Augustine 			May 26
First Archbishop of Canterbury, Missionary
There were Christians in Britain when it was part of the Roman Empire, and this laid the foundations for an English church. Plagued by both external pressures and internal dissension, the Roman Empire effectively lost control of Britain by the end of the fourth century. The Saxon invasions of the fifth century submerged the earlier Celtic culture. The Celtic church was more and more confined to the west of Britain. They found missionary work among the invading Saxons extremely difficult and they became increasingly isolated. It is Augustine therefore who is known as “the apostle of the English” for his missionary work among the Anglo-Saxons. He became the first archbishop of Canterbury in 597.
It was Pope Gregory the Great who conceived the idea of a mission to the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, having seen, according to Bede, some fair-skinned slave boys in the market-place, and on discovering that they were Angles remarked on their angelic faces. In 596 Gregory sent a team of monks from his own monastery in Rome under the leadership of their abbot, Augustine. They nearly turned back, daunted by the prospect of living in what must have appeared a barbarous and dangerous outpost. However, they eventually landed in Britain in 597. Kent provided the obvious place to establish the mission as it was the part of Britain most influenced by the continent of Europe. The local king, Ethelbert, whose wife Bertha was a Christian, tolerated their mission and allowed them to establish themselves at Canterbury, using the old Roman Church of St Martin. The historian Bede notes: 
Here they first assembled to sing the psalms, to pray, to say Mass, to preach, and to baptise, until the king’s own conversion to the Faith gave them greater freedom to preach and to build and restore churches everywhere. 
Ethelbert accepted Christianity and was baptised, as were a great many of his subjects. Augustine could now go to Arles, where he was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury. So successful had Augustine been that in 598 he sent to Rome for more monks. 
Augustine continued to seek the advice of Gregory on even quite small matters. It was Gregory who gave him the following famous counsel over the variety of religious practices in England: 
If you have found customs, whether in the Church of Rome or of Gaul or any other that may be more acceptable to God, I wish you to make careful selection of them, and teach the Church of the English, which is still young in the Faith, whatever you have been able to learn with profit from the various Churches. For things should not be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things.
Gregory empowered Augustine to appoint another archbishop in York and to ordain a dozen bishops in southern Britain. Augustine did not carry this through. Gregory also appointed Augustine archbishop of all the bishops in Britain, meaning the successors of Celtic bishops from Roman times. Augustine made efforts to contact these bishops and establish his primatial authority over them, but understandably, as he represented the newer Anglo-Saxon culture, they regarded him with great suspicion, and attempts at ecclesiastical unity in Britain at that time came to nothing.
By the time of Augustine’s death in 604 or 605, the Anglo-Saxon church was well established in eastern and southern Britain.
For Liturgical Use
Augustine was sent by Pope Gregory the Great with a team of monks in 596 to establish a mission to the Anglo-Saxons in Britain. They eventually had a Christian centre in Canterbury, and in 597 Augustine was consecrated as the first archbishop of Canterbury. The conversion of King Ethelbert assured the success of the mission among the Anglo-Saxons, though efforts by Augustine to establish his primacy over the older Celtic church in Britain were unsuccessful. Augustine died in 604 or 605.
Sentence
You, O Lord, will come to us like showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.	
				Hosea 6:3 (adapted)
Collects
God of all the world,
your Son Jesus Christ sent his apostles
to preach the gospel to every creature;
grant that, as Augustine was enabled
to be a great missionary among the English people,
so we may follow in his steps
and with boldness declare your name
to those who know it not;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Holy Spirit,
you sent Augustine and his forty monks
across the English Channel to convert the Angles;
we thank you for the work they started,
and for all the good which has flowed from it.
Psalms	85	98
Readings
Isaiah 49:22-25		A signal to the people
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8	Preaching the gospel
Luke 10:1-9		Missionaries sent ahead
Post Communion Sentence
No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.	Luke 9:62