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English Correspondence
St Boniface, tr. Kylie, 1911
Letter 28: Boniface Asks Eadburga, Abbess of Thanet, to Pray for Him and for the Heathen.…
To his sister, Abbess Eadburga, to be united with him by a golden bond of spiritual love and by the pure and holy kiss of charity, Boniface, bishop, legate of the Roman Church, greetings in Christ.
We beseech your loving clemency with heartfelt prayers, deign to intercede for us with the Author of all. That you may not be ignorant of the cause of this prayer, know that because of our sins the course of our mission is threatened by many storms. Everywhere toil, everywhere sorrow. “Without, fightings, within, fears.”1 And most serious of all, the snares of false brethren surpass the malice of the heathen. Wherefore, entreat the sacred defender of my life, the one safe refuge of those in trouble, “the lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world,”2 with His protecting hand to keep me unharmed, as I pass through the lairs of such wolves; that where there should be found the fair feet of those who carry the lamp of the gospel of peace, there may not be discovered the footsteps of apostates who wander in darkness; but rather that the Father Most Holy, when our loins are girt up, may put burning lights in our hands and illumine the hearts of the Gentiles to behold the gospel of Christ’s glory.
Meantime I pray you of your goodness to intercede for those heathen who have been entrusted to us by the Apostolic See; that the Saviour of the world may snatch them from the worship of idols and unite them with the sons of their true mother, the Catholic Church, to the praise and glory of His name “Who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”3
Farewell.
Notes
- 2 Cor. vii. 5
- John i. 29.
- 1 Tim. ii. 4.