The Hanscom Family Weblog

1415 Martyrdom of Jan Hus, Czech reformer, who was condemned for heresy and burned atthe stake because of his outspoken appeals for church reform and for political and religious rights for the common people.
1535 Sir Thomas More executed in England for treason. English Catholic theologian Thomas More was beheaded for refusing to recognize Henry VIII as supreme head of the Church of England, which had just broken with the Roman Catholic Church.
1757 Birth of William McKendree, colonial American church leader. In 1808 he wasordained the first American-born bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
1846 Birth of John H. Sammis, American Presbyterian clergyman and author of the hymn,’Trust and Obey.’
1853 National Black convention meets (Rochester NY)
1853 William Wells Brown publishes “Clotel,” 1st novel by black American
1941 English Bible expositor Arthur W. Pink observed in a letter: ‘It is those who walk the closest with God who are most conscious of their sins.’
1957 Althea Gibson became 1st black tennis player to win Wimbledon

July 6

On this day in 1535, Sir Thomas More, who had recently resigned as Lord Chancellor of England, was executed for treason. He had sided with the pope against Henry VIII in the matter of the king’s divorce. He was sentenced to be hanged, but Henry commuted the sentence to beheading.

July 6

On this day in 1824, Bishop William White laid the cornerstone for the original St. Mary’s Church in Hamilton Village, Philadelphia - the Episcopal Church at Penn.

Feast Day:

St. Julian, anchoret, about 370.
St. Palladius, apostle of the Scots, bishop and confessor, about 450.
St. Moninna, of Ireland, virgin, 518.
St. Goar, priest and confessor, 575.
St. Sexburgh, abbess of Ely, 7th century.

July 6

Fortunatus, bishop, confessor [GTZ: Magdeburg]
Goar, priest, confessor (at Trier) [BLS; GTZ]
Gudula, virgin (Translation) [GTZ: Brussels]
Julian, achoret [BLS]
Lawrence (of Brindisi) [BLS]
Maria Goretti, virgin, martyr [MR]
Moninna [BLS]
Palladius, bishop, confessor [BLS; GTZ: Scotland]
Peter and Paul, apostles (Octave) [common; 6082, in red]
Severus, bishop (of Avranches), confessor [GTZ: Avranches]
Sexburgis, matron, abbess [BLS; GTZ: Winchester]

Thomas More, martyr [BLS]
Suitbert, bishop (of Verdun), confessor (Translation) [GTZ: Cologne]

On This Day

Maria Goretti,
Romulus of Fiesole
Jan Hus Day (Czech Republic)

In History

1415 - Jan Hus burned at the stake
1535 - Sir Thomas More executed for treason against Henry VIII

Jan Hus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hus

JAN HUS
PRIEST and MARTYR, 6 July 1415

John Huss (Jan Hus) was born in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) in about 1371. He received a master’s degree from Charles University in Prague in 1396, became a professor of theology in 1398, was ordained to the priesthood in 1400, was made rector of the University in 1402, and in 1404 received a bachelor’s degree in theology (presumably a more advanced degree than the term suggests today).

In his day, there was a crisis of authority in the Western Church. In 1305, under pressure from the King of France, the seat of the Popes was move from Rome to Avignon in France, where it remained for 70 years. (This period is called the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy, suggesting the 70 years that Jerusalem lay desolate after when the Jews were deported to Babylon.) In 1376, the then pope returned to Rome. When he died soon after, the cardinals, mostly French, were disposed to elect a French Pope, but the people of Rome objected, fearing that a Frence Pope would move the Papacy back to France. The cardinals therefore elected an Italian Pope, and then fled elsewhere, where they elected a French Pope and said that the first election had been under duress, and was void. Thus there were two (later three) claimants for the Papal Office. The Council of Constance was called to settle the matter. One claimant recognized the Council and then abdicated. The Council responded by proclaiming that he had been the true Pope. It then deposed the other two, and elected a new Pope, thus healing the schism.

Meanwhile, Huss had begun to denounce various church abuses in his sermons. His disputes with authority did not concern basic theological issues, but rather matters of church discipline and practice. The custom had arisen, at celebrations of the Lord’s Supper, of distributing the consecrated bread to all Christians in good standing who desired to receive it, but restricting the chalice to the celebrant alone. Huss denounced this restriction as contrary to Holy Scripture and to the ancient tradition of the Church. He also held that Church officials ought to exercise spiritual powers only, and not be earthly governors. In 1412 his archbishop excommunicated him, not for heresy, but for insubordination. (The real problem was that Huss supported one papal claimant and the archbishop another. Huss’s candidate was ultimately declared to be the true pope.) Matters came to a head when one claimant (later declared unfit) proclaimed a sale of indulgences to raise money for a war against his rivals. Huss was horrified at the idea of selling spiritual benefits to finance a war between two claimants to the title “Servant of the Servants of God,” and said so.

In 1414 he was summoned to the Council of Constance, with the Emperor guaranteeing his personal safety even if found guilty. He was tried, and ordered to recant certain heretical doctrines. He replied that he had never held or taught the doctrines in question, and was willing to declare the doctrines false, but not willing to declare on oath that he had once taught them. The one point on which Huss could be said to have a doctrinal difference with the Council was that he taught that the office of the pope did no exist by Divine command, but was established by the Church that things might be done in an orderly fashion (a view that he shared with Thomas More). The Council, having just narrowly succeeded in uniting Western Christendom under a single pope after years of chaos, was not about to have its work undone. It accordingly found him guilty of heresy, and he was burned at the stake on 6 July 1415.

After his death, his followers continued to insist on the importance of administering the Holy Communion in both kinds, and defeated several armies sent against them. In 1436 a pact was signed, by which the Church in Bohemia was authorized to administer Chalice as well as Host to all communicants. The followers of John Huss and his fellow martyr Jerome of Prague became known as the Czech Brethren and later as the Moravians. The Moravian Church survives to this day, and has had a considerable influence on the Lutheran movement. When Luther suddenly became famous after the publication of his 95 Theses, cartoons and graffiti began to appear implying that Luther was the spiritual heir of John Huss. When Luther encountered the Pope’s representative Johannes Eck, in a crucial debate, Eck sidestepped the questions of indulgences and of justification by faith, and instead asked Luther whether the Church had been right to condemn Huss. When Luther, after thinking it over, said that Huss had been unjustly condemned, the whole question of the authority of Popes and Councils was raised.

— by James Kieffer

Readings:

Psalm 119:113-120
Job 22:21-30
Revelation 3:1-6
Matthew 23:34-39

Preface of All Saints

PRAYER (traditional language)

Faithful God, who didst give Jan Hus the courage to confess thy truth and recall thy Church to the image of Christ: Enable us, inspired by his example, to bear witness against corruption and never cease to pray for our enemies, that we may prove faithful followers of our Savior Jesus Christ; who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

PRAYER (contemporary language)

Faithful God, you gave Jan Hus the courage to confess your truth and recall your Church to the image of Christ: Enable us, inspired by his example, to bear witness against corruption and never cease to pray for our enemies, that we may prove faithful followers of our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

St. Sexburga, Abbess of Ely
c700

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaxburh_of_Ely

Jul 06 Holy Father Sisoës The Great Of Egypt

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/saintoftheday/jul_06_holy_father_sisoes_the_great_of_egypt#7750

ST. MARIA GORETTI
TUESDAY, JULY 06, 2010

Born into a poor peasant family of six children at the end of the 19th century in Italy, Maria Goretti’s life was difficult from the beginning. Her family worked as farm hands and the children had to help feed the family as well.

Halfway through her short, saintly life, Maria’s father died of malaria. For some time the family had been working in the fields with another family named Serenelli. Now Maria’s mother had to work in the fields in place of her deceased husband and left Maria to take care of the smaller children.

She prayed a rosary every night for the repose of her father’s soul and was noted for her piety and virtue by many of those around her.

In 1902, after many advances on Maria, all of which she rejected, Alessandro Serenelli, a 19 year old farm hand, locked her into a room and tried to force himself upon her. She refused, fighting and warning him that he was committing a sin and that he would go to hell. Enraged, he then strangled her and stabbed her fourteen times.

She was rushed to hospital when they found her bleeding to death from her wounds and she survived for two agonizing days before dying.

In hospital she was asked if she forgave Alessandro, and she replied “Yes, for the love of Jesus I forgive him…and I want him to be with me in Paradise.”

Alessandro was sentenced to prison for 30 years. One day, eight years into his prison term, he had a vison of a young girl dressed in white gathering lilies in a garden. She smiled, came near Alessandro and encouraged him to accept the lilies. Each lily he took transformed into a still white flame. Then Maria disappeared.

This vision led to the conversion of Alessandro who repented deeply of what he had done. He served 19 more years in prison and was then released. The first thing he did on his release was to go and ask the forgiveness of Maria’s mother, which she duly granted. Alessandro worked as a gardener in a Franciscan monastery for the rest of his life.

Alessandro was one of the witnesses who testified to Maria’s holiness during her cause of beatification, citing the crime and the vision in prison.

Maria’s mother, Assunta, was present at her canonization ceremony in 1950 - the only time in history that a parent has been present at their child’s canonization - and 250,000 people were in attendance.

Maria Goretti is a patron saint of girls, rape victims, children and youth in general.

July 6, 2010
St. Maria Goretti
(1890-1902)

One of the largest crowds ever assembled for a canonization—250,000—symbolized the reaction of millions touched by the simple story of Maria Goretti.

She was the daughter of a poor Italian tenant farmer, had no chance to go to school, never learned to read or write. When she made her First Communion not long before her death at age 12, she was one of the larger and somewhat backward members of the class.

On a hot afternoon in July, Maria was sitting at the top of the stairs of her house, mending a shirt. She was not quite 12 years old, but physically mature. A cart stopped outside, and a neighbor, Alessandro, 18 years old, ran up the stairs. He seized her and pulled her into a bedroom. She struggled and tried to call for help, gasping that she would be killed rather than submit. “No, God does not wish it. It is a sin. You would go to hell for it.” Alessandro began striking at her blindly with a long dagger.

She was taken to a hospital. Her last hours were marked by the usual simple compassion of the good—concern about where her mother would sleep, forgiveness of her murderer (she had been in fear of him, but did not say anything lest she cause trouble to his family) and her devout welcoming of Viaticum. She died about 24 hours after the attack.

Her murderer was sentenced to 30 years in prison. For a long time he was unrepentant and surly. One night he had a dream or vision of Maria, gathering flowers and offering them to him. His life changed. When he was released after 27 years, his first act was to go to beg the forgiveness of Maria’s mother.

Devotion to the young martyr grew, miracles were worked, and in less than half a century she was canonized. At her beatification in 1947, her mother (then 82), two sisters and a brother appeared with Pope Pius XII on the balcony of St. Peter’s. Three years later, at her canonization, a 66-year-old Alessandro Serenelli knelt among the quarter-million people and cried tears of joy.

