St. Augustine of Canterbury
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
He came to England, so legend has it, as a Roman soldier, a pagan. He stayed after mustering out, settling in Verulamium . After sheltering a Christian priest he converted to Christianity. Under the persecution of the Emperor Septimus Severus in 209 A. D. soldiers came to his home looking for the priest. He switched clothes, and went in the priest's place. He was martyred as a result.
Some of you will have already figured out I'm not talking about St. Augustine, but St. Alban, the first martyr of the Church in England. I mention him in part because he's part of the context of today - a reminder that Augustine didn't bring Christianity to England, it had been there for more than 400 years. So today we're going to talk "History".
The next part of our story begins in the year 410 A.D. - that's the date when the Roman Empire abandoned it's British province, withdrawing it's troops to defend Rome from the barbarian invasions - 410 A.D. marks the beginning of the so-called "Dark Ages".
Rome was in Britain for over 400 years - longer than from when the Pilgrims arrived until today. So the Roman culture and institutions were well-entrenched - the collapse of an Empire - or even one of it's provinces - doesn't happen overnight. But over the next 50 years Britain descended into civil war, and then saw the first of the Viking invasions. It was the time of Arthur, and the collapse of Christianity in England in the face of Viking paganism.
It's also when Patrick returned to Ireland as a Christian missionary - around 456 A.D.
With the arrival of the various invading groups - who were all Pagan - Christianity was thoroughly marginalized. And so it remained in England - now becoming the land of the Vikings, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes as much as the Britons - for another 150 years.
In fact in the British Isles the only place where Christianity flourished during the Dark Ages was in Ireland, thorough Patrick. It's not inaccurate to say that during the time of Patrick western civilization as it had been known under the Romans survived only there, thanks to the monks and monasteries Patrick founded.
In 563 A.D. - just over a hundred years after Patrick arrived in Ireland, another Christian began another journey - this time from Ireland, to Scotland, to the island of Iona (where we will be visiting next September) - St. Columba. Through Columba Christianity was introduced into Scotland.
This is the context into which an Italian Monk - a Benedictine - first set foot on the shores of England - in Kent - in the year 597 A.D. He came at the request of his friend, the first great pope, rightly called Gregory the Great. Augustine's first stop was the Church of St. Martin at Canterbury - a church that is still there today, a ten minute walk from Canterbury Cathedral (and another place we'll visit next year).
That visit to St. Martin's and this history are important to us - which is why I've taken the time to tell you about it all. It's a reminder that St. Augustine didn't introduce Christianity to England - that happened nearly 400 years earlier with Alban and his contemporaries.
What Augustine did was to give Christianity in England a 'jump-start' - to get everything going again, to remind the English Christians that they were not alone, that their brothers and sisters in Christ cared about and for them and wanted to restore the relationships that had lapsed over the previous 200 years.
So why is he important to us?
- Firstly, because he was a Benedictine monk. Prayer was central, and the whole of life flowed from it. The particularly Anglican view of Christianity that can be described by a Latin phrase "Lex Orandi, lex Credendi", meaning "As we pray so we believe" comes from that monastic tradition.
- Secondly, Augustine was committed to restoring intellectual, scholarly identity of the Church, another particularly Anglican marker.
- And, thirdly, because of Pope Gregory's comments to Augustine before he left Rome. Gregory said "If you have found customs, whether in the Roman, Gallican, or any other Churches that may be more acceptable to God, I wish you to make a careful selection of them, and teach the Church of the English, which is still young in the faith, whatever you can profitably learn from the various Churches. For things should not be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things.". What Gregory meant is this: don't be bound by the traditions you find there, teach them that tradition is valuable only as a means to an end, and if the end has no value then abandon the tradition. It's from there that we get our openness to new forms and ideas.
I think there are also two other reasons Augustine is important that are specifically relevant to us, here.
- Augustine wasn't bringing Christianity, but he was seeking to start over.
- And his visit was, at first, symbolic - a metaphor and message, a statement of caring that said "we haven't forgotten you".
We're doing that today. We beginning again our programming for our children and youth, and in so doing we state clearly and unequivocally that we care, that we want this for our children and youth.
And we're doing the same thing with our building program - which is also beginning again (tomorrow, actually) with the first work on the temporary buildings. This is the third building program we here have engaged in - the first build the original church, the second built the one we are in right now.
My hope is that we can remember what was important about Augustine as we journey into God's future: that his life flowed from his prayer, that he was committed to a vision of restoration, and that he had a thoughtful and expansive understanding of his tradition and that of the Christians he went to meet.
Happy St. Augustine's feast day! Amen.
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