One of Parker's Finds: The St. Augustine Gospels

I posted yesterday on Matthew Parker, Elizabeth I's first Archbishop of Canterbury and his library. Remember that his purpose in saving these works from the Dissolution of the Monasteries was to find evidence that the Church in England had always been independent of the "Roman" Catholic Church. One of the most wonderful books he saved shows the opposite of course, because The St. Augustine Gospels had been brought to England by that most Roman of Catholic missionaries, St. Augustine of Canterbury, dispatched by Pope St. Gregory the Great.

The Parker Library blog explains how this Italian, illustrated book of the Holy Gospels came to be reunited with another object connected with Pope St. Gregory the Great earlier this year:

On Friday, January 15, 2016, the St Augustine Gospels- a 6th century gospel book that is reputed to have been sent with St Augustine on his mission from Pope Gregory the Great to convert the English people- was brought from Cambridge to Canterbury Cathedral for the day to serve as inspiration to the assembled Primates at an extraordinary meeting of the Anglican leadership. The goal was for the manuscript to serve as a physical reminder of the core principles of the church; based on long tradition, the words of the Gospels themselves, and the faith that unites all believers.

The visit was in conjunction with the loan of an ivory crozier which is venerated as a relic of Augustine’s mentor, St (formerly Pope) Gregory, from the monastery of San Gregorio al Celio in Rome. These two items were displayed together in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral during the closing service of the meeting. Following the ceremony, Parker Library staff gave informative talks on the manuscript in the Cathedral library, which were attended by Cathedral staff and visitors. This was an extremely rare opportunity to see the 1,400 year old manuscript out from under glass, as it is typically only available to view in its case in the Parker Library exhibition on one day a month.

Note the parenthetical "(formerly Pope)"--Popes who are also canonized saints in the Catholic Church are referred to as "Pope Saint Insert Name Here": Pope St. Gregory the Great; Pope St. Pius V; Pope St. John Paul II. It's interesting that they are not referred to by their given names: Not Saint Gregorius Anicius; Saint Antonio Ghislieri or Saint Karol Józef Wojtyła. Their name as pope is like their name in religion; religious nuns and priests who are canonized are known by their religious names: St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, not St. Edith Stein; St. Therese of Lisieux, not St. Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin, etc. You might note that the Church of England includes Pope St. Gregory the Great on their calendar of "saints" on September 3, but he is referred to as "Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, Teacher of the Faith".

But back to the St. Augustine Gospels: they have had a special role in two papal visits, most recently in 2010:

The St Augustine Gospels—sometimes known as the Canterbury Gospels—are a sixth-century Gospel book of Italian provenance which may have been brought from Rome by St Augustine in 597 on his first mission to re-evangelize Britain. It is the oldest illustrated Latin Gospel book in existence, and has been in England longer than any other book. As a symbol of religion, history, and literacy it is one of the most evocative books in Christendom and upon it the Archbishops of Canterbury still take their oaths of office. 

During the papal visit of 1982 these Gospels were given the place of honour at the ecumenical celebration in Canterbury Cathedral – enthroned on the chair of St Augustine, the cathedra or teaching seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, between Archbishop Robert Runcie and Pope John Paul II. Today they are to be venerated by Archbishop Rowan Williams and Pope Benedict XVI following the reading of a passage from the Gospel according to St Mark.

Pardon my historical irony: the Archbishops of Canterbury take their oath of office on a book sent to England by the Pontiff of the Catholic Church, who has been proclaimed a saint of the Catholic Church as Pope St. Gregory the Great? It seems to me that the St. Augustine Gospels suggest the strong connections between the universal Catholic Church and the Catholic Church in England, not the independence that Matthew Parker wanted to prove!

Illustration: Wikipedia Commons, public domain: Folio 125r of the St. Augustine Gospels (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 286), Scenes from the Passion.

Pope St. Gregory Leading the Angels Again

As the 37 primates of the Anglican Communion gather in Canterbury, a very symbolic emblem of papal authority will be on display at the Cathedral, per this Anglican Communion News Service story:

The crozier of the sixth century Pope who sent Augustine to England to begin the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons will be in Canterbury as the Primates of the Anglican Communion gather for their meeting in the city next week.

The ancient carved ivory headed crozier will be on public display at Canterbury Cathedral during the weekends before and after the Primates Meeting after being loaned to the Cathedral by the Roman Catholic monks of San Gregorio al Celio in Rome. Saint Augustine had been prior of the monastery, which had been built by Pope Gregory I before his elevation to the Papacy. Augustine lead a seven-year mission to England and is recognised as the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

“We are very pleased to receive the crozier as a symbol of ecumenical encouragement at this time of the meeting of Anglican Primates and as a link with St Gregory whose vision of the conversion of England caused Augustine to found the community at Canterbury,” the Dean of Canterbury, the Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, said.

