EUROPE UNDER CHRIST

Introduction

If we seek to deepen our understanding of the spiritual roots of Europe, we need to look in the right way at our shared cultural history. We saw in the first lecture some of the dangers, which have been exploited by far-right political groups, in falling for a romanticised and nostalgic idealisation, which would exclude in particular those in Europe of other world faiths, particularly Jews and Muslims - people who have good reason to feel uneasy when we talk about the Christian history and heritage of Europe. An example of this would be the recent controversy in Spain over commemorations of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

So tonight we are going to look at the signs of holiness in that history: not at crusading Christian kings, but at the saints of the Church. Not even this is free of pitfalls - one of the most revolting things about the Front Nationale in France is the shameless way in which the movement uses St Joan of Arc in its propaganda, and at times in the past in this country St George, or more often his cross, has been abused in the same way. In the teachings of the present Holy Father, sanctity as a mark of the Church is of fundamental importance: he has used this concept of sanctity as a way of setting out his vision for Europe. Of course sanctity is not confined to canonised saints - we have already seen examples of this among the founders of modern Europe.

Nearly all of the talk is about the six patron saints of Europe who have been so declared by the Catholic Church. I will also look very briefly at three saints associated with England, including the patron saint of this parish, who impart the same message; there are of course many others we could name - many of the saints whose feast days we mark in the universal calendar speak of the same values.

Patron saints and community identity

We don't live in a culture where the concept of patron saints is readily understood, and even in the church they are probably less important than they should be, so I want briefly to go over what they mean. We believe that the saints in heaven are our friends and fellow Christians, who are praying for us to God; traditionally the Church names specific men and women, reflecting what we know of their lives, to be particularly associated with certain groups and regions. So a few years ago the Holy Father declared St Thomas More to be the patron saint of politicians, because he was such a major figure in public life. Other patron saints are associated with more legendary attributes: St Barbara is said to be the patron saint of golfers because she has often been invoked for safety against lightning! In medieval Europe patron saints of towns and villages were very important: the church would have been dedicated to that saint, the feast day would have been a local holiday; the patron saint helped to bind the community together and give it a distinct identity. The same was true for larger regions or countries, although the reasons might be very different in each case. St Andrew is the patron saint of Greece because tradition has it that he was martyred there: but he never went to Scotland, although he has been their patron saint since the 8th century. Again, the main reason why St George became protector of England was because crusading warriors encountered him in the middle east as a soldier saint with a convenient emblem.

In most cases the patron saints of countries and regions go back to the Middle Ages, and have not been important in Protestant northern Europe since the Reformation. A multinational state like Great Britain has no patron saint, and in Scotland St Andrew's day is rather less important than Burns night. Catholic countries tend to acquire more popular 'national' saints as time goes on: St Denys is technically the patron saint of France, and yet for the last century St Therese of Lisieux has been much more popular. At times, of course, the ways in which patron saints' feast days are marked is unworthy: much as I enjoy Irish nights, I am sure St Patrick would be horrified at the displays of drunkenness which often mark his feast day.

The important thing to remember is that in choosing a patron saint the Church seeks two things in addition to his or her prayers and protection in heaven: first, the binding together of a community, and second, a teaching message from the qualities of a saint's life or what he or she might have written. Therefore in having any patron saints of Europe at all, let alone six, the Church is making a statement about what it believes about Europe: Catholics see Europe as a coherent community which needs to have its sense of identity strengthened and deepened. I think as a Church we have been rather bad in this country at helping people understand this, which is why it is the topic for this talk.

The feast days of patron saints have a liturgical importance - we say or sing the Gloria at Mass and we have appropriate readings - ideally we should also sing fitting hymns or listen to appropriate music, and I hope we can use this talk to try and improve the ways in which we celebrate these days. As all these men and women have been made patron saints of Europe since 1980, you won't find any special reference to them as patron saints in current English editions of missals and the Divine Office - indeed one of them is not there at all because she was only canonised a few years ago.