SIR THOMAS MORE

When Sir Thomas More was installed as lord chancellor, in the room of Cardinal Wolsey, the Duke of Norfolk, by the king’s express command, commended him ‘unto the people, there with great applause and joy gathered together,’ for his admirable wisdome, integritie, and innocencie, joined with most pleasant facilitie of witt; praise which perfectly suited its subject.

Sir Thomas More united prudence with pleasantry, great and singular learning with simplicity of life, and unaffected humility with the proudest temporal greatness: he preferred the love of his family, and the quiet pleasures of his own house-hold, to the favours of kings or delights of courts. It was only after the repeated urging of Henry, that at last he consented to relinquish his studious and secluded life at Chelsea: and it may truly be said that he was never happy after: for, besides his natural shrinking from public responsibility, and his disregard of worldly notoriety, he had a remarkably clear insight into Henry’s character, and never put much faith in his abundant favours.

More was retained in the king’s household like a personal friend, except that there must have been a degree of tyranny in his being kept thus continually from his own family. But his pleasantries amused the king and his queen, and his learning was useful to a monarch, who was writing a book which was to be the wonder of Christendom, and which had to be looked over, corrected, and arranged by Sir Thomas, as Sir Thomas himself admits, before Europe could be honoured with a glance at it. He was employed on several embassies alone, and in company with Wolsey: and finally, much against his will, he succeeded in 1529, to the highest honours, upon Wolsey’s fall.

He filled the office of chancellor with a wisdom and unspotted integrity which were unexampled in his own time: and yet united with these virtues such graceful ease and agreeable manners, that it seemed to him no effort to he honest, and no difficulty to be just. When one woman sought to bribe him, by presenting him with a valuable cup, he ordered his butler to fill it with wine, and having drunk her health, returned it: and when another presented him with a pair of gloves, containing forty pounds, he accepted the gloves and returned the gold, declaring that ‘he preferred his gloves without lining?’

More, though liberal-minded, was a stanch believer in the pope’s supremacy, and had a great dread of heresy: and when Henry opposed the pope’s will and decree by marrying Anne Boleyn, More resigned his chancellorship. He did not do so ostensibly on that account, but the king was shrewd enough to surmise his true reason. Henry really loved his servant, and did his utmost to obtain his approval of the new marriage, but the ex-chancellor preserved a discreet silence. The king, piqued by the neutrality of one whose opinion he valued, and on whom he fancied he had bestowed so many inestimable benefits, determined to make the late favourite acquiesce in his sovereign’s will. More was invited to the coronation, and urged to appear, but he refused. He was threatened, but he only smiled. His name was put in the bill of attainder against the supposed accomplices of Joan of Kent, and then erased as a favour. But when the oath was put to him, which declared the lawfulness of the king’s marriage, he would not take it, and so was committed to the Tower: and after many attempts, first to change him, and then to make him betray himself, so as to afford just ground for condemnation, he was tried and condemned unjustly, and beheaded, to the regret and shame of the whole nation, and all the world’s astonishment and disgust.

The body of Sir Thomas More was first interred in St. Peter’s Church, in the Tower, and afterwards in Chelsea Church: but his head was stuck on a pole, and placed on London Bridge, where it remained fourteen days. His eldest and favourite daughter, Margaret Roper, much grieved and shocked at this exposure of her father’s head, determined, if possible, to gain possession of it. She succeeded: and, according to Aubrey, in a very remarkable manner. ‘One day,’ says he, ‘as she was passing under the bridge, looking on her father’s head, she exclaimed: “That head has lain many a time in my lap, would to God it would fall into my lap as I pass under!” She had her wish, and it did fall into her lap!’ Improbable as this incident may appear, it is not unlikely that it really occurred. For having tried in vain to gain possession of the head by open and direct means, she bribed or persuaded one of the bridge-keepers to throw it over the bridge, as if to make room for another, just when he should see her passing in a boat beneath. And she doubtless made the above exclamation to her boatmen, to prevent the suspicion of a concerted scheme between her and the bridge-keeper. However some of these particulars may be questioned, it appears certain that Margaret Roper gained possession of her father’s head by some such means, for when summoned before the council for having it in her custody, she boldly declared that ‘her father’s head should not be food for fishes!’ For this she was imprisoned, but was soon liberated, and allowed to retain her father’s head, which she had enclosed in a leaden box, and preserved it with the tenderest devotion. She died in 1544, aged 36, and was buried in the Roper vault, in St. Dunstan’s Church, Canterbury: and, according to her own desire, her father’s head was placed in her coffin. But subsequently, for some cause not now known, it was removed from its leaden case, and deposited in a small niche in the wall of the vault, with an iron grating before it, where it now remains in the condition of a fleshless skull.

0649 St Martin I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
0767 [Constantine] begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1439 At the Council of Florence, the Decree of Union (‘Laententur Coeli’) was signed,creating an official theological union between the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches. Unfortunately, the Eastern Church at large never accepted the document and a fullworking unity between these two major
1768 English founder of Methodism John Wesley wrote in a letter: ‘We are reasonable creatures, and undoubtedly reason is the candle of the Lord. By enlightening our reason to see the meaning of the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit makes our way plain before us.’ 1865 William Booth founded Salvation Army in London
1903 Death of English theologian William Burt Pope, 81. His ‘Compendium of Christian Theology’ (1875-76) set forth the most powerful systematic arguments of his day for theholiness doctrine in Methodism.
1950: Israel’s Law of Return passed. Passed this day in 1950 by the Knesset, the Law of Return granted Jews the freedom to immigrate to Israel and receive immediate citizenship, but it proved controversial when the question “Who is a Jew?” raised other issues.
1962 Death of Helmut Richard Niebuhr, 67. Christian Ethics professor at Yale for 30years, Niebuhr is better remembered for his popular and oft-reprinted 1951 classic, ‘Christ and Culture’ — a work that explores available options of relating one’s personal faith to the world’s highest and noblest principles.
1963 In an instruction given by the Holy Office, disposal of the dead by cremation was officially granted sanction by the Catholic Church. (Belief in the resurrection of the dead had previously made cremation repugnant to many Christians.)

July 5

On this day in 1835, Archbishop of Dublin and poet Richard C. Trench was ordained a priest.

July 5

Antonio Maria Zaccaria, priest [common]
Catherine, virgin, martyr (Translation) [GTZ: Regensburg]
Domitian (Donation, Dominic), bishop, confessor, or martyr [WTS (Bruges)]
Dominica [PCP (Paris), as Dominic]
Edana, virgin [BLS]
Jacutus, abbot, confessor [GTZ: Tours]
Modwena [BLS]
Nicomedes, martyr [HCC]
Numerianus, bishop (of Trier), confessor [GTZ: Trier]
Paul, bishop (of Sens) [GTZ: Sens]
Peter (of Luxemburg), bishop (of Metz), cardinal, confessor [BLS]
Wendelin, confessor [GTZ: Strassburg, Trier (Translation)]

On This Day

Anthony Maria Zaccaria, priest (d. 1539)
Zoe of Rome (Roman Catholic Church)

In History

1865 - Salvation Army founded in East End of London

Jul 05 - St. Athanasius Of Mt. Athos And His Six Disciples

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/saintoftheday/jul_05_-_st._athanasius_of_mt._athos_and_his_six_disciples#7747

ST. ANTHONY MARY ZACCARIA
MONDAY, JULY 05, 2010

Founder of the Barnabites. Born in1502 at Cremona, Lombardy, Italy; died July 5, 1539 in Cremona; canonized May 27, 1897 by Pope Leo XIII

Anthony Maria was born to a well respected patrician family. His father died when he was only two and he was brought up alone by his mother.

He was a bright student and entered the University of Padua to study philosophy. On completeing that he entered medical school in Padua, and became a doctor at the age of 22. He devoted himself to working among the poor in his native Cremona.

It was in the course of his work that he recognized that he was called to the priesthood, and he began to study theology while continuing to treat the poor in the hospitals and the streets. He was ordained at 26, and it is said that when he celebrated his first Mass, angels surrounded the altar.

Continuing to work in Cremona, becoming famous as a preacher and excellent administrator, he followed advice to go to Milan and seek a bigger field for his apostolic work. There he met two priests with whom he founded a congregation for secular priests called the Society of the Clerics of Saint Paul, also known as the Barnabites.

With his brother priests he instilled in the faithful a deeper devotion to the sacraments and encouraged the practice of frequent communion, and continued his untiring service to the poor and sick.

Worn out by his efforts, he caught fever during a mission and, knowing he was at the end of his life, asked to be taken back to his mother’s house in Cremona, where he died peacefully at the age of 37. He is said to have had a vision of St. Paul just before he died.

His body was found in an incorrupt state 27 years after his death.

St. Anthony Zaccaria
(1502-1539)

At the same time that Martin Luther was attacking abuses in the Church, a reformation within the Church was already being attempted. Among the early movers of the Counter-Reformation was Anthony Zaccaria. His mother became a widow at 18 and devoted herself to the spiritual education of her son. He received a medical doctorate at 22 and, while working among the poor of his native Cremona, was attracted to the religious apostolate. He renounced his rights to any future inheritance, worked as a catechist, and was ordained a priest at the age of 26. Called to Milan in a few years, he laid the foundations of three religious congregations, one for men, one for women and another for laity. The three foundations met regularly and engaged together in various forms of apostolic action. Their aim was the reform of the decadent society of their day, beginning with the clergy and religious. The Laity of St. Paul died out soon after Anthony’s death but experienced a rebirth in the 1990s.

Greatly inspired by St. Paul (his congregation is named the Barnabites, after the companion of that saint), Anthony preached with great vigor in church and street, conducted popular missions and was not ashamed of doing public penance.

He encouraged such innovations as the collaboration of the laity in the apostolate, frequent Communion, the Forty Hours devotion and the ringing of church bells at 3:00 p.m. on Fridays.

His holiness moved many to reform their lives but, as with all saints, it also moved many to oppose him. Twice his community had to undergo official religious investigation, and twice it was exonerated.

1765 English poet and hymnwriter William Cowper observed in a letter: ‘How naturallydoes affliction make us Christians!’
1776 Declaration of Independence-US gains independence from Britain
1827 Slavery abolished in NY
1840 Birth of American sacred composer James McGranahan. His most enduring melodiesinclude CHRIST RETURNETH, MY REDEEMER, NEUMEISTER (‘Christ Receiveth Sinful Men’) andSHOWERS OF BLESSING.
1870 Birth of James Moffatt, Scottish New Testament scholar. Moffatt translated theNew (1913) and Old (1924) Testaments into the colloquial English of his day. They were firstpublished together in 1935.
1875 White Democrats kill several blacks in terrorist attacks in Vicksburg
1902 Vivekananda, Hindu spiritual leader and reformer Vivekananda—who attempted to combine Indian spirituality with Western material progress, maintaining that they supplemented and complemented one another—died this day in Calcutta in 1902.
1918 Altar dedicated at full-scale replica of Stonehenge at Maryhill, Wa
1970 American Presbyterian missionary Francis Schaeffer observed in a letter: ‘If standards are raised which are not really scriptural,… it can only lead to sorrow. If we try to have a spirituality higher than the Bible sets forth, it will always turn out to be lower.’
1973 In audience with Italian cyclists, Pope Paul VI praises athletes who
“offer the magnificent show of a healthy, strong, generous youth”

July 4

On this day in 973, Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg from 923, died. Twenty years later he would become the first person canonized by a pope.

