Augustine, encouraged by Gregory’s letter, returned to the work of God’s word, and arrived at Britain with nearly forty companions and Frankish interpreters. The mighty Ethelbert was at that time king of Kent…. They sent a message to him, indicating that they came from Rome and brought a joyful message of eternal life in heaven with God for anyone who was willing to listen to it. The king heard this and ordered them to stay put for a while until he could decide what to do about them. For he knew about the Christian religion, having a Christian wife from France named Bertha: she had been raised a Christian and married Ethelbert only on the condition that she could continue to practice [the Faith].
A few days later he came to them, inviting them to sit in his presence in the open air. (He was afraid to meet them indoors because of an ancient superstition that, if he did so, their magical powers might be able to overpower him. But they brought divine power, not magic.) They carried a silver cross for a banner, an image of our Lord and Savior painted on a board, singing a litany and praying to the Lord for the salvation of themselves and the English people.
After Augustine had preached the word of life to the king and his attendants, the king answered: “You speak pleasantly and make attractive promises, but they are new to us and confusing, and I cannot accept them, since this would mean breaking with ancient English custom. But because you have traveled so far to my kingdom, and seem very eager and sincere in your desire to share this message, I won’t harass you, but will act as your host, providing you with supplies and allowing you to preach and gain any converts who will listen to you.” So the king allowed them to stay in the city of Canterbury, and gave them liberty to preach.
As soon as they moved into the residence he gave them, they began to imitate the practices of the early Church: frequent prayer, fasting, preaching to as many as possible, practicing self-denial, eating only the food they needed for subsistence, which they received from their converts, living exactly in the way which matched the message they were preaching, always willing to suffer and even die for the truth they preached. Because of this, several believed and were baptized, admiring the simplicity and innocence of their life, and the beauty of their teaching … until eventually the king himself was converted to their faith…. After he was baptized, greater numbers began to gather to hear the word, abandoning their pagan rituals, believing and joining the unity of Christ’s Church. The king encouraged such conversions but did not force anyone to convert: he contented himself with showing more personal affection to those who did, because he had learned from Augustine and his companions that serving Christ ought to be done voluntarily, not by force.
One Church, Many Customs
Augustine maintained a steady line of communication with his patron, Pope Gregory, in Rome, asking him questions about Church policy and allowing the pope to influence the basic shape of the newly born English Church. One question that confused Augustine was the sharp divergence in customs between Christians in Rome, where he had been raised, and those in France. (Some French Christians had immigrated to England, so at this time England had been influenced by French customs.) As a Roman missionary, how aggressive should he be in forcing the English to accept Roman customs? (From Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People)
Augustine’s second question: Even though the Christian faith is one and the same everywhere, why are there different customs in different churches? Why is the Mass said one way in the Roman churches, and another way in the French churches?
Pope Gregory’s answer: You know, my brother, only the customs of the Roman Church in which you were raised. But if you found anything more acceptable to God in any church—Roman, French, or any other—it would make me happy if you made use of it. You should carefully teach the English people, who are very new to Christianity, anything useful you can gather from the various churches. For things are not to be loved for the sake of the places they are found, but places for the sake of good things found in them.
Therefore, you should choose things that are devout, holy, and orthodox from every church, and make them into one body, so to speak, and only after that should you introduce them to the English.
The Slow and Patient Task of the Missionary
Every missionary faces the question of pace: How quickly should one try to move a convert from his false opinions and practices to true ones? Should the convert be pushed to abandon his old life “cold turkey,” all at once, or can he be allowed to take more gradual steps, growing accustomed to his new life more slowly? Pope Gregory gave clear instructions to Augustine that he should opt for a more gradual pace in England, hoping that this would draw in more converts than an all-or-nothing approach. (From Gregory’s Letter no. 76)
I have put a lot of thought into the case of the English. I have decided that their pagan temples should not be destroyed, but only the idols that are inside them. Instead, just sprinkle these temples with holy water, and put new altars in them with Christian relics inside. After all, if the temples are well-built, they can simply be transferred from the worship of idols to that of the true God.
This way, when the people see their beloved temples not destroyed but preserved, they might be more willing to abandon their error. They can continue to visit the places they are comfortable with, and can gradually learn to adore the true God there. Since they have a long habit of offering animal sacrifices to demonic idols, they might be allowed to continue some similar practice, in a different form. For example, on the anniversary of the saints whose relics are in the temple, they might carry out some ceremony using branches from the trees around the temple, once that temple has become a church, and thus celebrate the saint’s feast day.
They might even continue to kill animals, but not to sacrifice them to the devil, but rather to eat them, while giving thanks to God for giving all things to them. In this way, they can outwardly carry out some of the same activities they have always enjoyed doing, while inwardly we can gradually steer their minds toward other enjoyments. The reason is that it is no doubt impossible to remove all bad habits immediately from hardhearted people. Someone who wants to get to a high place must get there by small steps, not by huge leaps.
After all, God treated the people of Israel this way. They had grown accustomed to offering animal sacrifices to demonic idols while in Egypt, and He did not prevent them from offering such sacrifices, but simply instructed them to offer them to himself, in order to change their hearts. In this way, some elements in their sacrificial worship changed, but others remained the same, and since they were offered to God and not to idols, while they may have looked the same as before, they were actually quite different.
St. Willibrord (658–739)
Though little is known of Willibrord’s life, this has not stopped the citizens of Luxembourg from their rather quirky celebration of his life, the annual Procession of Holy Dancers, wherein every year thousands hop in a coordinated dance for a mile to the abbey church at Echternach which Willibrord founded. Perhaps it is an appropriate celebration for the life of a man whose miracles, nearly half of the time, involved the multiplication of wine flasks for festivities.
An Englishman of Saxon stock, Willibrord joined the Benedictines at the young age of fifteen, studying for over a decade under the best and brightest of his day, both in England and in Ireland: he had both St. Egbert and St. Wilfrid for educators. His burning desire to preach to the barbarians in Frisia (modern-day Holland) couldn’t be quenched, however, and in his thirties he journeyed to Utrecht with eleven companions to establish a missionary headquarters there.
Willibrord set the example for later European missionaries by seeking out the military protection of the strongest Catholic kingdom of the day—that of the French rulers Charles Martel and Pepin—and by voluntarily submitting their missionary