Christianity and Islam, unlike Judaism, are missionary religions–they seek to add to their number of adherents and spread the geographical reach of their influence. One of the most eye-opening experiences that I had when I was fortunate enough to visit Liberia in 1987 was to see for myself how Christians and Muslims competed for the minds and hearts (allegiances, anyway) of Liberians. For those unfamiliar with African geography, Liberia is in Western Africa, with coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, and situated below the Sahara. Christians predominate to the east and south of them, and Muslims to the north and west.

The people I met in Liberia, particularly in the rural (northern) areas, would often have a Christian school and an Islamic health-care clinic (or vice-versa) in their villages–so, as several confided, they would be Christian when taking their kids to school, Muslim when getting health care, and believe what their forebears passed down for centuries (beliefs and practices which both Christians and Muslims abhor and fully seek to stamp out–the carrot or the stick, as it were) when in their own homes and with friends and family.

And this brings us to today’s saint–Ivo (sometimes Ivia). Little is known about him during his life other than he was a Persian bishop who, in the 7th century, traveled to the British Isles to assist in the conversion of its pagan inhabitants to Christianity. Ivo died and, several centuries later, a plowman unearthed him, “in a pontifical habit and entire” and thereupon numerous (additional) miracles began occurring in conjunction with Ivo’s remains, etc. etc. pilgrimages, etc. etc. sainthood, etc. etc. It is because Ivo’s body was dug up on April 24, 1001, that he has been assigned this day on the calendar.

The point of this post is to ask the question of Why? That is, what leads someone to go to another country with the express purpose in mind of changing what people believe and how they act under the conviction that it is for their own good? I mean, Ivo made the journey from Persia (present-day Iran), across the entirety of Europe, and across the sea to England…under whatever conditions existed in the 600s…in order to pry the locals loose from their customs, beliefs, and practices. To give Ivo his props, he certainly was a very determined man and must have been an exceptional linguist. And he apparently kept well as a corpse under the English earth (as did his clothes), though how they determined that the body was Ivo’s is lost to history.

So back to the question–why? It’s one thing to be so enthralled with a life-changing-for-the-good experience that you are simply unable to keep quiet about it and want to share this good news (i.e., gospel) with others. It’s quite another thing to tell people that they must have the same great experience that you have had, and think and speak about it in the same terms (doctrines) that you do, or else they will languish in an eternity of pain-filled miseries. And then…to tell those people that they must go out and make others also have that same “great” experience and think and speak about it in the same terms…and so on and so forth and, in time, you have the two most wide-spread religions on the face of the earth.

I hope, at least, that the plowman’s life improved after his discovery 1017 years ago, today!