Today May 27

Today, were it not great Pentecost Sunday, it would be the feast of St. Augustine of Canterbury . . . aka St. Austin (died c. 605). I always thought of "Austin" as an American name, even a Western American name, but it's actually been in use as a British contraction of Augustine for many years. One day in Rome Pope St. Gregory was walking through the slave market and he saw on the block three fair golden-haired boys. "What are they?" he asked. On being told they were Angles (as in Anglo-Saxons), he supposedly exclaimed, "Not Angles but Angels!" And thereafter set it upon himself to make sure they would be evangelized. To that purpose he sent out Augustine (today's saint), Mellitus, John and some other missionaries to England. They got as far as the English Channel and fear turned them back. Augustine returned to Rome and was remonstrated with by the pope; he sent him back in no uncertain terms. And indeed Augustine returned to France, rejoined his companions, sailed for England and met the king (Ethelbert of Kent) under an oak, where he gave him the land in Canterbury that became the old church of St. Martin . . . and eventually the prelature cathedral.

Now Augustine was a character, you know. Apparently, Christianity had come to Britain (and the Britons) before all this, but was driven out by the Anglo-Saxon invaders. Well, the remaining Christians were surviving in Wales and Cornwall. Cut off as they were, they'd fallen in to their own non-orthodox practices though their doctrine was sound. Augustine called them out at Augustine's Oak in Wessex (I guess oak trees were landmarks in those days) and urged them to comply with all Roman practices. The old conservatives refused and Augustine supposedly said in a fit of anger, "If they would not accept peace with their brethren, they should have war with their enemies." And some see this as prophetic of the battle of the Britons with King Ethelfrith of Northumbria ten years later, which routed the Britons and massacred their monks.

Augustine was a wise man, but he always made sure he had the full backing of the pope before he did anything. Alban Butler attributes it to his delicacy of conscience but one could see it as a reasonable defensiveness in an era of pagan pressure and criticism. I don't know.

Anyway, based on Gregory the Great's direct instructions, Augustine instituted a prudent policy of keeping as many pagan customs as possible and all their churches, only ""baptizing" them into Christian festivals and houses of worship. Future generations might criticize him for that, but it was psychologically sound since "He who would climb to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps." - Gregory the Great.

Augustine died peacefully in 605 after seven years of converting, baptizing and confirming, as well as setting up bishoprics in London and Rochester.