Saint Boniface

His name was Wynfrith and he was born in Wessex, in England, around 675. He took the name Boniface in Rome, and under that name he spent forty years in Germany. From 716 he was a missionary in Frisia; then Charles Martel gave him the task of evangelizing Hesse and Thuringia. In 722 Pope Gregory II made him a bishop and papal legate; in 732 Gregory III named him archbishop without a fixed see, with the power to consecrate bishops for the new dioceses. He founded quite a few, and he founded monasteries — among them Fulda, which would become one of the great centers of learning in Europe. The episode he is best remembered for is the felling of Thor’s oak at Geismar. It was the sacred tree of the local pagans; Boniface took an ax and began chopping it down in front of everyone, waiting for the god to strike him with lightning. Nothing happened, and with the wood of that oak he had a chapel built. It is also said that a fir tree grew beside it, and that he pointed to it as a new sign: some trace the Christmas tree back to that moment. In 754, very old, he went back to Frisia, where he had started. At Dokkum a band of armed men attacked his camp. His companions wanted to defend themselves; he stopped them. Fifty-two of them died. He is called the apostle of Germany. If your name is Boniface, today is your name day.