Today we celebrate the memorial of St. Augustine of Canterbury.
St. Augustine was a monk living in Rome at the time, well, the late 6th century,
the time when St. Gregory the Great was Pope.
And St. Gregory decided it was time for the evangelization of England.
And so he chose 30 monks with St. Augustine as the one in charge
to go to England and begin the work of evangelization.
And they arrived there in the year 596.
And it took about a year's time before the king, King Ethelbert, was converted and baptized.
And he would later on, of course, be canonized and is now known as St. Ethelbert.
And shortly thereafter, the rest of the country then followed suit.
Also accepting the Christian faith.
And so from that time, there's been a rich history of Catholicism in England.
And England would eventually come to be known as Our Lady's Dowry.
That's how Catholic it was.
And this lasted, as we know, up until the 16th century with the coming of King Henry VIII.
And while we celebrate King Ethelbert's,
canonization, we instead sadly recall King Henry's excommunication,
bringing himself and all of England into schism outside of the one true fold,
outside of which there is no salvation.
For this reason, the prayers of the mass implore through the intercession of St. Augustine of Canterbury,
the return of the Church of England to the United States,
to the unity of truth, to the one true fold of Christ, and to salvation.
We read in the Collect,
O God, who by the preaching and miracles of blessed Augustine,
it's another thing, St. Augustine was known for the many miracles that he worked.
And in fact, in a letter, Pope St. Gregory the Great wrote to him to be careful that he not fall into vain glory.
That's how, how many miracles he was working.
O God, who by the preaching and miracles of blessed Augustine, thy confessor and bishop,
didst vouchsafe to shed upon the English people the light of the true faith,
grant that, through his intercession, the hearts of the straying may return to the unity of thy truth,
and that we may do thy will with one accord.
Again, the unity of truth,
and that we may do the will of God in one accord.
There's this call for England to come back to union.
In fact, once a person or a church separates themselves from Rome,
they separate themselves from the unity of truth,
and they will eventually spiral off into error.
And instead of being united in the truth,
they find themselves in a sea,
a sea of opinions,
a vast sea of opinion.
Then we read in the secret of the Mass,
the prayer that comes just before the Eucharistic sacrifice.
We read about the lost sheep in the food of salvation.
The prayer says,
We offer thee this sacrifice, O Lord,
on the solemn feast of blessed Augustine,
thy bishop and confessor,
humbly entreating that the sheep which are lost
may return to the one fold
and be nourished by this food of salvation.
So again, it mentions lost sheep and the food of salvation.
And the Church of England, after going to schism,
would eventually change the rite of ordination.
And for this reason, they adopted an invalid form.
Pope Lear XIII,
would eventually declare that
the Church of England no longer has apostolic succession
because of that invalid form of ordination.
So then they would have no true priests
and therefore no true presence,
no true Eucharist.
And therefore no longer have the food of salvation,
as the prayer mentions.
And as we know,
today things have gotten even worse.
Not only do they have invalid form
for the rite of ordination,
but they also have invalid matter
after admitting women into the rite of ordination.
The proper matter for that sacrament is a baptized man.
So again, the spiral away from truth,
falling ever further and further away from the unity of truth.
And so today we pray for the conversion of the Church of England,
the return to unity in the Catholic Church,
outside of which there is no salvation.
As Vatican II affirms in the document Lumen Gentium, paragraph 14,
they cannot be saved who,
knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ,
would refuse either to enter it,
or remain in it.
St. Augustine of Canterbury pray for us.
In the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Ah,
have mercy
our poor soul!
Help us tostones
And Jesus, blessed, the fruit of your womb.