Feast Day:

St. Finbar, abbot.
St. Bolcan, abbot.
St. Sisoes or Sisoy, anchoret in Egypt, about 429.
St. Bertha, widow, abbess of Blangy, in Artois, about 725.
St. Ulric, bishop of Augsburg, confessor, 973.
St. Ode, archbishop of Canterbury, confessor, 10th century.

July 4

Bertha, widow, abbess (of Blangy in Artois) [BLS]
Bolcan [BLS]
Elizabeth Lusitania [MR]
Finbar, abbot [BLS]
Laurianus, bishop, martyr [GTZ: Bourges]
Martin, bishop (of Tours), confessor (Translation, Ordination) [HCC, PCP (Paris), in red; WTS (Bruges), sometimes in red]
Odo, bishop (of Canterbury) [BLS]
Othelric, bishop, confessor [GTZ]
Procopius, abbot (at Prague), confessor [GTZ: Prague, Gnesen, Meissen]
Sisoes, anchorite [BLS]
Ulric, bishop (of Augsburg) confessor [common]

Independence Day (United States)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(United_States)

INDEPENDENCE DAY
(United States of America) (4 JULY 1776)

On 2 July 1776, the Continental Congress, comprising delegates sent by the legislatures of the thirteen colonies, voted to declare complete independence from British rule, and on 4 July the formal wording of the declaration (principally the work of Thomas Jefferson) was approved and the document signed.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation upon such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are long accustomed. But [our grievances are neither light nor transient, and a list of them follows….]
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

The decision to seek independence rather than simply a restoration of the colonists’ traditional rights as British subjects did not come readily or suddenly. Armies had been in the field for more than a year before the Declaration, and for another two years afterward, the officers of the Continental Army drank his Majesty’s health at every mess. But the Declaration was rightly acknowledged as crucial. It speaks in terms of the Natural Law and God-given principles of justice and right, in language that, as one (British) writer has said, combines great prose, great politics, and great theology.

FIRST READING: Deuteronomy 10:17-21
(“When you have entered the homeland that God gives you, serve Him
faithfully. Deal generously with the alien and the homeless, for you
were homeless aliens in the land of Egypt.”)

PSALM 145
(“One generation shall declare thy works unto another.”)

EPISTLE: Hebrews 11:8-16
(Abraham and the other saints of old recognized that their true and
abiding homeland is not on earth, but awaits them in Heaven.)

GOSPEL: Matthew 5:43-48
(“Love your enemies…. Your Father in Heaven makes the sun rise on
the evil and the good….”)

Readings:

Psalm 145 or 145:1-9;
Deuteronomy 10:17-21;
Hebrews 11:8-16;
Matthew 5:43-48

Preface of the Trinity

PRAYER (traditional language)

Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant, we beseech thee, that we and all the peoples of this land may have grace to maintain these liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

PRAYERS (contemporary language)

Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant, we pray, that we and all the peoples of this land may have grace to maintain these liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

ST. ELIZABETH OF PORTUGAL
SUNDAY, JULY 04, 2010

St. Elisabeth of Portugal is known as a great peacemaker. She was actually born in Aragon, Spain, in 1271, the daughter of King Pedro III. Her great aunt was St. Elizabeth of Hungary, after whom she was named.

She grew up in a very pious home, with daily mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. At the age of 12, she was married to King Diniz of Portugal and became queen of the country before she was a teen. However, her husband was abusive and an adulturer. Still, they had two children and she prayed for his conversion and served the poor and the sick.

Her son, Prince Affonso, rebelled against the favors his fathers bestowed on his illegitimate sons and, in 1323, confronted the king’s forces with his own. But Elizabeth rode onto the battlefield between them, and was able to bring reconciliation between father and son.

After her husband died in 1325, Elizabeth distributed her property to the poor and became a Franciscan tertiary. She retired to a monastery of Poor Clare, which she had founded at Coimbra.

However, she emerged on the battlefield as a peacemaker in 1336, when her son, now king, marched against his son-in-law, the king of Castile, to punish him for being a negligent and abusive husband. She died later that same year.

St. Elizabeth is the patroness of difficult marriages, victims of adultery, widows and royalty.

St. Elizabeth of Portugal
(1271-1336)

Elizabeth is usually depicted in royal garb with a dove or an olive branch. At her birth in 1271, her father, Pedro III, future king of Aragon, was reconciled with his father, James, the reigning monarch. This proved to be a portent of things to come. Under the healthful influences surrounding her early years, she quickly learned self-discipline and acquired a taste for spirituality. Thus fortunately prepared, she was able to meet the challenge when, at the age of 12, she was given in marriage to Denis, king of Portugal. She was able to establish for herself a pattern of life conducive to growth in God’s love, not merely through her exercises of piety, including daily Mass, but also through her exercise of charity, by which she was able to befriend and help pilgrims, strangers, the sick, the poor—in a word, all those whose need came to her notice. At the same time she remained devoted to her husband, whose infidelity to her was a scandal to the kingdom.

He too was the object of many of her peace endeavors. She long sought peace for him with God, and was finally rewarded when he gave up his life of sin. She repeatedly sought and effected peace between the king and their rebellious son, Alfonso, who thought that he was passed over to favor the king’s illegitimate children. She acted as peacemaker in the struggle between Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and his cousin James, who claimed the crown. And finally from Coimbra, where she had retired as a Franciscan tertiary to the monastery of the Poor Clares after the death of her husband, she set out and was able to bring about a lasting peace between her son Alfonso, now king of Portugal, and his son-in-law, the king of Castile.

TRANSLATION OF ST. MARTIN

That the Church of Rome should not only celebrate the day of St. Martin’s death (November 11), but also that of the transference of his remains from their original humble resting place to the cathedral of Tours, shews conclusively the veneration in which this soldier-saint was held. (See under November 11.) The day continues to have a place in the Church of England calendar.

In Scotland, this used to be called St. Martin of Bullion’s Day, and the weather which prevailed upon it was supposed to have a prophetic character. It was a proverb, that if the deer rise dry and lie down dry on Bullion’s Day, it was a sign there would be a good gose-harvest—gose being a term for the latter end of summer; hence gose-harvest was an early harvest. It was believed generally over Europe that rain on this day betokened wet weather for the twenty ensuing days.

THE FOURTH OF JULY

Where a country or a government has been baffled in its efforts to attain or preserve a hated rule over another people, it must be content to see its failure made the subject of never-ending triumph and exultation. The joy attached to the sense of escape or emancipation tends to perpetuate itself by periodical celebrations, in which it is not likely that the motives of the other party, or the general justice of the case, will be very carefully considered or allowed for. We may doubt if it be morally expedient thus to keep alive the memory of facts which as certainly infer mortification to one party as they do glorification to another: but we must all admit that it is only natural, and in a measure to be expected.

The anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, has ever since been celebrated as a great national festival throughout the United States, and wherever Americans are assembled over the world. From Maine to Oregon, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, in every town and village, this birthday of the Republic has always hitherto been ushered in with the ringing of bells, the firing of cannon, the display of the national flag, and other evidences of public rejoicing. A national salute is fired at sunrise, noon, and at sunset, from every fort and man-of-war. The army, militia, and volunteer troops parade, with bands of music, and join with the citizens in patriotic processions. The famous Declaration is solemnly read, and orators, appointed for the occasion, deliver what are termed Fourth of July Orations, in which the history of the country is reviewed, and its past and coming glories pro-claimed. The virtues of the Pilgrim Fathers, the heroic exertions and sufferings of the soldiers of the Revolution, the growth and power of the Republic, and the great future which expands before her, are the staple ideas of these orations. Dinners, toasts, and speeches follow, and at night the whole country blazes with bonfires, rockets, Roman candles, and fireworks of every description. In a great city like New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, the day, and even the night previous, is insufferably noisy with the constant rattle of Chinese-crackers and firearms. In the evening, the displays of fireworks in the public squares, provided by the authorities, are often magnificent.

0683 St Leo II ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1756 English founder of Methodism John Wesley wrote in a letter: ‘One who lives and dies in error, or in dissent from our Church, may yet be saved; but one who lives and dies in sin must perish.’
1848 Slaves freed in Danish West Indies (now US Virgin Islands)
1894 Birth of Don R. Falkenberg, founder in 1923 of the Mid-West Businessmen’s Council of the Pocket Testament League. In 1967 the name of this evangelical agency was changed to Bible Literature International.
1907 Pope St. Pius X, in his encyclical ‘Lamentabili,’ formally condemned the’modernist’ intellectual movement, as it exhibited itself in the Catholic Church.
1959 Pope John XXIII, in his encyclical ‘Ad Petri Cathedram,’ expressed the hope that non-Catholic Christians would see in the upcoming Vatical II Ecumenical Council ‘a warminvitation to seek and find unity.’
1979 Thirty-four years after the end of World War II, the West German government voted to continue prosecution of Nazi war criminals by removing the statute of limitations onmurder.

July 3

On this day in 1999, twenty-fifth Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold began his official visit to Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church.

July 3

Appolin [PCP (Paris)]
Bertran, bishop (of Le Mans) [BLS]
Gunthiern, abbot [BLS]
Guthagon, recluse [BLS]
Leo (II), pope [BLS]
Marinus, bishop, martyr [GTZ: Sleswig, Scandinavia]
Phocas, martyr [BLS]
Raymond, confessor (at Toulouse) [GTZ: Toulouse]
Sidronius, martyr [GTZ: Sens]
Thomas, apostle (Translation) [common]

ST. THOMAS, APOSTLE
SATURDAY, JULY 03, 2010

What we know of the life of St. Thomas is what is recorded of him in the Gospels -especially the Gospel of John - and what has been handed down by tradition. He is named in the three synoptic Gospels but only in the lists of the Apostles of Christ.

St. Thomas is most famously known for having doubted the news of Christ’s Resurrection, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25)

He believed a week later when Christ presented Himself and said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” When Thomas did so he exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”

But Thomas was also the Apostle who was ready to die with the Lord when Jesus said that he would go to Judea to visit His friend Lazarus, a journey that was clearly perilous because the Jewish authorities were looking to kill Him: “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16).

