Markus
I used my phone to scan the text so there may be a few errors that I missed. Here is the text that gives an overview of his life and a letter he wrote about his death and return:
Having entered a monastery in Exeter at the age of seven, while advancing in stature and virtue, apostolic zeal kindled a great desire in St. Boniface to become a mission-ary. With the blessing of Pope Gregory II, he left his homeland to proclaim the Gospel to the German people shrouded in the dark night of pagan idolatry. Founding monasteries at Amoneberg, Fritzlar, Orderuf, and finally at Fulda, which was the largest numbering four hundred monks, he was raised to the rank of bishop and then arch-bishop.
Struggling to uphold the Holy Tradition of the Orthodox Church, he established six bishoprics in order to unite the land and took part in the first great Germanic ecclesiastical council. Despite his advanced age of seventy-five years, St. Boniface again pressed on further into pagan northern Germany to spread the Gospel. In the middle of the act of baptizing a number of converts, St. Boniface and fifty-two of his companions were massacred by an enraged barbarian horde. Thus with the sword stroke that split his
skull, St Boniface was crowned with a beautiful martyrdom.
To the Blessed virgin and best loved lady Eadburga,
praiseworthy for her long perseverance in the observance of the monastic life, Winfred [St. Boniface's name before his monastic tonsure), one of the least in Christ Jesus, sends most affectionate greetings.
You have asked me, my dear sister, to describe to you in writing the marvelous visions of the man who recently died and came to life again in the convent of the Abbess Milburg, as they were revealed to him and were related to me by the venerable Abbess Hildelida. And now, thanks be to Almighty God, I am able to fulfill your wish more fully and more accurately because I myself spoke recently with the aforesaid resurrected brother when he returned to this country from beyond the seas. He then related to me in his own words the astounding visions which he saw in the spirit while he was out of the body,
He said that the extreme pain from a violent illness had suddenly freed his spirit from the burden of his body. He felt like a man seeing and wide awake, whose eyes had been veiled by a dense covering and then suddenly the veil was lifted and everything made clear which had previously been invisible, veiled, and unknown. So with him, when the veil of the flesh was cast aside the whole universe seemed to be brought together before his eyes so that he saw in one view all parts of the earth and all seas and peoples. And angels of such pure splendor bore him up as he came forth from the body that he could not bear to gaze upon them. With joyful and harmonious The Writings of the Saints
ous voices they sang: "O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath; neither chasten me in chy hot displeasure."
"They carried me up," he said, "high into the air, and I saw a mighty fire surrounding the whole earth, and flames of enormous size puffing upon high and embracing, as it were, in one ball the whole mechanism of the world, had not a holy angel checked it by the sign of the holy cross of Christ. For when the sign of the cross was made over against the threaten-ling flame, it faded in great part and died away. I suffered intolerably from the heat, my eyes smarting and smitten by the glare of flashing spirits until an angel, splendid to look upon, laid his protecting hands upon my head and saved me from all injury by the flames."
He reported further that in the space of time while he was out of the body, a greater multitude of souls left their bodies and gathered in the place where he was than he had thought to form the whole race of mankind on earth. He said also that there was a crowd of evil spirits and a glorious choir of the higher angels. And he said that the wretched spirits and the holy angels had a violent dispute concerning the souls that had come forth from their bodies, the demons bringing charges against them and aggravating the burden of their sins, the angels lightening the burden and making excuses for them.
He heard all his own sins, which he had committed from his youth on and had failed to confess or had forgotten or had not recognized as sins, crying out against him, each in its own voice, and accusing him grievously. Each vice came forward as if in person, one saying: "I am your greed, by which you have most often desired things unlawful and contrary to the commands of God." Another said: "I am vainglory, by which you have boastfully put yourself forward among men.
"I am falsehood, whereby you have lied and sinned"
Another: "I am the idle word you spoke in vain." Another: " am sight, by which you have sinned by looking upon forbid. den chings." Another: "I am stubbornness and disobedience, whereby you have failed to obey your spiritual superiors." An-other: "I am sluggishness and neglect in sacred studies." An-other: "I am the wandering thoughts and useless notions in which you have indulged too much both in church and elsewhere." Another: "I am drowsiness, by which you were overcome so that you were late to make your confession to God." Another: "I am the idle errand." Another: "I am negligenceand carelessness, which made you indifferent to the study of theology," and so forth.
Everything he had done in all the days of his life and had neglected to confess and many things which he had not known to be sinful, all these were now shouted at him in terri-lying words. In the same way the evil spirits, chiming in with the vices, accusing and bearing witness, naming the very times and places, brought proofs of his evil deeds. He saw there, al-so, a certain man upon whom he, while still numbered among the living, had inflicted a wound and who, he said, was still living, but now was brought in as a witness to his own mis-fortune. The bloody and open wound, even the blood itself, cried out against him, charging him with the crime of blood-shed. And so, with his sins all piled up and reckoned out, those ancient enemies declared him guilty and unquestionably subject to their jurisdiction.
"On the other hand," he said, "the poor little virtues which I had displayed unworthily and imperfectly spoke out in my defense. One said: I am obedience, which he has shown to his spiritual superiors.' And one: I am fasting, whereby he has chastened his body against carnal desire.
Another: I am true prayer, which he has uttered in the sight
of God. Another: I am service of the weak, which he has shown by kindness to the sick.' Another: 'I am the psalm, which he chanted before God to atone for an idle word.' And so each virtue cried out for me in excuse for the corresponding sin. And those angelic spirits in their boundless love defended and supported me, while the virtues, greatly magnified as they were, seemed to me far greater and more excellent than could ever have been practiced by my own strength...
He related also that there came to this assembly the soul of a certain man who had died while holding the office of abbot, a soul which seemed to be of rare beauty. The evil spirits seized upon it, claiming it as belonging with them. But one of the angel choir replied: "I will quickly show you, miserable spirits, that this soul is certainly nor in your power." Thereupon a great troop of purified souls broke in and said: "This was our elder and our teacher, and through his instruction he won us all to God; at that price he was redeemed, and clearly he is not in your power." So they joined with the angels in their fight against the demons, and with the help of the angels they snatched that soul away from the power of the evil spirits and set it free. Then an angel spoke in reproachful words, say-ing: "Now then, know ye and understand, ye wretched spirits, that you captured this soul unfairly, so away with you into everlasting fire!" Now, when the angel had spoken thus, the evil spirits broke into weeping and howling, and in a moment, as in the twinkling of an eye, they hurled themselves into the pits of glowing fire described above; after a brief interval, emerging again, they began anew their arguments about the merits of souls...
Then, finally, the blessed angels directed the man who had seen and heard all these things in the spirit while he was set free from his body, to return into his body at once. He was not to hesitate to tell all that had been revealed to him to believers and to those who should question him with a pious purpose, but should refuse to talk to those who scoffed at him... He should declare all his spiritual visions to a certain priest named Begga and afterward proclaim them before men according to Begga's instructions. His own sins, which had been charged against him by impure spirits, he was to confess and expiate according to the judgment of that priest and, as directed by angelic precept, he should confide to the priest that he had already for many years, for the love of God and without knowledge of any man, worn an iron girdle about his
loins...
However, by the angels' command, at daybreak he entered again into his body just as he had left it at cockcrow.... I have written down these things at your earnest request as he told them to me in the presence of three pious and most venerable brethren, who are known to be trustworthy witnesses and vouchers. Farewell, and may you live the life of angelic virginity, and reign forever with good report in heaven.*
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