The Six Patron Saints of Europe

On 31 December 1980, early on in his pontificate, Pope John Paul named three men as patron saints of Europe, one from the west and the other two brothers from the east. Benedict of Nursia, now known as Norcia, has his feast now on 11 July, which had been a traditional solemnity in his honour in the Benedictine order (until 1969 the feast day elsewhere had been 21 March, the anniversary of his death in 543; but in the calendar reforms as many saints' days as possible were moved out of Lent). The saint we revere as the father of monasticism in western Europe, was probably born in 480 in Tuscany. He and his twin sister St Scholastica were the children of a Roman nobleman. He was well educated there, but according to his best biographer, St Gregory the Great (Dialogues II, PL lxvi),

'giving over his books, and forsaking his father's house and his wealth, with a mind only to serve God, he sought for some place where he might attain to the desire of his holy purpose; and in this sort he departed from Rome, instructed with learned ignorance and furnished with unlearned wisdom.'

He seems to have been put off by the dissolute lifestyle he saw in Rome, which clearly tempted him - so he gave it all up at the age of about twenty (that is, in the year 500) and went to live eventually as a hermit in a cave near Subiaco east of Rome. The monastic way of life was not unknown, and he was initially attached as a hermit to one, but Benedict's great contribution to monastic life was to establish a rule giving practical details for life in a community. This led to a community growing up around him and the setting up of twelve monasteries of twelve monks each, with abbots appointed by himself. The popularity of the new types of community led to local jealousies and trouble, and in about 525 Benedict and his followers withdrew from Subiaco to Monte Cassino, further south-east, between Rome and Naples (the dramatic monastery almost completely destroyed in 1944 but now restored), where he remained until his death. Not long before his death he had a wonderful vision of God; he was a man marked by moderation and kindness - the picture in Gregory's narrative is of a gentle, peace-loving man (he is often depicted in iconography holding the letters of the word PAX, the motto of the Benedictine order). Italy of this period was in a state of turmoil in the midst of the gradual disintegration of the Roman empire, marked by violence between local magnates and instability. Much of the appeal of Benedict's movement was the order and purpose it gave to people's lives.

The Rule is his greatest legacy to the Christian people - it has remained important for Benedictine monks and nuns but for all Christians who seek to live together in community, and its ideals are relevant for all Christians. It is the starting-point of why Benedict is theologically important. We should remember that Benedict himself does not seem to have been ordained, and most of his monks were not clerics - he was simply putting before them a way of living in accordance with the will of Christ. Manual work was important as a means of growing closer to God and becoming wearied and tired so as to be less open to temptation - idleness is the path to ruin. Contemporary culture saw physical work as characteristic of slaves - Benedict turned this upside down and taught that it is the universal lot of every human being and necessary to his or her well-being, essential for being a Christian. There is a story of someone who came to see him, wanting to join him - Benedict simply give him a bill-hook and told him to go and clear the thorns away for a garden with the words, 'Ecce! Labora!' Much of the rule is given over to manual work, interspersed at various points of the day with set acts of public worship. This emphasis on the importance of manual work accords with much of the contemporary social teaching of the Church, as explored since Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum in 1891. It is not meant to be a drudge - rather it is a sign of human dignity, and this was explored shortly after making Benedict a patron saint of Europe by Pope John Paul II in his letter in 1981 about the value of human work, Laborem Exercens.

Benedict's vision was and is counter-cultural. This has been recognised by the contemporary American Benedictine nun Joan Chittister in her book A Passion for Life - Fragments of the Face of God (New York: Orbis, 1996). In her chapter about Benedict and Scholastica (she also looks at two other saints we shall be considering tonight) she writes:

'Benedict and Scholastica gave us a completely different way of looking at life, out of sync with the establishment then, out of sync with the establishment now, a glimpse of order in chaos then, for order in chaos now...
...In a totally male, highly militaristic, and class-orientated society, the Rule that Benedict and Scholastic passed on ... modelled three major feminine qualities that turned the world around: community, obedience and humility...
It was of Roman men who were trained to be independent and commandeering and patriarchal that the Rule of Benedict required obedience to the other, to the whole community, as well as to the abbot. "Let them obey one another", the Rule teaches. Let them "put aside their own concerns and abandon their own will." It was not, surely, an easy message for a society trained to govern, expected to domineer.

