Attend to Circumstance: The Feast of St. Augustine of England (May 26, 2023)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.

The story of Christianity in England, of which we are the great inheritors, runs through St. Augustine of Canterbury.

The Church in England was in a state of disrepair.

Converted a pagan king. Baptized countless people. Performed miracles.

Brought English Christianity in step with the rest of the Church and began the Great Tradition that we have received.

But why was he sent to England?

Pope Gregory the Great was walking in the market one day when he noticed some enslaved men being sold. Their fair hair caught his attention so he asked where they were from. They replied that they were Angles to which Gregory said they were not Angles but Anglos.

This made him resolve to send missionaries to England.

To lead this “Gregorian mission,” he chose Augustine, a monk.

The point is the circumstances seem almost accidental:

If the church in England had failed...

If those slaves hadn’t been in the marketplace...

If Gregory the Great had not noticed them...

If Gregory had not chosen Anselm...

If any of these variables had changed, who knows what the story would have been like?

It is a reminder for us:

We like to be in control.

We might want things to be different.

But we don’t have different circumstances. We have the circumstances in which we find ourselves right now. And so the question is what does faithfulness look like for us here?

Just as Pope Gregory the Great observed what God was doing in his circumstances, and St. Augustine worked in his circumstances to preach the Gospel, so we too must attend to the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.