Today we celebrate the feast of St. Augustine of Canterbury; St. Augustine was a missionary, he was sent to spread the gospel to England.
Initially, St. Augustine was filled with zeal and ready to spread the message and then half way to England, the men who accompanied him became scared, fear overtook them and this negative reality began to extinguish the fervor and zeal to spread the message. The danger to their lives was greater than their love of Christ. Their willingness to bring the news of salvation at any cost was overcome by their desire to save their own skin.
St. Augustine was persuaded to cease his journey and turn around. He turned around and went back to Rome, where his heart was filled with discouragement.
Pope Gregory the Great received him kindly with words of assurance; the doubt and fear scattered and Augustine's heart was once again fueled with fervor and desire to make known salvation to the world. The desire to spread the message of salvation increased in fervor and they like the Apostles in the gospel chose to give up all, even their own flesh, so that all flesh my see the salvation of God.
Thus, England was evangelized and converted to Christ.
Fear may initially accompany us on our journey of living our faith; but fear is necessary for courage to push forth and refuel the desire to make known the message in all aspects of our life.
It is important to recognize those who fill us with doubt and fear when it comes to living our faith. We also need to know where we can go to get re assurance, so that the doubt can be scattered by hopefulness in Christ.
We all are surrounded by those who discourage us; we also need a Pope Gregory to enlightened us for the journey of living the gospel and spreading the gospel.
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