It is a message of no less importance now than then. The United States expects to domineer in world politics, men expect to govern...The Rule of Benedict calls for a society where everyone listens to everyone, where the poor have as much right to govern as the rich, where the insights of women are as valued as the insights of men... In the Rule of Benedict, obedience gets turned upside down.' (pp.10-12)

There is much more one could say about the rule - the late Cardinal Hume wrote about it in his popular book Searching for God. Benedictine communities played a big role in keeping alive European civilisation in succeeding centuries by being centres of stability and charity in different areas and through preserving literacy and learning. The cultural unity of medieval western Europe is inextricably bound up with monasteries - and the links between the Church in England and the rest of the British Isles with this overall network shows us how we share a common Benedictine heritage as Catholics with the rest of Europe. The dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII was a major step in isolating England from the rest of Europe; similarly Benedictine communities returning from the rest of Europe after penal times to places such as Ampleforth, Downside and Buckfast illustrate why to be Catholic is to be European. I have dwelt on Benedict at some length because as English, Welsh, Scots or Irish people we are western Europeans, and as such share in the Benedictine heritage.

Cyril and Methodius

At the time when Pope John Paul was elected in October 1978, the concept of 'Europe', as most people understood it, was centred on western Europe, on the EEC as it existed then. As a Pole, as one who had come to Rome from the eastern block, from the Warsaw Pact and COMECON area, it was immediately clear to him that Europe should always be seen as encompassing both east and west - two lungs, as he expressed it on various occasions. So in 1980 Europe's new patron saints had to reflect both the common Christian heritage of all Europe's peoples and what is distinctive; so two brothers who shared the same feast day (14 February, which they also share with St Valentine) were added to Benedict as patron saints. One of the Holy Father's passions has been the restoration of full unity between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox churches, and he saw this declaration in the light of that priority as well.

Cyril and Methodius, known as the Apostles of the Slavs, were born in 827 and 826 respectively in Thessalonica, in what is now northern Greece. They came from a Byzantine senatorial family but both became monks and priests near the Bosphorus. They both worked with Khazar people in Constantinople (the Khazars were a people living in what is now Bulgaria) who needed Christian teachers, then they were asked to teach people in what is now the Czech Republic in their own Slavonic language. To do this Cyril invented an alphabet - a mixture of the western and Greek - and translated the liturgy and the gospels into their language. This script, still known as the 'cyrillic', is used in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Serbia-Montenegro. Some of their missionary work aroused opposition from German missionaries in the area, since church services were held in the local languages, and the two brothers were summoned to Rome. The Pope was convinced of their orthodoxy and was about to send them back to continue their mission when Cyril died in 869 - he had brought back to Rome the relics of St Clement, so he (and later his brother) was buried in the lovely church of San Clemente. Methodius became a bishop in the Czech lands, where he encountered similar problems as before, and had to justify the use of the Slavonic language in the Mass again before the Pope; has also translated the rest of the Bible and Canon Law into Slavonic, before dying in 885.

Not many people get to write an alphabet which has been used for centuries ever since - so the place of these brothers in the cultural history of eastern Europe cannot be overemphasised. The spread of Russian culture has made Cyrillic one of the world's great scripts, although it is possible that its use is in decline, particularly in the former Yugoslavia where it has been associated with Serb domination and an 'anti-western' ethos. Before the fall of the Iron Curtain you would have seen Cyrillic script all over eastern Europe far more than today because of Soviet power. Therefore it played a significant part in drawing together a common culture in eastern Europe in the centuries after they lived, and a culture rooted in Christianity. In 1980 the Pope was making a powerful political point to the leaders of communist countries, that the very words many of them wrote were rooted in Christian missionary activity eleven hundred years before: the Christian heritage of these lands could not be eradicated by the communists.

There were other messages too, equally unwelcome in some quarters. Since the Council a great deal has been done to re-establish the autonomy within the Church of 'Eastern rite Catholics' - that is, Catholics who are in full communion with Rome who retain eastern liturgy and canon law. The elevation of Cyril and Methodius was part of this process and of stressing the esteem in which these churches' customs are held, since the brothers promoted these liturgies and customs in the face of opposition. And yet at the same time they were repeatedly vindicated by the Pope: so John Paul was reminding all eastern Christians of the authority of the Holy See. The tomb of these men in one of Rome's best loved churches, is a visible symbol of the unity between east and west which the Holy Father seeks - but a unity which respects diversity and local traditions.