Commenting on the loan, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said: “Allow me at this point to congratulate you on the highly symbolic value of the loan of this relic, dear to the Church of England, which venerates Pope St Gregory the Great, the promoter of the evangelising mission to the Anglo-Saxon people and is therefore a mark of the bond that spiritually unites the Catholic and Anglican Churches.”

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, commented on the importance of Pope St. Gregory the Great to Christianity in England when Pope Benedict XVI and he prayed Evening Prayer together in Westminster Abbey (September 17, 2010):

Christians in Britain, especially in England, look back with the most fervent gratitude to the events of 597, when Augustine landed on these shores to preach the gospel to the Anglo-Saxons at the behest of Pope St Gregory the Great. For Christians of all traditions and confessions, St Gregory is a figure of compelling attractiveness and spiritual authority – pastor and leader, scholar and exegete and spiritual guide. The fact that the first preaching of the Gospel to the English peoples in the sixth and seventh centuries has its origins in his vision creates a special connection for us with the See of the Apostles Peter and Paul; and Gregory’s witness and legacy remain an immensely fruitful source of inspiration for our own mission in these dramatically different times. Two dimensions of that vision may be of special importance as we reflect today on the significance of Your Holiness’s visit to us.

St Gregory was the first to spell out for the faithful something of the magnitude of the gift given to Christ’s Church through the life of St Benedict – to whom you, Your Holiness, have signalled your devotion in the choice of your name as Pope. In St Gregory’s Dialogues, we can trace the impact of St Benedict – an extraordinary man who, through a relatively brief Rule of life, opened up for the whole civilisation of Europe since the sixth century the possibility of living in joy and mutual service, in simplicity and self-denial, in a balanced pattern of labour and prayer in which every moment spoke of human dignity fully realised in surrender to a loving God. The Benedictine life proved a sure foundation not only for generations of monks and nuns, but for an entire culture in which productive work and contemplative silence and receptivity—human dignity and human freedom—were both honoured.

So yesterday I posted the story about Vespers according to the Catholic Liturgy of Hours being celebrated in the Hampton Court Palace Chapel, today about the papal crozier being sent from Rome to Canterbury during the crucial meeting of the Anglican Communion. Archbishop Welby is hoping to avoid further division in the Anglican Communion over the issues of so-called "gay" marriage and women priests and bishops. In his message to the primates, Welby noted:

“We have no Anglican Pope. Our authority as a church is dispersed, and is ultimately found in Scripture, properly interpreted. In that light I long for us to meet together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and to seek to find a way of enabling ourselves to set a course which permits us to focus on serving and loving each other, and above all on the proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ."
"We have no Anglican Pope": perhaps that's the problem!

And this Religious News Service story mentions an even more important relic coming to England while the primates meet, which should remind them again of Catholic unity:

In December, a much more eye-catching “holy” (sic) relic will be flown in from Rome – the bloodied vestment worn by St. Thomas Becket when he was beheaded at the high altar of Canterbury Cathedral by four armed knights loyal to King Henry II, after a quarrel between the king and his archbishop.

(Why would a media organization with the title Religious News Service put scare quotes around the word holy?)

Pope St. Gregory the Great; St. Augustine of Canterbury; St. Thomas a Becket: the way to unity is certainly symbolized through the relics on display at Canterbury! May the unity of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church with the Vicar of Christ lead the Church of England home to Rome through the Anglican Ordinariate! Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Pope St. Gregory the Great

From EWTN's library:

One day, the story goes, Gregory was walking through the Roman slave market when he noticed three fair, golden-haired boys. He asked their nationality and was told that they were Angles. "They are well named," said Gregory, "for they have angelic faces." He asked where they came from, and when told "De Ire," he exclaimed, "De ira (from wrath)—yes, verily, they shall be saved from God's wrath and called to the mercy of Christ. What is the name of the king of that country?" "Aella." "Then must Alleluia be sung in Aella's land." Some modern historians have viewed the tale skeptically, claiming that the serious-minded Gregory would not have descended to punning. However, it seems unlikely that anyone would have taken the trouble to invent this delightful anecdote. Gregory was so touched by the boys' beauty, and by pity for their ignorance, that he resolved to go himself to preach the Gospel in their land. To this end, he obtained the consent of the Pope, and journeyed northwards with several monks. When the Roman people heard of this, they raised such an outcry at the loss of their favorite cleric that Pope Pelagius sent envoys to bring the party back. Later, when Gregory became pope, the evangelization of Britain became one of his most cherished projects. . . .

