You're listening to the SSPX Podcast. We're happy to present another installment of true heroes.

Stories of the Lives of the Saints, delivered by Father Thomas Tam. Father is also put together a video of each of these episodes. You can see the video at SSPX Podcast.com. Now here's Father Tam.

The church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life's different stresses.

Our duty is not to abandon ship, but to keep her on her course.

Hello, my friends, and welcome to true heroes.

Today we're going to look at the life of St. Boniface, who was a Benedictine monk and later known as the Apostle of Germany.

Let us begin his story.

St. Boniface was born at Crediton in Devonshire, England in the year 680.

Some missionaries staying at his father's house spoke to him of heavenly

things and inspired him with a wish to devote himself as they did to God. He entered

the monastery of Exminster and was there trained for his apostolic work. His first attempt to convert the pagans in Holland, having failed,

he went to Rome to obtain the Pope's blessing on his mission and returned with authority to preach

to the German tribes. He began with Bavaria and Thuringia. Next visited Friesriesland then passed on to Hesse and Saxony

everywhere destroying the idol temples and raising churches on their site.

He endeavored as far as possible to make every object of idolatry contribute in some way to the glory of God.

On one occasion, having cut down an immense oak which was consecrated to Jupiter, he used

the tree in building a church, which he dedicated to the Prince of the Apostles.

Two characteristics stand out with this saint, his Christian orth Orthodoxy and his fidelity to the Pope of Rome.

How absolutely necessary this orthodoxy and fidelity were is borne out by the conditions Boniface found on his first missionary journey in 719 at the request of Pope Gregory II.

Paganism was a way of life. What Christianity he did find had either lapsed into paganism or was

mixed with error. The clergy were mainly responsible for these latter conditions, since they were in

many instances uneducated,

...