In the lands of eastern Europe the churches which trace themselves back to Cyril and Methodius enjoy greater freedom than in 1980. But serious problems remain; and as we shall see next week there is some reluctance to think of eastern Europe as fully European, both there and here. So the message of these patron saints is just as vital as we try to build a Europe marked by mutual respect for our different cultures and identities.

The new women patron saints

On 1 October 1999, at the beginning of the Synod of European bishops, the Pope completed what he had done at the end of 1980 by adding three more patron saints who were women - in addition they were chosen because Benedict, Cyril and Methodius were figures of the first millennium, and the women were figures of the second millennium drawing to a close. He also wanted to exalt a "feminine" model of holiness, because he wanted to 'recognise ever more clearly the dignity and specific gifts of women.' He went on:

'The Church has not failed, from her very origins, to acknowledge the role and mission of women, even if at times she was conditioned by a culture which did not always show due consideration to women. But the Christian community has progressively matured also in this regard, and here the role of holiness has proved to be decisive. A constant impulse has come from the icon of Mary, the "ideal woman", Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church. But also the courage of women martyrs who faced the cruellest tortures with astounding fortitude, the witness of women exemplary for their radical commitment to the ascetic life, the daily dedication of countless wives and mothers in that "domestic church" which is the family, and the charisms of the many women mystics who have also contributed to the growth of theological understanding, offering the Church invaluable guidance in grasping fully God's plan for women. This plan is already unmistakably expressed in certain pages of scripture and, in particular, in Christ's own attitude as testified to by the gospel.' (Briefing 10.11.1999)

Bridget of Sweden

Those of you who know Rome may be familiar with the Brigittine convent next to the English College, where the sisters still wear the crowned wimple. The first new patron saint we shall consider is Bridget, or rather Birgitta, of Sweden, whose feast day is on 23 July. She was born in 1303 in the Uppland region of Sweden (I assume that is the area of the old city of Uppsala). Although traditionally she has been venerated as a mystic and as the founder of the Brigittine order (the Order of the Most Holy Saviour) in her later life, the Pope stresses in his letter the first part of her life as a wife and mother of eight children:

'I would hope that not only those who have received a vocation to the consecrated life but also those called to the ordinary occupations of the life if the laity in the world, and especially to the high and demanding vocation of forming a Christian family, will feel that she is close to them.'

Bridget and Ulf were not badly off, but lived out their married life as a couple with prayer, mortification and charitable works- she was a Franciscan tertiary and was also involved in teaching. One of their children, Catherine, is also venerated as a saint. In 1341 the couple went on a pilgrimage to Compostella - think of what the journey from Sweden to Spain must have been like, and a few years later Ulf died (this was the time of the Black Death). His widow felt called to a new direction in life, and left Sweden in 1349 and settled in Rome, from where she went on a number of pilgrimages in Italy and one to the Holy Land, 'enabling her,' the Pope writes, 'to embrace spiritual not only the many holy places of Catholic Europe but also the wellsprings of Christianity in the places sanctified by the life and death of the Redeemer.'

As we shall see in the life of the next patron saint, the thirteenth century was one of great turmoil in Europe - ravaged by the Black Death, and the Church rent by divisions. In the midst of all this Bridget's later life was marked by special visions, as the Holy Father says:

'Her profound union with Christ was accompanied by special gifts of revelation, which made her a point of reference for many people...she was recognised as having the power of prophecy...she spoke unabashedly to princes and pontiffs, declaring God's plan with regard to the events of history.'

The meaning of Bridget's place among the patron saints of Europe is clear. In one person we see united one who had led an active family life, also given over to works of love and charity, also a contemplative marked by profound union with Christ - the two are not exclusive; intense prayer and activity can go together. The Pope also stresses where she came from. As was the case with the British Isles, the Scandinavian countries were tragically separated from Catholic Europe at the Reformation: he sees Bridget as a 'bridge' between divided communities, and her order has a strong ecumenical perspective. Many representatives of the Swedish Lutheran church were present at the ceremony in Rome when she was named a patron saint. This has a wider political meaning as well, because some of the Scandinavian countries have a neurosis about European unity and their place within it similar to what we see in Britain (apart from Finland; Denmark and Sweden are not yet in the euro-zone, and Norway is not in the EU at all), so Bridget is a powerful figure uniting her lands to the rest of Europe.

