Saint of the Day

01 · Read · A life to discover

St. Augustine of Canterbury

Augustine was a monk and prior of Saint Andrew’s monastery in Rome when Pope Gregory the Great chose him to lead a mission to the English. His companions entered a kingdom where Queen Bertha already practiced Christianity, and King Æthelberht permitted their work from Canterbury.

The mission was a communal undertaking: Gregory selected a group of monks, with Augustine as its leader. Their task involved gaining permission to preach, learning how to work in an unfamiliar society, and providing the institutional support that converts would need.

Canterbury became the center from which this work developed. Augustine’s exchanges with Gregory show that practical questions accompanied evangelization, rather than appearing only after a church had been established. Existing British Christians and the newly developing Anglo-Saxon mission belonged to a more complex landscape than a simple story of first arrival.

As the first archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine helped establish the structures of the English Church and remained in correspondence with Gregory. Christianity had existed in Britain before this mission, so he should not be described as bringing the faith to an entirely unchristian island. His work belongs especially to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. He is distinct from Augustine of Hippo.

This saint is included on this recurring date in the U.S. Roman Rite calendar published by the USCCB. This reading guide gives U.S. calendar saints priority; the Mass celebrated on a particular year’s date can differ because of Sundays, seasons or higher-ranking celebrations.