St. Thomas, as tradition has it, is said to have been the Apostle who preached the Gospel in the East, to the Persians and Medians, and all the way to the southern coast of India. The Syro-Malabar Catholics, of southern India, claim that their church was founded by the Apostle Thomas in 52 A.D. and he is said to have been martyred in the year 72 by being struck by a spear.

Pope Paul VI declared St. Thomas the Apostle of India in 1972. He is the patron of architects, carpenters and builders.

July 3, 2010
St. Thomas the Apostle

Poor Thomas! He made one remark and has been branded as “Doubting Thomas” ever since. But if he doubted, he also believed. He made what is certainly the most explicit statement of faith in the New Testament: “My Lord and My God!” (see John 20:24-28) and, in so expressing his faith, gave Christians a prayer that will be said till the end of time. He also occasioned a compliment from Jesus to all later Christians: “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed” (John 20:29).

Thomas should be equally well known for his courage. Perhaps what he said was impetuous—since he ran, like the rest, at the showdown—but he can scarcely have been insincere when he expressed his willingness to die with Jesus. The occasion was when Jesus proposed to go to Bethany after Lazarus had died. Since Bethany was near Jerusalem, this meant walking into the very midst of his enemies and to almost certain death. Realizing this, Thomas said to the other apostles, “Let us also go to die with him” (John 11:16b).

Festival of Cerridwen
Celtism

1535 Sir Thomas More went on trial in England charged with treason
1643 The Westminster Assembly first convened in England, from which would emerge the Westminster longer and shorter catechisms.
1690 Army of England’s Protestant King William III defeats Roman Catholic King James II in Battle of the Boyne in Ireland (Now celebrated on July 12 as “The Battle of the Orange”)
1800 The earliest recorded Methodist camp meeting in America was held in Logan County Kentucky, near the Gaspar River Church.
1899 In Wisconsin, the Gideons were founded by three traveling businessmen. They placed their first Bibles in 1908 at the Superior Hotel in Iron Mountain, Montana.
1917 Race riots in East St Louis Illinois (40 to 200 reported killed)
1942 Birth of Andrae Crouch, African-American sacred music artist. His most enduring gospel songs have been ‘Soon and Very Soon,’ ‘My Tribute’ and ‘Through It All.’
1959 World Refugee Year begins
1985 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public school teachers may not enter parochial school classrooms, to provide remedial or enrichment instruction.

Feast Day:

Saints Julius and Aaron, martyrs, about 303;
St. Thierri, abbot of Mont-d’Hor, 533;
St. Calais or Carilephus, abbot of Anille, 542;
St. Gal the First, bishop of Clermont, about 553;
St. Cybar, recluse at Angouleme, 581;
St. Simeon, surnamed Salus, 6th century;
St. Leonorus or Lunaire, bishop;
St. Rumold, patron of Mechlin, bishop and martyr, 775;
St. Theobald or Thibault, confessor, 1066.

July 1

Calais, abbot (of Ancille) [BLS]
Carileffus, priest [GTZ: Chartres, Rouen, Tours, Durham]
Cybar, recluse [BLS]
Domitian, abbot, confessor [GTZ: Lyon]
Eparchius, priest (at Angoulême), confessor [GTZ: Angoulême, Saintes, Limoges]
Gaius, pope, martyr [GTZ: Bamberg]
Gall, bishop (of Clermont) [BLS; GTZ: Clermont]
Golvinus, bishop (of Léon), confessor [GTZ: St. Pol de Léon]
John the Baptist (Octave) [common; 6082, in red]
Julius and Aaron, martyrs [BLS]
Leonore, bishop, confessor [BLS; GTZ: Paris; PCP (Paris), as Lunaire]
Leontius, bishop (of Autun), confessor [GTZ: Autun]
Monegundis, virgin [GTZ: Liège]
Oliver Plunkett, martyr [BLS]
Rumold, bishop, martyr [BLS; GTZ: Liège, Cambrai, Scotland]
Servanus, bishop, confessor [GTZ: Scotland]
Simeon Salus [BLS]
Sophia, widow, and daughters (Faith, Hope, and Charity), martyrs [GTZ: Freising, Minden, Sitten]
Theobald, priest, confessor [BLS; GTZ: Mainz, Trier, Metz, Switzerland, France; PCP (Paris)]
Theoderic (Thierry), abbot (of Mont d’Hor), confessor [BLS; GTZ: Reims]

On This Day

Aaron (Syriac Christianity)
Feast of the Most Precious Blood,
Blessed Fray Junípero Serra,
Julius and Aaron,
Leontius of Autun,
Servanus

In History

1858 - Joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace’s papers on evolution to Linnean Society
2002 - International Criminal Court established

Harriet Beecher Stowe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Beecher_Stowe

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
WRITER AND PROPHETIC WITNESS, 1896

Harriet Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American abolitionist and author. Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) depicted life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom and made the political issues of the 1850s regarding slavery tangible to millions, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Upon meeting Stowe, Abraham Lincoln allegedly remarked, “So you’re the little lady who started this great war!” The quote is regarded as apocryphal.

Harriet Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut on June 14, 1811. She was the daughter of outspoken religious leader Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote, a deeply religious woman who died when Stowe was four years old. She was the sister of the educator and author, Catharine Beecher, clergymen Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, and Edward Beecher.

Harriet enrolled in the seminary run by her eldest sister Catharine, where she received a traditionally “male” education. At the age of 21, she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to join her father, who had become the president of Lane Theological Seminary, and in 1836 she married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor at the seminary and an ardent critic of slavery. The Stowes supported the Underground Railroad and housed several fugitive slaves in their home. They eventually moved to Brunswick, Maine, where Calvin taught at Bowdoin College.

In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, prohibiting assistance to fugitives. Stowe was moved to present her objections on paper, and in June 1851, the first installment of Uncle Tom’s Cabin appeared in the antislavery journal National Era. The 40-year-old mother of seven children sparked a national debate and, as Abraham Lincoln is said to have noted, a war. Stowe died on July 1, 1896, at age eighty-five, in Hartford, Connecticut.

— more at Wikipedia

Readings:

Psalm 94:16-23
Isaiah 26:7-13
1 Peter 3:8-12
Matthew 23:1-12

Preface of Advent

PRAYER (traditional language)

Gracious God, we offer thanks for the witness of Harriett Beecher Stowe, whose fiction inspired thousands with compassion for the shame and sufferings of enslaved peoples, and who enriched her writings with the cadences of The Book of Common Prayer. Help us, like her, to strive for thy justice, that our eyes may see the glory of thy Son, Jesus Christ, when he comes to reign with thee and the Holy Spirit in reconciliation and peace, one God, now and always. Amen.

PRAYER (contemporary language)

Gracious God, we thank you for the witness of Harriett Beecher Stowe, whose fiction inspired thousands with compassion for the shame and sufferings of enslaved peoples, and who enriched her writings with the cadences of The Book of Common Prayer. Help us, like her, to strive for your justice, that our eyes may see the glory of your Son, Jesus Christ, when he comes to reign with you and the Holy Spirit in reconciliation and peace, one God, now and always. Amen.

ST. ARNULF OF METZ
THURSDAY, JULY 01, 2010

Statesman, bishop under the Merovingians, born c. 580; died c. 640. His parents belonged to a distinguished Frankish family, and lived in Austrasia, the eastern section of the kingdom founded by Clovis. In the school in which he was placed during his boyhood he excelled through his talent and his good behaviour. According to the custom of the age, he was sent in due time to the court of Theodebert II, King of Austrasia (595-612), to be initiated in the various branches of the government. Under the guidance of Gundulf, the Mayor of the Palace, he soon became so proficient that he was placed on the regular list of royal officers, and among the first of the kings ministers. He distinguished himself both as a military commander and in the civil administration; at one time he had under his care six distinct provinces. In due course Arnulf was married to a Frankish woman of noble lineage, by whom he had two sons, Anseghisel and Clodulf. While Arnulf was enjoying worldly emoluments and honours he did not forget higher and spiritual things. His thoughts dwelled often on monasteries, and with his friend Romaricus, likewise an officer of the court, he planned to make a pilgrimage to the Abbey of Lérins, evidently for the purpose of devoting his life to God. But in the meantime the Episcopal See of Metz became vacant. Arnulf was universally designated as a worthy candidate for the office, and he was consecrated bishop of that see about 611. In his new position he set the example of a virtuous life to his subjects, and attended to matters of ecclesiastical government. In 625 he took part in a council held by the Frankish bishops at Reims. With all this Arnulf retained his station at the court of the king, and took a prominent part in the national life of his people.

In 613, after the death of Theodebert, he, with Pepin of Landen and other nobles, called to Austrasia Clothaire II, King of Neustria. When, in 625, the realm of Austrasia was entrusted to the kings son Dagobert, Arnulf became not only the tutor, but also the chief minister, of the young king. At the time of the estrangement between the two kings, and 625, Arnulf with other bishops and nobles tried to effect a reconciliation. But Arnulf dreaded the responsibilities of the episcopal office and grew weary of court life.

About the year 626 he obtained the appointment of a successor to the Episcopal See of Metz; he himself and his friend Romaricus withdrew to a solitary place in the mountains of the Vosges. There he lived in communion with God until his death. His remains, interred by Romaricus, were transferred about a year afterwards, by Bishop Goeric, to the basilica of the Holy Apostles in Metz.

Jul 1 - Holy And Wonderworking Unmercenaries Cosmas And Damian, Martyrs At Rome

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/saintoftheday/jul_1_-_holy_and_wonderworking_unmercenaries_cosmas_and_damian_martyrs_at_r#7716

1 Jul 1878
Catherine Winkworth, Hymnwriter and Educator

Catherine Winkworth was born in London in 1827, and spent most of her life in Manchester. In 1845 she went to Dresden, Germany, to stay for a year. In 1853 (or 1855?) she published a collection of translations of German hymns into English, called Lyra Germanica. It was an instant success, and went into 23 editions. Her second series, published in 1858, went into 12 editions. In 1863 she published The Chorale Book For England, and in 1869 Christian Singers of Germany. Her work is one of the principal means by which the great German chorale tradition of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries has been incorporated into English-language worship.

Some of her hymn translations widely sung today, plucked from a couple of nearby hymnals, are listed below. I give the first line, followed by the German author, and the date of writing or (preceded by a +) the date of the author’s death. Stars mark my own favorites.