Catherine of Siena

Another beautiful church in Rome is Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the Dominican church which is also the titular church of Cardinal Murphy O'Connor. Under the altar is buried in a glass case Catherine of Siena, Caterina Benincasa, whose feast day is kept on 29 April. She was born slightly later than Bridget, in 1347. She was a contemplative Dominican nun from an early age, and very quickly became renowned for her spiritual advice, given both in person and by letter, based on an intimacy with God which is shown in her writings:

'Eternal Trinity, you are the Creator, I the creature. I have come to know, in the new creation you made of me in the blood of your Son, that you are in love with the beauty of your creature.' (On Divine Revelation ch.167)

She had great gifts of ecstatic prayer and devotion to the Precious Blood of Our Lord. The fame brought by her spiritual direction led to her becoming involved in the thick of secular and ecclesiastical politics - again, another sign that Christians cannot keep these concerns in their lives separate. Through direct intervention she tried to bring peace between France, Hungary and various Italian states, and repeatedly urged the Pope to return from Avignon to Rome. As the present Pope writes:

'Placing "Christ crucified and sweet Mary" before the parties involved, she made it clear that in a society inspired by Christian values there could never be grounds for conflict so serious that that the reasons of force need prevail over the force of reason.'

Before her death in 1380 she also worked hard to preserve the unity of the Church after the death of Pope Gregory XI (the 'Great Schism') - there is an icon showing her carrying the ship of the Church, with the papal arms on the sail. Because of the development in the understanding of revelation in her writings she was declared a 'Doctor of the Church' by Pope Paul VI in 1970, the first woman to be so named.

We need to be aware that the form of contemplative life which she practised was radically different from much of what was expected of women -her contemplation and ecstasy did not lead her away from the world and its sufferings, but into a deeper engagement with it. Moreover, she blazed a trail for the position of women in the Church, being spiritual director to a number of men, including her confessor. At a time when in different ways the gifts of women in the Christian community are being valued as never before, her contemplative insight was the basis of what she did. These are the words of Jesus in one of the visions she recorded:

'All things are possible for God who has created everything from nothing. I know you say this from humility, Catherine, but you must know that in these days pride has grown monstrously among men, and chiefly among those who are learned and think they understand everything. It was for this reason that at another period I sent out some men who had no human learning, but were filled by me with divine wisdom and I let them preach. Today, I have chosen unschooled women, fearful and weak by nature, but trained by me in the knowledge of the divine so that they may put vanity and pride to shame. If men will humbly receive the teachings I send them through the weaker sex I will show them great mercy, but if they despise these women they shall fall into even worse confusion and even greater agony'. (quoted in Chittister, op.cit., p.123)

Catherine's witness for the poor, for the unity of the Church, against war, and her significance for the place of women in the Church make her a powerful icon for European Christians, especially when we are seeing a very male 'macho' war played out on our television screens every night. Joan Chittister OSB puts it like this:

'The life of Catherine of Siena is an icon of the God of Surprises, a thunderclap that vibrates through the life of each of us. Catherine of Siena becomes a woman to be reckoned with again. As long as there is war anywhere, then Catherine of Siena is a woman to be reckoned with. As long as the church is more an institution than a vehicle of the Gospel, then Catherine of Siena is a woman to be reckoned with again. As long as any woman anywhere is demeaned or diminished or dismissed out of hand as foolish or incompetent or lesser in the sight of God and little in the church, as long as anyone anywhere says a hostile and unholy "no" to women, then Catherine of Siena is a woman to be reckoned with again.' (p.124)

Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Our third woman is even more clearly linked with what we can understand as contemporary feminism. We leap to the twentieth century, to the lifetime of many of you, to one of the most exceptional women of that century, Edith Stein, known in 'religion' as Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, whose feast day is the anniversary of her death in Auschwitz in 1942, 9th August. She is also a figure who tells us a lot about the present Holy Father, who not only made her a patron saint of Europe but canonised her a few years before that. She is also a figure with contemporary relevance far beyond the Church - on the day before Holocaust Memorial day in January this year, Radio 4 broadcast a fascinating and moving dramatisation of her life.