Of all his work, that which lay nearest his heart was the conversion of England. It is probable that the first move towards the sending of a Roman mission to England was made by Englishmen themselves. News reached Gregory that they had appealed to the bishops of Gaul for preachers, and their appeals had been ignored. In 596 he began to make far-reaching plans. His first act was to order the purchase of some English slaves, boys of seventeen or eighteen, who might be educated in a monastery in Italy for service in their own land. Since he wished the work of conversion to proceed forthwith, from his own monastery of St. Andrew he chose a band of forty monks to proceed to England under the leadership of their prior, the saintly Augustine. 

And don't forget:

Blessed Christopher Bales was born in Durham, England, and educated in Rome, Italy and Rheims, France. He was ordained in Douai, France in 1587. He returned to England in 1588 to minister to covert Catholics and used the name Christopher Evers. He was arrested and martyred (hanged, drawn, and quartered) on March 4, 1590 on Fleet Street in London for the crime of being a priest. He was beatified on December 15, 1929 by Pope Pius XI.

When he was tried under the Elizabeth statute making it an act of treason for a Catholic priest to be present in England, he asked the judge, "This only do I want to know, whether Saint Augustine [of Canterbury] sent here by [Pope] St. Gregory [the Great] was a traitor or not."

The answer: No.

His follow-up question: "Why then do you condemn me to death as a traitor? I am sent hither by the same see: and for the same purpose as he was. Nothing is charged against me that could not be charged against the saint."

They condemned him to death anyway. Blessed Christopher Bales spoke to the crowd on Fleet Street, proclaiming that his only treason--the government placed a placard on the gibbet proclaiming him a traitor in favor of invasion--was his priesthood. Blessed Nicholas Horner and Blessed Alexander Blake, two laymen, were executed on the same day at different locations because they had assisted the condemned priest in some way.

Pope St. Gregory the Great, pray for us. 

St. Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us. 

Blessed Christopher Bales, pray for us. 

Blessed Nicholas Horner, pray for us. 

Blessed Alexander Blake, pray for us.

Tomorrow's Feast of Pope St. Gregory the Great

How appropriate that a church in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter in the USA would be named for Pope St. Gregory the Great who sent St. Augustine of Canterbury to England! This church, in Stoneham, Massachusetts, is celebrating their third anniversary tomorrow with a Solemn High Mass in the Ordinariate, AKA Anglican Use. Continuing the appropriateness of this festivity, they have selected Palestrina's Missa Tu Es Petrus as the music for the Mass, and will also include William Byrd's setting of Tu Es Petrus.

Matthew 16:18-19:

Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram
Aedificabo Ecclesiam meam,
Et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam:
Et tibi dabo claves
Regni coelorum.
Quodcumque ligaveris super terram,
Erit ligatum et in coelis;
Et quodcumque solveris super terram
Erit solutum et in coelis.

Happy Anniversary!

St. Augustine of Canterbury

Today is the memorial of St. Augustine of Canterbury. CNA has this profile, emphasizing his role as Pope St. Gregory the Great's chosen leader of the re-evangelization of England:

Around 595, five years into his 14-year pontificate, Pope Gregory set to work on a plan for the conversion of the English people. The Catholic faith had already been preached and accepted among England's original Celtic inhabitants, in earlier times; but from the mid-fifth century onward, the country was dominated by Anglo-Saxon invaders who did not accept Christianity, and were not converted by the small number of isolated Celtic Christian holdouts. Thus, England largely had to be evangelized anew.

For this task the Pope chose a group of around forty monks – including Augustine, who was to represent the delegation and communicate on its behalf. Though he was not explicitly chosen as its leader at that time, that was the role he ended up taking on with Gregory’s support. The group left for England in June 596, but some of the missionaries lost their nerve after hearing fearsome reports about the Anglo-Saxons. Augustine ended up returning to Rome, where he got further advice and support from the Pope.

Persuaded to continue on their way, the missionary-monks reached their port of departure and set sail for England in spring of 597. After arriving they gained an audience with King Ethelbert of Kent, a pagan ruler whose Frankish wife Queen Bertha was a Christian. Speaking with the king through an interpreter, Augustine gave a powerful and straightforward presentation of the Gospel message, speaking of Christ’s redemption of the world and his offer of eternal life.

According to the entry for St. Augustine of Canterbury in the Alba House book Saints of the Roman Calendar, although there was a cult for St. Augustine in England since 747 A.D., he was not listed on the Roman Calendar until 1882. He died on May 26, but since St. Philip Neri already "had" that date, his feast was moved to May 27. St. Gregory the Great and St. Augustine of Canterbury are often honored together, as at Westminster Cathedral, and the latter's feast was added to the Roman Calendar in response to the re-establishment of the hierarchy in England in 1850.