All depends on our possessing (Nuernburg Hymnal, 1676)
* All my heart this night rejoices (Paulus Gerhardt, 1656)
* Baptized into thy name most holy (Johann J Rambach, +1735)
* Blessed Jesus, at thy word (Tobias Clausnitzer, +1684)
Christ, the life of all the living (Ernst C Homburg, +1681)
Christ the Lord is risen again! (Michael Weissel, +1534)
* Comfort, comfort ye my people (Johann Olearius, +1684)
Dearest Jesus, we are here (Benjamin Schmolck, +1737)
Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness (Johann Franck, 1649)
* From deepest woe I cry to thee (Martin Luther, +1546)
* If thou but suffer God to guide thee (Georg Neumark, +1681)
In thee is gladness (Johann Lindemann, + c1631)
* Jesus Christ, my sure defense (anon., Berlin, 1653)
* Jesus, priceless treasure (Johann Franck, +1677)
Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates (George Weissel, 1642)
Lord God, we worship thee (Johann Franck, 1653)
* Lord Jesus Christ, be present now (Wilhelm II, +1662)
Lord, keep us steadfast in thy Word (Martin Luther, +1546)
* Lord, thee I love with all my heart (Martin Schalling, +1608)
* My soul, now bless thy maker (Johann Gramann, +1541)
* Now thank we all our God (Martin Rinkart, c1630)
O Christ, our light, O Radiance true (Johann Hermann, +1647)
* O God, thou faithful God (Johann, Franck, +1647)
O Holy Spirit, enter in (Michael Schirmer, +1673)
O Jesus Christ, our Lord most dear (Heinrich von Laufenburg,1429)
* O living Bread from heaven (Johann Rist, +1667)
Oh, blest the house, whate’er befall (Christoph von Pfeil, +1784)
Once he came in blessing (Johann Horn (aka Jan Roh?), +1547)
Open now thy gates of beauty (Benjamin Schmolck, +1737)
* Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (Joachim Neander, +1680)
Rise, my soul, to watch and pray (Johann B Freystein, +1718)
Thy Word, O Lord, is gentle dew (Carl B Garve, +1841)
* Wake, awake, for night is flying (Philip Nicolai, 1597)
* When in the hour of deepest need (Paul Eber +1569)
(Note: Your hymnal may have a slightly different title, since hymnal compilers tend to fiddle with the wording. Thus, “All my heart this night rejoices” has been changed in some hymnals to “Once again my heart rejoices,” presumably so that it can be sung on other occasions than Christmas Eve.)

In addition to translating hymns, Miss Winkworth was deeply involved in promoting women’s rights, and was the secretary of the Clifton Association for Higher Education for Women, a supporter of the Clifton High School for Girls, and a member of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College. She died suddenly of heart disease near Geneva on 1 July 1878.

PRAYER (traditional language):

Heavenly Father, by whose grace thy servant Catherine was moved To render into English the words of praise which she had heard in the German tongue: grant unto us a like devotion, that we may be moved to proclaim thy glory in sacred song; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever.

PRAYER (contemporary language):

Heavenly Father, by whose grace your servant Catherine was Moved to render into English the words of praise which she had heard in the German tongue: grant us a like devotion, that we may be moved to proclaim your glory in sacred song; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Blessed Junipero Serra
(1713-1784)

In 1776, when the American Revolution was beginning in the east, another part of the future United States was being born in California. That year a gray-robed Franciscan founded Mission San Juan Capistrano, now famous for its annually returning swallows. San Juan was the seventh of nine missions established under the direction of this indomitable Spaniard.

Born in Spain’s island of Mallorca, Serra entered the Franciscan Order, taking the name of St. Francis’ childlike companion, Brother Juniper. Until he was 35, he spent most of his time in the classroom—first as a student of theology and then as a professor. He also became famous for his preaching. Suddenly he gave it all up and followed the yearning that had begun years before when he heard about the missionary work of St. Francis Solanus in South America. Junipero’s desire was to convert native peoples in the New World.

Arriving by ship at Vera Cruz, Mexico, he and a companion walked the 250 miles to Mexico City. On the way Junipero’s left leg became infected by an insect bite and would remain a cross—sometimes life-threatening—for the rest of his life. For 18 years he worked in central Mexico and in the Baja Peninsula. He became president of the missions there.

Enter politics: the threat of a Russian invasion south from Alaska. Charles III of Spain ordered an expedition to beat Russia to the territory. So the last two conquistadors—one military, one spiritual—began their quest. José de Galvez persuaded Junipero to set out with him for present-day Monterey, California. The first mission founded after the 900-mile journey north was San Diego (1769). That year a shortage of food almost canceled the expedition. Vowing to stay with the local people, Junipero and another friar began a novena in preparation for St. Joseph’s day, March 19, the scheduled day of departure. On that day, the relief ship arrived.

Other missions followed: Monterey/Carmel (1770); San Antonio and San Gabriel (1771); San Luís Obispo (1772); San Francisco and San Juan Capistrano (1776); Santa Clara (1777); San Buenaventura (1782). Twelve more were founded after Serra’s death.

Junipero made the long trip to Mexico City to settle great differences with the military commander. He arrived at the point of death. The outcome was substantially what Junipero sought: the famous “Regulation” protecting the Indians and the missions. It was the basis for the first significant legislation in California, a “Bill of Rights” for Native Americans.

Because the Native Americans were living a nonhuman life from the Spanish point of view, the friars were made their legal guardians. The Native Americans were kept at the mission after Baptism lest they be corrupted in their former haunts—a move that has brought cries of “injustice” from some moderns.

Junipero’s missionary life was a long battle with cold and hunger, with unsympathetic military commanders and even with danger of death from non-Christian native peoples. Through it all his unquenchable zeal was fed by prayer each night, often from midnight till dawn. He baptized over 6,000 people and confirmed 5,000. His travels would have circled the globe. He brought the Native Americans not only the gift of faith but also a decent standard of living. He won their love, as witnessed especially by their grief at his death. He is buried at Mission San Carlo Borromeo, Carmel, and was beatified in 1988.

HOLY WELLS

July 1, 1652, the eccentric John Taylor, commonly called the Water Poet, from his having been a waterman on the Thames, paid a visit to St. Winifred’s Well, at Holywell, in Flintshire. This was a place held in no small veneration even in Taylor’s days; but in Catholic times, it filled a great space indeed.

There is something at once so beautiful and so bountiful in a spring of pure water, that no wonder it should become an object of some regard among a simple people. We all feel the force of Horace’s abrupt and enthusiastic address, ‘0 Fons Blandusiae, splendidior vitro,’ and do not wonder that he should resolve upon sacrificing a kid to it. In the middle ages, when a Christian tinge was given to everything, the discovery of a spring in a romantic situation, or remarkable for the brightness, purity, or taste of its water, was forthwith followed by its dedication to some saint; and once placed among the category of holy wells, its waters were endued, by popular faith, with powers more or less miraculous. Shrewd Thomas Powell, writing in 1631, says: ‘Let them find out some strange water, some unheard-of spring; it is an easy matter to discolour or alter the taste of it in some measure, it makes no matter s how little. Report strange cures that it hath done; beget a superstitious opinion of it. Good-fellowship shall uphold it, and the neighbouring towns shall all swear for it.’

So early as 963, the Saxon king Edgar thought it necessary to forbid the ‘worshipping of fountains,’ and the canons of Anselm (1102) lay it down as a rule, that no one is to attribute reverence or sanctity to a fountain without the bishop’s authority. Canons, however powerful to foster superstition, were powerless to control it; ignorance invested springs with sanctity without the aid of the church, and every county could boast of its holy well.

Some of these were held specially efficacious for certain diseases. St. Tegla’s Well was patronised by sufferers from ‘the falling sickness;’ St. John’s, Balmanno, Kincardineshire, by mothers whose children were troubled with rickets or sore eyes. The Tobirnimbuadh, or spring of many virtues, in St. Kilda’s Isle, was pre-eminent in deafness and nervous disorders; while the waters of Trinity Gask Well, Perthshire, enabled every one baptized therein to face the plague without fear. Others, again, possessed peculiar properties. Thus, St. Loy’s Well, Tottenham, was said to be always full but never overflowing; the waters of St. Non’s ebbed and flowed with the sea; and those of the Toberi-clerich, St. Kilda, although covered twice in the day by the sea, never became brackish.

The most famous holy well in the three kingdoms is undoubtedly that dedicated to St. Winifred (Holywell, Flintshire), at whose shrine Giraldus Cambrensis offered his devotions in the twelfth century, when he says she seemed ’ still to retain her miraculous powers.’ Winifred was a noble British maiden of the seventh century; a certain Prince Cradocus fell in love with her, and finding his rough advances repulsed, cut off the lady’s head. Immediately he had done this, the prince was struck dead, and the earth opening, swallowed up his body. Meanwhile, Winifred’s head rolled down the hill; where it stopped, a spring gushed forth, the blood from the head colouring the pebbles over which it flowed, and rendering fragrant the moss growing around. St. Bueno picked up the head, and skilfully reunited it to the body to which it belonged, after which Winifred lived a life of sanctity for fifteen years, while the spring to which she gave her name became famous in the land for its curative powers.

The spring rises from a bed of shingle at the foot of a steep hill, the water rushing out with great impetuosity, and flowing into and over the main basin into a smaller one in front. The well is enclosed by a building in the perpendicular Gothic style (dating from the beginning of the reign of Henry VII), which ‘forms a crypt under a small chapel contiguous to the parish church, and on a level with it, the entrance to the well being by a descent of about twenty steps from the street. The well itself is a star-shaped basin, ten feet in diameter, canopied by a most graceful stellar vault, and originally enclosed by stone traceried screens filling up the spaces between the supports. Round the basin is an ambulatory similarly vaulted.’

The sculptural ornaments consisted of grotesque animals, and the armorial-bearings of various benefactors of the shrine; among them being Catharine of Aragon, Margaret, mother of Henry VII, and different members of the Stanley family, the founders both of the crypt and the chapel above it. Formerly, the former contained statues of the Virgin Mary and St. Winifred. The first was removed in 1635; the fate of Winifred’s effigy, to which a Countess of Warwick (1439) bequeathed her russet velvet gown, is unknown.

On the stones at the bottom of the well grow the Bissus iolethus, and a species of red Jungermania moss, known in the vulgar tongue as Winifred’s hair and blood. In the seventeenth century, St. Winifred could boast thousands of votaries. James II paid a visit to the shrine in 1688, and received the shift worn by his great-grandmother at her execution, for his pains. Pennant found the roof of the vault hung with the crutches of grateful cripples. He says, ‘the resort of pilgrims of late years to these Fontanalia has considerably decreased; the greatest number are from Lancashire. In the summer, still a few are to be seen in the water, in deep devotion up to their chins for hours, sending up their prayers, or performing a number of evolutions round the polygonal well; or threading the arches between and the well a prescribed number of times.’

An attempt to revive the public faith in the Flintshire saint was made in 1805, when a pamphlet was published, detailing how one Winefred White, of Wolverhampton, experienced the benefit of the virtue of the spring. The cure is certified by a resident of Holywell, named Elizabeth Jones, in the following terms: ‘I hereby declare that, about three months ago, I saw a young woman calling herself Winefred White, walking with great difficulty on a crutch; and that on the following morning, the said Winefred White came to me running, and without any appearance of lameness, having, as she told me, been immediately cured after once bathing in St. Winifred’s Well.’ It was of no avail; a dead belief was not to be brought again to life even by Elizabeth Jones of Holywell.