Obviously her life is better known than that of the women of the 14th century: among her prolific writings is an autobiographical works (Life in a Jewish Family). Edith Stein was born in 1891 in what was then the German city of Breslau (it is now the Polish city of Wroclaw). She was Jewish, and after school she went on to study philosophy first at Breslau and then at one of the great centres of intellectual life in Germany, Göttingen. Edith became an important philosopher in the 'school' known as phenomenology, one of the most important philosophical movements of the last century, based on the perception of objects of mental acts precisely as they are, irrespective of their existence, involving reflection on the 'essences' behind individual objects. The reason we need to be at least aware of phenomenology in relation to Edith, who became a disciple of Edmund Husserl and of Max Scheler, is that thirty or so years later it was the most important philosophical influence on a young Polish priest who showed great academic promise, Karol Woytyla. Edith was fired throughout her life by a search for truth, as that young priest wrote in 1999:

'It was precisely along the byways of philosophical investigation that grace awaited her...she became sensitive to an objective reality which becomes the measure of subjective knowledge, and thus needs to be examined with rigorous objectivity. This reality must be heeded and grasped above all in the human being...'

Her studies were of course interrupted by the Great War, when she worked as a nurse, and in which many of her colleagues were killed. As her studies developed she explored the role of women in society. She explored the values of womanhood and the mission of women; theology and scripture were proof of the equality if women, not of their subservience (see her Essays on Woman [Washington: ICS publications, 2nd ed.,1996]). She vigorously denied that the only appropriate vocations were those of spouse and mother:

'No woman is only "woman" - like a man, each has her individual specialty and talent, and this talent gives her the capability of doing professional work, be it artistic, scientific, technical...' (quoted in Chittister, op.cit., pp.109-110)

No one would challenge this today, but they did in Germany in the 1920s: although she was one of the most brilliant German intellectuals of her day, the fact that Edith was a woman prevented her from getting a proper academic job.

Her search for truth led her to encounter the account of Christian spiritual experience in the life of the great Carmelite mystic St Teresa of Avila; she also came under the influence of the thought of St Thomas Aquinas. So she was converted to Christianity and was baptised in 1921. Although her conversion did not in any way lead her to reject her Jewishness, it caused great distress to her mother, as did her eventually becoming a contemplative Carmelite nun in 1933 (the year Hitler came to power) and taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She did not simply experience discrimination for being a woman - she was Jewish. One of the reasons she is so important for our understanding of Europe is because of this Christian-Jewish identity. As the Pope writes:

'Edith made her own the suffering of the Jewish people, even as this reached its apex in the barbarous Nazi persecution which remains, together with other terrible instances of totalitarianism, one of the darkest and most shameful stains on the Europe of our century. At the time, she felt that in the systematic extermination of the Jews the cross of Christ was being laid on her people...'

Or, as Joan Chittister puts it:

'Edith...never doubted for a moment that she was meant to atone for the Christian sin that exterminated six million Jews...she may have been the only Christian alive who fully realised the impact of what it meant in those days to be both Christian and Jew.' (pp.107, 110)

She had joined the Carmelite community in Cologne; after the Kristallnacht in 1938 she was transferred out of Germany to Holland, to the community at Echt. But of course that was not ultimately safe either, and the Germans invaded Holland in 1940. In 1942, after the Dutch Catholic bishops had published a pastoral letter criticising the Nazi persecution of the Jews, orders were given for Jewish converts to Christianity to be rounded up - Edith and her sister Rosa (who had also joined the community) were quickly deported to Auschwitz and were gassed, with thousands of others.

