Boniface, bishop and martyr (673–755)

Biography

He was born around the year 680 in Wessex, England, from a deeply Christian family. At the age of seven, with the permission of his parents, he went to live with some monks from whom he received a solid Christian education. At the age of 14 he moved to the Nursinling monastery, and entered the Order as a Benedictine religious. He gave himself fully to his intellectual and religious training. Later, for his great achievements, he was decorated as Master of Theology. But much more than in scientific studies, although sacred, he was seen progressing in the career of holiness, since the progress he made in the entire range of virtues and demands that an authentic religious and monastic life entails was noticeable to all who knew him. He was ready for the great work that the Lord had prepared for him: Work of evangelization and crowning of martyrdom. Boniface was in his prime and was willing to give his life for Jesus Christ and his brothers. This was stated to the Father Abbot of the monastery and in the year 716 he set out to spread the Good News of Jesus throughout the lands of Germany, if this was the will of Pope Saint Gregory II, at whose orders he placed himself upon arriving to visit him in Rome. In the year 719 the Pope named him "Apostolic Missionary and His Legate in Germany." He travels city by city, town by town and organizes, establishes the ecclesiastical hierarchy, founds churches, monasteries of nuns and monks, speaks about Jesus Christ to rich and poor, kings and peasants. His zeal has no limits. He organized Councils, founded Bishoprics. At last he was ripe for martyrdom. He died on June 5, 755, along with fifty-two other companions due to the fanaticism of some gentile enemies of Jesus Christ.