The Daily Pilgrimage

Good Morning, Pilgrim

Receive this day from God.

The Corpus Christi octave keeps the true Eucharistic sacrifice before the Church, while St. Boniface shows the missionary consequence of true worship. Charity does not leave idols standing: it names and removes what holds souls from God, then calls them to the altar where Christ is truly adored.

Invoke the Holy Ghost and renew your consecration to Jesus through Mary with a firm purpose to cooperate with grace all day.

Formation in True Devotion - Day 186: Review and Deepening: Mary's Spiritual Reign and Necessity in God's Order

“When the Holy Ghost, her Spouse, has found Mary in a soul, He flies there. He enters there in His fulness; He communicates Himself to that soul abundantly, and to the full extent to which she makes room for her Spouse.”
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 36

Ora — Begin with Prayer

Offer the day before spending it

Prayer gives the day its right beginning and its right end. Before work, conversation, news, or distraction claims the mind, adore the Blessed Trinity and offer every prayer, work, joy, suffering, and temptation to Jesus through Mary. Ask your Guardian Angel for help, and place the souls and needs entrusted to you beneath God's will.

Begin simply. Make the Morning Offering through the hands of Our Lady. Pray the Three Hail Marys for purity and final perseverance, ask your Guardian Angel to govern the senses and imagination, and name the soul or intention for which today's prayers and sacrifices will be offered. Do not rush these acts merely because they are familiar; let them place the whole day beneath God before the world begins to claim it.

O Lord Jesus Christ, keep me faithful to Thy true worship. Through St. Boniface, give me courage to reject idols without hatred of persons and to labor for their conversion.

Quote of the Day

“The Church is the pillar and foundation of truth, all of which truth is taught by the Holy Ghost.”
Pope Gregory XVI, Quo Graviora, n. 10

Today's Full Breviary Sermon or Proper Lesson

The missionary who cut idolatry down at the root.

Matins - Second Nocturn - St. Boniface, Bishop, Confessor, and Apostle of Germany

The verified Breviary witness for this observance is identified below. A complete English transcription has not yet been admitted, so no excerpt or summary is presented as though it were the full appointed text.

Roman Breviary, Proper lessons for St. Boniface

“He thoroughly purged Hesse and Thuringia from all remains of idolatry.”

• The Breviary presents St. Boniface as an English monk whose zeal for souls drove him from cloistered security to the conversion of Germany.
• He sought an apostolic commission from Rome, preached where his first labor seemed fruitless, reclaimed thousands from devil-worship, founded bishoprics, and held synods for the spread of the faith.
• The Third Nocturn joins his apostolate to St. Augustine's teaching on purity of heart, ordered peace, obedience to truth, and the casting out of the prince of disorder.

Mission is not friendliness with idols. St. Boniface teaches that souls are won by prayer, Roman mission, hard labor, doctrinal courage, and the destruction of false worship.

Walk with the Church

The Church has already begun praying. Enter her prayer.

Today the Roman year keeps St. Boniface, Bishop, Confessor, and Apostle of Germany. Receive the observance as the Church gives it: first understand what is commemorated, then let its doctrine and worship shape the day.

Roman Martyrology

June 5

. BONIFACE, bishop of Mayence, who came from England to Rome, and was sent by Gregory II. to Germany to preach the faith of Christ to the people of that country. Having converted large multitudes to the Christian religion, especially in Friesland, he merited the title of Apostle of the Germans. Being finally put to the sword by the furious Gentiles, he consummated his martyrdom with Eobanus and some other servants of God. — In Egypt, the birthday of the holy martyrs Marcian, Nicanor, Apollonius, and others, who suffered a glorious martyrdom in the persecution of Galerius Maximian. — At Perugia, the holy martyrs Florentius, Julian, Cyriacus, Marcellinus, and Faustinus, who were beheaded in the persecution of Decius. — At Caesarea, in Palestine, the martyrdom of the Saints Zenaides, Cyria, Valeria, and Marcia, who through many torments attained to martyrdom rejoicing. — At Tyre, St. Dorotheus, a priest, who suffered much under Diocletian, but survived until the reign of Julian, under whom his venerable age was crowned with martyrdom, he being then one hundred and seven years old. — At Cordova, in Spain, blessed Sancius, a youth, who, though brought up in the royal court, did not hesitate to undergo martyrdom for the faith of Christ, during the persecution of the Arabs.

Learn from Today's Saint or Feast

St. Boniface

Apostle of Germany and destroyer of false worship.

St. Boniface left the security of monastic life to preach Christ among peoples still bound to pagan worship and false sacred customs.

He did not treat idols as harmless cultural signs. His missionary charity was clear enough to cut down what held souls in bondage.

Ask St. Boniface for courage that serves souls. The axe is not hatred when it falls on the idol that keeps men from Christ.