St. Madern’s Well, Cornwall, was another popular resort for those who sought to be relieved from aches and pains. Bishop Hall, in his Mystery of Godliness, bears testimony to the reality of a cure wrought upon a cripple by its waters. He says he ‘took strict and impartial examination’ of the evidence, and found neither art nor collusion—the cure done, the author an invisible God.’ In the seventeenth century, however, the well seems to have lost its reputation. St. Madern was always propitiated by offerings of pins or pebbles. This custom prevailed in many other places beside; Mr. Haslam assures us, that pins may be collected by the handful near most Cornish wells. At St. Kilda, none dared approach with empty hands, or without making some offering to the genius of the place, either in the shape of shells, pins, needles, pebbles, coins, or rags. A well near Newcastle obtained the name of Ragwell, from the quantity of rags left upon the adjacent bushes as thank-offerings. St. Tegla, of Denbighshire, required greater sacrifices from her votaries. To obtain her good offices, it was necessary to bathe in the well, walk round it three times, repeating the Lord’s Prayer at each circuit, and leave fourpence at the shrine. A cock or hen (according to the patient’s sex) was then placed in a basket, and carried round the well, into the churchyard, and round the church. The patient then entered the church, and ensconced him or herself under the communion-table, with a Bible for a pillow, and so remained till daybreak. If the fowl, kept all this while imprisoned, died, the disease was supposed to have been transferred to it, and, as a matter of course, the believer in St. Tegla was made whole.

Wells were also used as divining-pools. By taking a shirt or a shift off a sick person, and throwing it into the well of St. Oswald (near Newton), the end of the illness could easily be known—if the garment floated, all would be well; if it sank, it was useless to hope. The same result was arrived at by placing a wooden bowl softly on the surface of St. Andrew’s Well (Isle of Lewis), and watching if it turned from or towards the sun; the latter being the favourable omen. A fore-knowledge of the future, too, was to be gained by shaking the ground round St. Madern’s Spring, and reading fate in the rising bubbles. At St. Michael’s (Banffshire), an immortal fly was ever at his post as guardian of the well. ‘If the sober matron wished to know the issue of her husband’s ailment, or the love-sick nymph that of her languishing swain, they visited the well of St. Michael. Every movement of the sympathetic fly was regarded with silent awe, and as he appeared cheerful or dejected, the anxious votaries drew their presages.’

Of St. Keyne’s Well, Cornwall, Carew in his Survey quotes the following descriptive rhymes:

‘In name, in shape, in quality,
This well is very quaint;
The name to lot of Keyne befell,
No over-holy saint.
The shape—four trees of divers kind,
Withy, oak, elm, and ash,
Make with their roots an arched roof,
Whose floor the spring doth wash.
The quality—that man and wife,
Whose chance or choice attains,
First of this sacred stream to drink,
Thereby the mastery gains.’

Southey sang of St. Keyne—how the traveller drank a double draught when the Cornishman enlightened him respecting the properties of the spring, and how

You drank of the well I warrant betimes?
He to the Cornishman said;
But the Cornishman smiled as the stranger spake,
And sheepishly shook his head.

I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch;
But i’ faith she had been wiser than me,
For she took a bottle to church!’

When Erasmus visited the wells of Walsingham (Norfolk), they were the favourite resort of people afflicted with diseases of the head and stomach. The belief in their medicinal powers afterwards declined, but they were invested with the more wonderful power of bringing about the fulfilment of wishes. Between the two wells lay a stone on which the votary of our Lady of Walsingham knelt with his right knee bare; he then plunged one hand in each well, so that the water reached the wrist, and silently wished his wish, after which he drank as much of the water as he could hold in the hollows of his hands. This done, his wishes would infallibly be fulfilled within the year, provided he never mentioned it to any one or uttered it aloud to himself.

While the Routing Well of Inveresk rumbled before a storm of nature’s making, the well of Oundle, Northamptonshire, gave warning of perturbations in the world of politics. Baxter writes (World of Spirits, p. 157)— ‘When I was a school-master at Oundle, about the Scots coming into England, I heard a well in one Dob’s yard, drum like any drum beating a march. I heard it at a distance; then I went and put my head into the mouth of the well, and heard it distinctly, and nobody in the well. It lasted several days and nights, so as all the country-people came to hear it. And so it drummed on several changes of tunes. When King Charles II died, I went to the Oundle carrier at the Ram Inn, Smithfield, who told me the well had drummed, and many people came to hear it.’

Not many years ago, the young folks of Bromfield, Cumberland, and the neighbouring villages, used to meet on a Sunday afternoon in May, at the holywell, near St. Cuthbert’s Stane, and indulge in various rural sports, during which not one was permitted to drink anything but water from the well. This seems to have been a custom common to the whole county at one time, according to The June Days Jingle:

The wells of rocky Cumberland
Have each a saint or patron,
Who holds an annual festival,
The joy of maid and matron.

And to this day, as erst they wont,
The youths and maids repair,
To certain wells on certain days,
And hold a revel there.

Of sugar-stick and liquorice,
With water from the spring,
They mix a pleasant beverage,
And May-day carols sing.’

London was not without its holy wells; there was one dedicated to St. John, in Shoreditch, which Stow says was spoiled by rubbish and filth laid down to heighten the plots of garden-ground near it. A pump now represents St. Clement’s Well (Strand), which in Henry II’s reign was a favourite idling-place of scholars and city youths in the summer evenings when they walked forth to take the air.

July, 2010 Bizarre and Unique Holidays

Month:

National Blueberry Month
National Anti-Boredom Month
Unlucky Month for weddings
National Cell Phone Courtesy Month
National Hot Dog Month
National Ice Cream Month

Week Event:

Week 2 Nude Recreation Week

Canada (Dominion) Day

When: July 1st(except when it fall on a Sunday it is then celebrated the next day)

Canada Day is a celebration of Canadian nationalism, heritage and pride. Canada became self-governing on July 1st, 1867, with the passage of the British North America Act (BNA Act) in the British Parliament. The holiday was originally known as “Dominion Day”. It was changed to Canada Day by the Canadian Parliament on October 27, 1982.

0296 St Marcellinus begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1294 Jews are expelled from Berne Switzerland
1607 Annales Ecclesiastici (Scientific History of Catholicism) published
1629 The settlers of Salem, Mass. appointed Samuel Skelton as their pastor, by ballot. Their church covenant, afterward composed by Skelton, established Salem as the first non-separating congregational Puritan Church in New England.
1741 Pope Benedict XIV encyclical forbidding traffic in alms
1780 Benjamin Randall organized a fellowship of churches known as Free Will Baptists in New Hampshire. It became one of the early branches of the National Association of Free Will Baptists, which was formed in 1935.
1870 Ada Kepley becomes 1st female law college graduate
1909 In Rome, the Catholic Pontifical Biblical Commission issued a decree interpreting the first 11 chapters of Genesis as history, not myth.
1963 Cardinal Montini elected Pope Paul VI, 262nd head of RC Church
1973 In Korea, the Far Eastern Broadcasting Co. began transmitting the Gospel from HLAZ, its first radio station in this country. FBEC is active today through radio missions outreach, and focuses its work among the islands of Eastern Asia and the Pacific.
1974 Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr., and a church deacon were slain by a crazed gunman in Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her son, the assassinated civil rights leader, once preached.

June 30

On this day in 1818, Edward J. Hopkins, composer, was born at Westminster, London, England. In 1882, the Archbishop of Canterbury awarded him an honorary Doctor of Music.

Feast Day:

St. Paul the Apostle, 68.
St. Martial, Bishop of Limoges, 3rd century.

June 30

Bertrand, bishop (of LeMans) [GTZ: LeMans]
Erintrudis, virgin [GTZ: Salzburg]
Martial, bishop (of Limoges) [BLS; PCP (Paris)]
Paul, apostle (Commemoration) [common; 6082, in red]
Protomartyrs of the Roman Church [MR]

Jun 30 - Synaxis Of The Holy, Glorious And All-praised Twelve Apostles

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/saintoftheday/jun_30_-_synaxis_of_the_holy_glorious_and_all-praised_twelve_apostles1#7715

30 Jun 64

THE FIRST HOLY MARTYRS OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 2010

These “proto-martyrs” of Rome were the first Christians persecuted en masse by the Emperor Nero in the year 64, before the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul.

Nero was widely believed to have caused the fire that burned down much of Rome in the same year. He blamed the fire on the Christians and put them to death, many by crucifixion, by feeding to the wild animals in the circus, or by being tied to posts and lit up as human torches.

These martyrs were called the “Disciples of the Apostles” and their firmness in the face of their gruesome deaths were a powerful testimony that led to many conversions in the early Roman Church.
Early Martyrs of Rome

Ancient Roman historians (non-Christian) relate the first wholesale massacres of Christians by the Roman government as follows: In the year 64, much of the city of Rome burned. It was widely speculated that the Emperor Nero had ordered the fire in order that he might rebuild to his fancy. In order to divert suspicion from himself, Nero accused the Christians of setting the fires, and had many of them put to death in various cruel ways: eaten in the arena by wild beasts, covered with pitch and burned as torches to light the Emperor’s nightly revels, and so on. The persecution appears to have been confined to Rome.

PRAYER (traditional language)

O Almighty God, by whose grace and power thy holy martyrs at
Rome in the days of the Emperor Nero triumphed over suffering
and were faithful even unto death: Grant us, who now remember
them with thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to
thee in this world, that we may receive with them the crown of
life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy
Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever.

PRAYER (contemporary language)

O Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyrs at Rome in the days of the Emperor Nero triumphed over suffering and were faithful even unto death: Grant us, who now remember them with thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with them the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

First Martyrs of the Church of Rome
(d. 68)

There were Christians in Rome within a dozen or so years after the death of Jesus, though they were not the converts of the “Apostle of the Gentiles” (Romans 15:20). Paul had not yet visited them at the time he wrote his great letter in a.d. 57-58.

There was a large Jewish population in Rome. Probably as a result of controversy between Jews and Jewish Christians, the Emperor Claudius expelled all Jews from Rome in 49-50 A.D. Suetonius the historian says that the expulsion was due to disturbances in the city “caused by the certain Chrestus” [Christ]. Perhaps many came back after Claudius’s death in 54 A.D. Paul’s letter was addressed to a Church with members from Jewish and Gentile backgrounds.

In July of 64 A.D., more than half of Rome was destroyed by fire. Rumor blamed the tragedy on Nero, who wanted to enlarge his palace. He shifted the blame by accusing the Christians. According to the historian Tacitus, a “great multitude” of Christians was put to death because of their “hatred of the human race.” Peter and Paul were probably among the victims.

Threatened by an army revolt and condemned to death by the senate, Nero committed suicide in 68 A.D. at the age of 31.