The meaning of Edith Stein for modern Europe, as a patron saint, is immense, and in a way still being explored. The combination of philosophical and intellectual genius with her appalling death - we venerate her as a virgin and martyr - brings together the need for all of us to search in our own way for the truth which God has revealed, and the need to resist 'every violation of the rights of the person' (as the Holy Father puts it) and the evils of racism. Remember too how much he has worked to restore and deepen the relationship between religious faith and philosophy (particularly in his 1998 letter Fides et Ratio). The Pope concludes the section in his letter on her with these words:

'Today's proclamation of Edith Stein as Co-Patroness of Europe is intended to raise on this continent a banner of respect, tolerance and acceptance which invites all men and women to understand and appreciate each other, transcending their ethnic, cultural and religious differences in order to form a truly fraternal society.'

So the struggles for the rights of women and against racism should be entrusted to St Teresa Benedicta's prayers.

Three 'English' saints who reflect the vision

Before I conclude by summing up the overall vision behind the role the Church has given to these six exceptional men and women as patron saints of Europe, I want to refer very briefly to three saints associated with England who reflect some of the same qualities.

St Boniface (feast day 5th June), apostle of Germany, was born in Crediton in the west country in the year 680. He spent most of his life preaching the gospel in what is now Holland and Germany; his famous felling of an oak worshipped by some tribesmen is said to be the origin of the Christmas tree. He was the first Archbishop of Mainz and was martyred while confirming converts at Dokkum in Holland in 754.

St Anselm (feast day 21st April) was born in Aosta in northern Italy in 1033. He became a monk in Normandy, and he was an outstanding theologian and philosopher (devising one of the classical arguments for the existence of God). Somewhat reluctantly he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by King William Rufus in 1093, and had a turbulent time in the job, dying in 1109.

Finally I want to refer to St Edmund Rich (feast day 16th November) the patron saint of our parish, whose recumbent effigy is above the west door of the church, and whom we can see in one of our stained glass windows. He was born in Abingdon in Oxfordshire in 1180. He taught philosophical logic at Oxford (where he is commemorated by St Edmund Hall) and became a canon of Salisbury cathedral. He was nominated Archbishop of Canterbury in 1233, but like Anselm and Thomas Becket fifty years before, had nothing but trouble with the king, in this case Henry III. In protest at the exploitation of the Church's money by the king, he went into exile to Pontigny in northern Burgundy, where he died in 1240. His tomb rapidly became a shrine and centre for healing (especially the newly born).

What we see in the lives of these three men are the same attributes of searching for truth, spreading the gospel and denying the unjust power of the state - they also illustrate England's place within Catholic Europe. It was not odd for an Englishman to be an archbishop in Germany or for an Italian to be archbishop in England.

Conclusions: the Holy Father's vision for Europe

The saints not only pray for us; they set us an example by the specific qualities in their lives. With these men and women we see what is at the heart of a Christian vision for a united Europe, and a strengthening of Christian witness against war, racism, xenophobia, and the marginalisation of women, and of values of interdependence, marriage and family life, community, the dignity of human work and the tireless pursuit of truth. The last words must be the Pope's:

'Thus may Europe grow! May it grow as a Europe of the spirit, in continuity with the best of its history, of which holiness is the highest expression. The unity of the continent, which is gradually maturing in people's consciousness and receiving a more precise political definition, certainly embodies a great hope. Europeans are called to leave behind once and for all the rivalries of history which often turned the continent into a theatre of devastating wars. At the same time they must work to create conditions for greater unity and co-operation between peoples. Before them lies the daunting challenge of building a culture and an ethic of unity, for in the absence of these any politics of unity is doomed sooner or later to failure.
In order to build the new Europe on solid foundations it is certainly not enough to appeal to economic interests alone; for these, while sometimes bringing people together, are at other times a cause of division. Rather there is a need to act on the basis of authentic values, which are founded on the universal moral law written on the heart of every person. A Europe which would exchange the values of tolerance and universal respect for ethical indifference and scepticism about essential values would be opening itself to immense risks and sooner or later would see the most fearful sceptre of its past reappear in new forms...
...Through the communion of saints, which mysteriously unites the Church on earth with the Church in heaven, they take our cares upon themselves in their unceasing intercession before the throne of God. At the same time, a more fervent invocation of these saints, and a more assiduous and careful attention to their words and example, will not fail to make us ever more aware of our common vocation to holiness and inspire in us the resolves to be ever more generous in our commitment.'