He eventually was commissioned by the pope to work in Hesse and Bavaria, where he went after his consecration as bishop in 722. He courageously felled a sacred oak at Geismar and, since the pagan gods did not come to the rescue, widespread conversion followed.
He was the founder of a string of monasteries across southern Germany and made sure that they were places of learning, so that evangelisation could continue. He was made Archbishop of Mainz in 732, where he consecrated many missionary bishops. He worked assiduously for the reform of the Church in France and managed to ensure that the more stable Rule of Saint Benedict was observed in French monasteries.
Saint Boniface crowned Pepin as the Frankish king in 751, but was already very old. While waiting for some new Christians to arrive for confirmation, he was murdered by a band of pagans on 5 June 754. He is the patron saint of Germany and the Netherlands. Although he is little known in Britain, Boniface has been judged as having a deeper influence on European history than any other Englishman.
Luke 11: 14-23 (NRSVA):
14 Now he was casting out a demon that was mute; when the demon had gone out, the one who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed. 15 But some of them said, ‘He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.’ 16 Others, to test him, kept demanding from him a sign from heaven. 17 But he knew what they were thinking and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house. 18 If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? – for you say that I cast out the demons by Beelzebul. 19 Now if I cast out the demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20 But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. 21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his castle, his property is safe. 22 But when one stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away his armour in which he trusted and divides his plunder. 23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.’
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 7 March 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘International Women’s Day Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Right Revd Beverley A Mason, Bishop of Warrington.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (7 March 2024, Saint Felicity and Saint Perpetua) invites us to pray with these words:
Let us pray for those persecuted for their faith. May they find solace in the prayers of others, fortitude under threat and hope in despair.
The Collect:
Holy God,
who gave great courage to Perpetua, Felicity and their companions:
grant that we may be worthy to climb the ladder of sacrifice
and be received into the garden of peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyrs Perpetua, Felicity and their companions:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday: Saint Willibrord of York
Tomorrow: Alcuin of York
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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