Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

One day in Rome, around 596 CE, Pope Gregory the Great went for a walk around the marketplace with several of his colleagues. While the capital of the empire had long moved to Constantinople the markets of the Papal City continued to be a center for international trade with goods from across the world gathered for purchase, and amidst the goods for sale were human lives. Some of those lives caught the pope’s attention… a group of fair-haired teenage boys. He inquired “Where are those youth from?” and his colleagues responded, “they are Angles” to which the Pope replied, “Those are not Angles but Angels.” This story, as told by the Venerable Bede, is what prompted the pope to send missionaries to the Angels in what had been Roman Britannia.

The Venerable Bede, whose feast we celebrate today, was writing about a century after Augustine arrived at Canterbury and began missionary work to the Angelic Angels on behalf of Pope Gregory the Great. The caveat was that there were already Christians in the British Isles in 596 CE, the Monks of Iona being one marked example. What Bede took up, in as historical way as he could, is the weaving together of stories to create a shared sense of being Christian in the British Isles. The result is his most famous work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Like many attempts to tell a history of Christianity in the British Isles the work seeks to tell us who we are, as people caught up in this heritage of Angles’ Christianity, as much as where we have come from.

Bede does not set out to make us appear as Angels, just to help us understand our own story amidst a greater story of Christianity and the work the church takes up in service to the Risen Christ. As we enjoy the unique aspects of our tradition, even as we invite friends and colleagues to experience how we as Episcopalians amidst the Anglican Communion do church, it is important for us to remember that we are not Angelic Christians but Anglic Christians. We have a story, a heritage, a tradition to be glad about but we are one small part in a greater story of God’s Love working in the world.

Pax,

—Ben