Fr Matthew Reese

“He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, ‘Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.’ So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”
Mark 6:7-13

Dear Friends,

I include the full measure of today’s Gospel because it is worth remembering what a difficult task the work of evangelism is. Our Lord hardly paints a rosy picture: take nothing with you except the clothes on your back and a staff. Know that you will be reviled and turned away—so brush the dust from your feet and carry on. The call of the evangelist remains the same: proclaim the Gospel, cast out demons, heal the sick. 

This passage is appointed for our noonday mass today because this is the feast of Anskar, bishop and missionary of Sweden, who died this day in the year 865.

Anskar may have had more mud and ice and snow in his treads than dust, given the clime. But his work was no less difficult. He preached the Gospel to Scandinavia in a time in which paganism and Arianism still loomed from the fringes. Viking marauders destroyed his abbeys and churches along the coast, just as they did in much of the British Isles. 

Among the Christian princes whom he encountered, there was much political intrigue and theological debate. One of the major accomplishments of Anskar was to help end the slave trade around the Baltic, and particularly to found hospitals and hostels.

Preaching. Exhorting. Healing.

Anskar’s faithful witness lived on in the Swedish and Danish Churches long after the Reformation. The Church of Sweden—our Scandinavian analogue—maintained much of the catholicity of doctrine and worship, and we in the Anglican churches are in full communion with them today.

Anskar’s trials and tribulations are lost to history, but what remains are the fruits of his labors in service to the Gospel.

Anskar, pray for us.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Matthew