Augustine of Canterbury

One of our patronal solemnities in the parish. Please pray for one of our primary schools, under his holy protection, for our staff and students and all those who contribute to the welfare of our children. St Augustine of Canterbury, Pray for Us.

Also known as St. Augustine the Less to distinguish him from his illustrious namesake from Hippo. Augustine was chosen by Pope Gregory the Great as leader of the mission sent from Rome for the evangelisation of the English. He landed in the Isle of Thanet in the Spring of AD 597 and, within a year, Aethelbert, King of Kent, was baptised with several thousand of his subjects.

The foundation of Canterbury Cathedral was laid five years later, supposedly, on the site of an old Roman Church. Augustine was consecrated by Vergilius, Archbishop of Arles and became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

The alienation between the British Church and the Italian missionaries might have been averted had Augustine recognised the consideration that was due to the Church which had existed in Britain for three centuries, and had been more tolerant of the diversity between British and Roman usage.

He had laid the foundation stone of the Monastery of St. Peter & St. Paul outside Canterbury, later known as St. Augustine's, in the year of his arrival and here he was buried. He died on 26th May, traditionally in AD 604, but possibly as late as 609.

Edited from G.M. Bevan's "Portraits of the Archbishops of Canterbury" (1908).

H/T Early British Kingdoms

St George

Happy Feast to one and all, but not least our good friends in Worcester.

It's good to be back...

Patron Saint of the Internet

As I am sure you already know, John Paul II, nominates St Isidore of Seville as patron of computer users and the Internet. This, I thought, is common knowledge. Not until someone recently suggested the Vatican appoint a patron did I bother to find out why he is the best for the job.

It seems his system of writing is closely matched to the way the Internet works. Particularly funny, I thought, was what Peter Jones had to say, writing in The Telegraph, about Isidore's works.

Derivations apart, it was lifted from sources almost entirely at second or third hand (the Romans had been writing encyclopedias since the 2nd century BC), none of it
checked, and much of it unconditional eyewash - the Internet, in other words, to a T.

St Charles Borromeo parish, in Picayune MS, tells us that it was through a commission from the Pontifical Council for Social Communications that Isidore was eventually identified the best man for the job!

St Isidore, pray for us.