30 Jun 1839
Johan Olaf Wallin of Sweden, Bishop, Hymn Writer

Johan Olaf Wallin was born in Sweden in 1779, the son of a non-commissioned army officer. He attended the University of Uppsala, became a pastor, and eventually (two years before his death) the Archbishop of Uppsala and primate of Sweden. He is remembered chiefly for his hymns. The Swedish hymnal of 1819 is largely his work. Of its 500 hymns, about 130 were written by him and nearly 200 more were revised or translated by him. The 1819 hymnal continued in use in the Church of Sweden for more than a century.

Magnus Brostrup Landstad is the principal Norwegian hymnwriter. He was born in 1802 and served as a pastor for many years. He introuduced popular, contemporary language into the hymns he wrote. He died 8 October 1886.

An American Lutheran hymnal on my shelves has six hymns by Wallin and three by Landstad.

PRAYER (traditional language)

Heavenly Father, we bless thee for thy servants Josef Wallin And Magnus Landstad, to whom thou didst give the skill and the desire to write hymns; and we pray that thy Church may always have in its midst those who by writing noble and beautiful hymns may lead us in worthily singing thy praises, to thy glory and our delight; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

PRAYER (contemporary language)

1757 Anglican clergyman and hymnwriter John Newton wrote in a letter: ‘Whatever we may undertake with a sincere desire to promote His glory, we may comfortably pursue. Nothing is trivial that is done for Him.’
1776 Mission Dolores founded by SF Bay
1810 In Bradford, Massachusetts, the first U.S. missionary society was organized: the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
1875 The first ‘holiness’ conference opened at Keswick, England. Keswick conferences stress a non- charismatic, ‘crisis’ form of sanctification, in contrast to the older traditional view of Christian sanctification as being a lifelong ‘process.’
1908 Birth of Cyrus H. Gordon, American Jewish archaeological scholar. Having taught Assyriology and Egyptology at Dropsie College in Philadelphia, his his technical writings include the ‘Ugaritic Handbook’ (1947).
1931 The Unevangelized Fields Mission was founded, in England. UFM missionaries today work primarily in Latin America, Europe and Africa, as well as in Haiti and Indonesia. 1936 Pope Pius XI encyclical to US bishops “On motion pictures”
1946 British arrest 2,700 Jews in Palestine as alleged terrorists
1949 South Africa begins implementing apartheid; no mixed marriages
1959 Pope John XXIII encyclical “On truth, unity, & peace, in charity”
1969 1st Jewish worship service at White House

June 29

On this day in 1685, Thomas Ken, hymnist, was consecrated as Bishop of Bath and Wells.

Feast Day:

St. Peter the Apostle, 68;

St. Hemma, widow, 1045.

June 29

Emma, widow [BLS]
Peter and Paul, apostles [common]

On This Day

Cassius of Narni,
Feast of Saints Peter and Paul; a local holiday in Rome, and also for the Eastern Orthodox Church and diamond workers.

In History

1925 - South African parliament passed bill excluding black, coloured (mixed race) and Indian people from skilled or semi-skilled work
1972 - Supreme Court rules death penalty — as then employed by US — unconstitutional

STS. PETER AND PAUL
TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 2010

“Both apostles share the same feast day, for these two were one; and even though they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, and Paul followed. And so we celebrate this day made holy for us by the apostles’ blood. Let us embrace what they believed, their life, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith.” – Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 295

As early as the year 258, there is evidence of an already lengthy tradition of celebrating the solemnities of both Saint Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and Saint Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, on the same day.

They are together the founders of the See of Rome, through their preaching and ministry, and ultimately their martyrdoms there, Peter in 64 A.D. and Paul in 67 A.D.

Peter, who was named Simon, was a fisherman, in the line of his father, and was introduced to the Lord Jesus by his brother Andrew, also a fisherman. It was from Him that he received the name Cephas (Petrus in Latin), which means ‘Rock,’ in view of the mission he was to fulfill as the head of the Apostles and the first pope.

Peter was the first to recognize that Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” the first to pledge his fidelity until death, the first to jump to Jesus’ side in Gethsemane and defend Him. Yet he was also very often the first to make mistakes, to reveal his human weaknesses and lack of faith, and his betrayal of the Lord at the hour of His passion and crucifixion is the most public.

After the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, Peter’s role as the head of the Apostles is confirmed is made clear in the accounts of the Acts of the Apostles. He is the leader of the Church and the one entrusted with confirming that the followers of Christ keep the true faith.

St. Peter’s last years were in Rome where he led the Church and where he was finally crucified (upside-down because he claimed that he was not worthy to die as his Lord) as Christ had told him he would be, and buried on the Vatican hill.

St. Peter’s basilica is built over the tomb of the Prince of Apostles.

St. Paul was the great preacher of the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen again. His letters were the first writings of the New Testament, and it is through them that we know most of the facts of His life and of the faith of the early Church.

Before receiving the name Paul he was Saul, a pharisee and persecutor of Christians in Jerusalem, present at the martyrdom of St. Stephen.

Saul was on his way to Damascus to persecute the Christian community there when he was surrounded by a great light from heaven and fell off of his horse. He then heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?…Saul answered: Who art thou, Lord? Christ said: Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecute. It is hard for thee to kick against the goad (to contend with one so much mightier than thyself).”

Saul continued to Damascus, received baptism and went to see Peter and the other Apostles in Jerusalem. He was the Lord’s chosen instrument to take the faith to the Gentiles.

Paul spent the rest of his life tirelessly preaching the Gospel all over the Mediterranean world. He was imprisoned and taken to Rome where he was beheaded in the year 67.

He is buried in the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, in Rome.
Jun 29 - The Holy, Glorious And All-praised Leaders Of The Apostles, Peter And Paul

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/saintoftheday/jun_29_-_the_holy_glorious_and_all-praised_leaders_of_the_apostles_peter_an#7714

Feast of Saints Peter and Paul

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Saints_Peter_and_Paul

June 29, 2010
Sts. Peter and Paul
(d. 64 & 67)

Peter: St. Mark ends the first half of his Gospel with a triumphant climax. He has recorded doubt, misunderstanding and the opposition of many to Jesus. Now Peter makes his great confession of faith: “You are the Messiah” (Mark 8:29b). It was one of the many glorious moments in Peter’s life, beginning with the day he was called from his nets along the Sea of Galilee to become a fisher of men for Jesus.

The New Testament clearly shows Peter as the leader of the apostles, chosen by Jesus to have a special relationship with him. With James and John he was privileged to witness the Transfiguration, the raising of a dead child to life and the agony in Gethsemane. His mother-in-law was cured by Jesus. He was sent with John to prepare for the last Passover before Jesus’ death. His name is first on every list of apostles.

And to Peter only did Jesus say, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the nether world shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:17b-19).

But the Gospels prove their own veracity by the unflattering details they include about Peter. He clearly had no public relations person. It is a great comfort for ordinary mortals to know that Peter also has his human weakness, even in the presence of Jesus.

He generously gave up all things, yet he can ask in childish self-regard, “What are we going to get for all this?” (see Matthew 19:27). He receives the full force of Christ’s anger when he objects to the idea of a suffering Messiah: “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do” (Matthew 16:23b).

Peter is willing to accept Jesus’ doctrine of forgiveness, but suggests a limit of seven times. He walks on the water in faith, but sinks in doubt. He refuses to let Jesus wash his feet, then wants his whole body cleansed. He swears at the Last Supper that he will never deny Jesus, and then swears to a servant maid that he has never known the man. He loyally resists the first attempt to arrest Jesus by cutting off Malchus’s ear, but in the end he runs away with the others. In the depth of his sorrow, Jesus looks on him and forgives him, and he goes out and sheds bitter tears.

Paul: If Billy Graham suddenly began preaching that the United States should adopt Marxism and not rely on the Constitution, the angry reaction would help us understand Paul’s life when he started preaching that Christ alone can save us. He had been the most Pharisaic of Pharisees, the most legalistic of Mosaic lawyers. Now he suddenly appears to other Jews as a heretical welcomer of Gentiles, a traitor and apostate.

Paul’s central conviction was simple and absolute: Only God can save humanity. No human effort—even the most scrupulous observance of law—can create a human good which we can bring to God as reparation for sin and payment for grace. To be saved from itself, from sin, from the devil and from death, humanity must open itself completely to the saving power of Jesus.

Paul never lost his love for his Jewish family, though he carried on a lifelong debate with them about the uselessness of the Law without Christ. He reminded the Gentiles that they were grafted on the parent stock of the Jews, who were still God’s chosen people, the children of the promise.

In light of his preaching and teaching skills, Paul’s name has surfaced (among others) as a possible patron of the Internet.

PETER AND PAUL
APOSTLES AND MARTYRS (29 JUN 64)

The Confession of Peter (“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God”) is commemorated on 18 January, and the Conversion of Paul (on the approach to Damascus) a week later on 25 January. On 29 June we commemorate the martyrdoms of both apostles. The date is the anniversary of a day around 258, under the Valerian persecution, when what were believed to be the remains of the two apostles were both moved temporarily to prevent them from falling into the hands of the persecutors.

The Scriptures do not record the deaths of Peter or Paul, or indeed any of the Apostles except for James the son of Zebedee (Acts 12:2), but they are clearly anticipated (see the readings below), and from an early date it has been said that they were martyred at Rome at the command of the Emperor Nero, and buried there. As a Roman citizen, Paul would probably have been beheaded with a sword. It is said of Peter that he was crucified head downward. The present Church of St Peter in Rome replaces earlier churches built on the same site going back to the time of the Emperor Constantine, in whose reign a church was built there on what was believed to be the burial site of Peter. Excavations under the church suggest that the belief is older than Constantine.

St. Augustine writes (Sermon 295):

Both apostles share the same feast day, for these two were one; and even though they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, and Paul followed. And so we celebrate this day made holy for us by the apostles’ blood. Let us embrace what they believed, their life, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith.

FIRST READING: Ezekiel 34:11-16
(The LORD God will be a shepherd to Israel, and they shall be His flock.)

PSALM 87
(The foundations of Zion, the city of God, rest upon the holy hills. Of many nations it shall be said: In Zion were they born.)

EPISTLE: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
(Paul writes: “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”)

THE HOLY GOSPEL: John 21:15-19
(Jesus, after rising from the dead, said to Peter: “When you were young, you went where you would, but when you are old, you will go where you are taken.” And by these words, He foretold Peter’s death. He then said, “Follow me.”)

by James Kiefer

Readings:

Psalm 87
Ezekiel 34:11-16
2 Timothy 4:1-8
John 21:15-19

Preface of Apostles

PRAYER (traditional language)

Almighty God, whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul glorified thee by their martyrdom: Grant that thy Church, instructed by their teaching and example, and knit together in unity by thy Spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, which is Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

PRAYER (contemporary language)

Almighty God, whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul glorified you by their martyrdom: Grant that your Church, instructed by their teaching and example, and knit together in unity by your Spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, which is Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

ST. PETER THE APOSTLE

The 29th of June is a festival of the Anglican Church in honour of St. Peter the Apostle. It is familiarly known that St. Peter, the son of Jonas, and brother of Andrew, obtained this name (signifying a rock) from the Saviour, in place of his original one of Simon, on becoming an apostle. He suffered martyrdom by the cross at Rome in the year 68, under the tyrannous rule of Nero. On the strange, obscure history, which exhibits a succession of bishops from Peter, resulting in the religious principality of Rome, it is not necessary here to enter. The veneration, however, felt, even in reformed England, for the alleged founder of the Church of Rome, is shown in the festival still held in commemoration of his martyrdom, and the great number of churches which are from time to time dedicated to him.