Since St. Augustine of Canterbury's abbey was suppressed by Henry VIII, his Catholic shrine in England is St. Augustine's in Ramsgate, designed and built by the great A.W. N. Pugin in the 19th century and named the saint's shrine in 2012. The church is celebrating a St. Augustine Week right now, with various events. 

God, Our Father,
by the preaching of Saint Augustine of Canterbury,
you led the people of England to the Gospel.
May the fruits of his work continue in your Church.
Grant that through his intercession,
the hearts of those who err may return to the unity of your truth
and that we may be of one mind in doing your will.

Through your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, 

in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Indisputable Logic of Blessed Christopher Bales

Blessed Christopher Bales, priest and martyr, and companions (laymen who assisted him) Blessed Alexander Blake, and Blessed Nicholas Horner, were all executed on March 4, 1590 at three different sites in London. More about their stories here. They were beatified on December 15 in 1929 by Pope Pius XI.

 

What I want to highlight today is Father Bales' great question to the presiding judge at his trial, which presents an excellent historical argument against the idea that these martyrs were traitors because they had studied for the Catholic priesthood on the Continent and returned to serve the oppressed Catholics of England--even if Elizabeth's Parliament had technically made it so. It was an unjust law. 

Philip Caraman, SJ, includes Blessed Christopher Bales' question to Judge Anderson in his collection of primary sources, The Other Face: Catholic Life Under Elizabeth I:

 

He was asked by the judge according to custom . . . when judgment was about to be pronounced, if he had anything to say for himself. He answered, "This only to I want to know, whether St. Augustine sent hither by St. Gregory was a traitor or not." They answered that he was not . . . He answered them, "Why then do you condemn me to death as a traitor? I am sent hither by the same see: and for the same purpose as he was. Nothing is charged against me that could not also be charged against the saint." But for all that they condemned him. (Greene, Collections); page 230.

Judge Anderson replied that no, St. Augustine of Canterbury was not a traitor in the 5th and 6th centuries but that the law had changed in the 16th century. So the universal Catholic Church had indeed remained the same--just as Blessed John Henry Newman found during the Long Vacation of 1839, as he was studying the history of the Monophysite heresy. As he searched ancient Church history to establish the apostolic foundation of the Anglican Via Media, he found something disturbing:

My stronghold was Antiquity; now here, in the middle of the fifth century, I found, as it seemed to me, Christendom of the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries reflected. I saw my face in that mirror, and I was a Monophysite. The Church of the Via Media was in the position of the Oriental communion, Rome was where she now is; and the Protestants were the Eutychians. (from the Apologia pro Vita Sua, chapter 3)

So Rome (the Catholic Church) "was where she now is" in the fifth and sixth centuries--both in Kent and in Egypt (where the Monophysites dissented from the Council of Chalcedon)--and in the sixteenth century, when Blessed Christopher Bales continued St. Augustine of Canterbury's work as a missionary in England, sent by Pope Urban VII. If Judge Anderson had looked closely enough, he would have seen himself in that same mirror.

Pope St. Gregory the Great and Recusant England, 1590

Blessed Christopher Bales was born in Durham, England, and educated in Rome, Italy and Rheims, France. He was ordained in Douai, France in 1587. He returned to England in 1588 to minister to covert Catholics and used the name Christopher Evers. He was arrested and martyred (hanged, drawn, and quartered) on March 4, 1590 on Fleet Street in London for the crime of being a priest. He was beatified on December 15, 1929 by Pope Pius XI.

When he was tried under the Elizabeth statute making it an act of treason for a Catholic priest to be present in England, he asked the judge, "This only do I want to know, whether Saint Augustine [of Canterbury] sent here by [Pope] St. Gregory [the Great] was a traitor or not."

The answer: No.

His follow-up question: "Why then do you condemn me to death as a traitor? I am sent hither by the same see: and for the same purpose as he was. Nothing is charged against me that could not be charged against the saint."

They condemned him to death anyway. Blessed Christopher Bales spoke to the crowd on Fleet Street, proclaiming that his only treason--the government placed a placard on the gibbet proclaiming him a traitor in favor of invasion--was his priesthood. Blessed Nicholas Horner and Blessed Alexander Blake, two laymen, were executed on the same day at different locations because they had assisted the condemned priest in some way.

Pope St. Gregory the Great, pray for us. St. Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us. Blessed Christopher Bales, pray for us. Blessed Nicholas Horner, pray for us. Blessed Alexander Blake, pray for us.