St. Peter has in England 830 churches dedicated in his sole honour, and 30 jointly with St. Paul, and 10 in connecton with some other saint, making 1070 in all.’—Calendar of the Anglican Church.

It is well known to be customary for the popes on their elevation to change their Christian name. This custom was introduced in 884 by Peter di Porca (Sergius the Second), out of a feeling of humility, deeming that it would be presumptuous to have himself styled Peter the Second. Following in the same line of sentiment, no pope has ever retained or assumed the name of Peter.

Hug Holiday Day

When : Always June 29th

Hug Holiday Day encourages us to give hugs to those who need them. On this day, people go out and give hugs at senior citizen centers, hospitals, and other places. The focus is upon elderly, sick and invalid, lonely people and anyone who needs the warmth, cheer, and love that a hug provides.

This very special day was created by the “Hugs for Health Foundation”. According to the Foundation:

” Hug Holiday is founded on the premise that hugs, friendship and volunteer support are vital components to the overall senior care plan.”

Celebrate Hug Holiday Day today by:

0684 St Benedict II begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1097 The armies of the First Crusade (1096-99) occupied the ancient Byzantine city of Nicea.
1702 Birth of Philip Doddridge, an English Nonconformist clergyman. Doddridge authored 370 hymn- texts, of which ‘O Happy Day That Fixed My Choice’ is still sung today.
1839 Scottish clergyman and missionary Robert Murray McCheyne wrote in a letter: ‘Joy is increased by spreading it to others.’
1892 Birth of Pearl S. Buck, American Presbyterian missionary to China and author of the 1931 best-seller, ‘The Good Earth.’
1955 The first Southern Baptist congregation was formally organized in Las Vegas, with 33 charter members. It was the second Southern Baptist church established in Nevada.

June 26

On this day in 1989, James E. Solheim began as News Director in the Department of Communication at the Episcopal Church Center.

June 26

On this day in 1982, A. Theodore Eastman was ordained and consecrated bishop coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland at the Cathedral Church of Saints Peter and Paul.

Feast Day:

Saints John and Paul, martyrs in Rome, about 362;
St. Vigilins, Bishop of Trent, 400 or 405;
St. Maxentius, Abbot in Poitou, about 515;
St. Babolen, Abbot in France, 7th century;
The Venerable Raingarda of Auvergne, widow, 1135;
St. Anthelm, Bishop of Bellay, confessor, 1178.

June 26

Anthelm, bishop (of Bellay) [BLS]
Babolen, abbot (of St.-Pierre-des-Fosses) [BLS; GTZ: Paris]
Hilarius, bishop (of Poitiers), confessor (Translation) [GTZ: Poitiers]
John and Paul, martyrs [common; 6082, in red]
Leo (II), pope [PCP (Paris)]
Maxentius, abbot [BLS]
Maxentius, bishop (of Poitiers), confessor [GTZ: Poitiers]
Raingarda, widow [BLS]
Salvius, martyr [GTZ: Cambrai]
Vigilius, bishop (of Trent), martyr [BLS; GTZ: Trent]

Isabel Florence Hapgood

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_Florence_Hapgood

ISABEL FLORENCE HAPGOOD
ECUMENIST and JOURNALIST, 1929

Isabel Florence Hapgood (November 21, 1851 - June 26, 1928) was an U.S. writer and translator of Russian texts.

Hapgood was born in Boston, the descendant of a long-established New England family. She studied Germanic and Slavic languages, specializing in Orthodox liturgical texts. She was one of the major figures in the dialogue between Western Christianity and Orthodoxy. She traveled through Russia between 1887 and 1889, meeting Leo Tolstoy. Hapgood died in New York.

— from Wikipedia

Own works:
* The Epic Songs of Russia (1886)
* Russian Rambles (1895)
* A Survey of Russian Literature (1902)
* Little Russian and St. Petersburg Tales (Date Unknown)

Translations:
* Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, Life (1888), and Sevastopol (1888) by Leo Tolstoy
* Taras Bulba and Dead Souls by Nikolay Gogol
* Les Misérables (1887), Notre Dame de Paris (1888), and Toilers of the Sea (1888) by Victor Hugo
* Recollections and Letters (1892) by Ernest Renan
* The Revolution of France Under the Third Republic (1897) by Pierre de Coubertin
* Foma Gordyeef (1901) and Orloff and His Wife (1901) by Maksim Gorky
* The Brothers Karamazov (1905) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
* The Seagull (1905) by Anton Chekhov
* Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic (Greco-Russian) Church (1922)
* The Village (1923) by Ivan Bunin

More information may be found in an article courtesy of Project Canterbury.

ST. PELAGIUS
SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 2010

Pelagius was a thirteen year old Christian martyred for refusing to denounce his faith and convert to Islam, in Cordoba, Spain, 925.

10th century Cordoba was the most powerful and glorious of the muslim caliphates in the world and boasted the largest mosque outside of the Caaba in Mecca.

Pelagius was, as a ten year old boy, taken hostage by the Moors of Cordoba during a rampage in a Christian town. He was in captivity for three years and nobody had made any attempt to ransom him.

The Emir of Cordoba offered him his freedom if he would convert to Islam. The boy refused and the Emir had him tortured and killed. He is said to have endured six hours of constant excruciating pain until he died.

Saint Pelagius is venerated in Leon, Cordoba, and Oviedo, where his relics have been kept since they were transferred there in 985.

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON

The ordinary biographies of Archbishop Leighton fail to make us acquainted with a strange escapade of his youth—namely, his being temporarily expelled from the University of Edinburgh. The provost of that day, Provost Aikenhead—who ex-officio was rector of the University—having in some way provoked the wrath of the students, one of them, Mr. Robert Leighton, the future archbishop, formed an epigram upon him, turning upon the name Aikenhead (q.d., head of oak), and the pimpled visage borne by the unfortunate official:

‘That whilk his name pretends is falsely said,
To wit, that of ane aik his head is made;
For if that it had been composed so,
His fiery nose had flamed it long ago.’

For this the young man was called before the faculty of masters, and solemnly expelled. His guardian, Sir James Steuart, was absent at the time, but on his return was influential enough to get him reponded.

Another semi-comic anecdote of the amiable prelate is quite as little known. It chanced to him that he never was married. While he held the see of Dumblane, he was of course a subject of considerable interest to the celibate ladies living in his neighbourhood. One day he received a visit from one who had come to a mature period of life. Her manner was solemn, yet somewhat embarrassed: it was evident from the first that there was something very particular upon her mind. The good bishop spoke with his usual kindness, encouraged her to be communicative, and by and by drew from her that she had had a very strange dream, or rather, as she thought, a revelation from heaven. On further questioning, she confessed that it had been intimated to her that she was to be united in marriage to the bishop. One may imagine what a start this would give to a quiet scholar who had long ago married his books, and never thought of any other bride. He recovered, however, and very gently addressing her, said that ‘doubtless these intimations were not to be despised. As yet, however, the designs of heaven were but imperfectly explained, as they had been revealed to only one of the parties. He would wait to see if any similar communication should be made to himself, and whenever it happened he would be sure to let her know.’ Nothing could be more admirable than this humour but the benevolence shown in so bringing an estimable woman off from a false position.

International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

International Day Against Drug Abuse & Trafficking

Forgiveness Day

When :

Forgiveness Day June 26th

Global Forgiveness Day is held on August 27th

International Forgiveness Day, the first Sunday of August

Forgiveness Day is a time to forgive and to be forgiven. The world will be a better place for this day.

Global Forgiveness Day began in 1994. It was created and is sponsored by the Christian Embassy for Christ’s Ambassadors. It originated in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

International Forgiveness Day was created by the World Forgiveness Alliance, a non-denominational, educational foundation. According to their website: ” International Forgiveness Day dedicated to evoking the healing power of forgiveness worldwide.” The founder is Robert W. Plath, from Mill Valley, California.

In religions:

** The Jewish celebration of Yom Kippur is a day of atonement or forgiving.

** In Christian religions,the first Sunday before Lent is called “Forgiveness Sunday”.

0253 St Lucius I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1115 St. Bernard founded a monastery in Clairvaux, France. It afterward became a strategic center for the Cistercians, a religious order that flourished up until the Reformation.
1178 5 Canterbury monks report something exploding on Moon
1243: Cardinal Sinibaldo Fieschi was elected pope, taking the name Innocent IV.
1530: The Augsburg Confession, 28 articles that constitute the basic confession of the Lutheran churches, was presented at the Diet of Augsburg to the emperor Charles V.
1580 The German ‘Book of Concord’ was published, containing all the official confessions of the Lutheran Church. (English translations of the entire work were not available before 1851.)
1672 1st recorded monthly Quaker meeting in US held, Sandwich, Mass
1744 The first Methodist conference convened, in London. This new society within Anglicanism imposed strict disciplines upon its members, formally separating from the Established Church in 1795.
1865 English pioneer missionary J. Hudson Taylor founded the China Inland Mission. Its headquarters moved to the US in 1901, and in 1965 its name became Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) International.
1957 During a convention in Cleveland, Ohio, the United Church of Christ (UCC) was formed by a merger of the Congregational Christian Church and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.
1962 Supreme Court rules NY school prayer unconstitutional
1987 Pope John Paul II receives Austrian Pres Kurt Waldheim

June 25

On this day 1115, Bernard founded a monastery at Clairvaux, France, that would soon become the center of the Cistercian religious order.

Feast Day:

Saints Agoard and Aglibert, martyrs, near Paris, about 400;
St. Prosper of Aquitain, confessor, 463;
St. Maximus, Bishop of Turin, confessor, 5th century;
St. Melee, bishop and confessor in Scotland, 7th century;
St. Adelbert of Northumberland, confessor, about 740;
St. William of Monte-Vergine, 1142.

June 25

Adalbert, monk, confessor [BLS; GTZ: Trier]
Agoard and Agilbert, martyrs [BLS]
Amandus and Domnolenus, confessors [GTZ: Limoges, Périgueux]
David, abbot [GTZ: Scandinavia]
Eligius, bishop (of Noyon), confessor (Translation (but not always called such)) [GTZ: Salzburg, Chur, Meissen, Metz, France; PCP (Paris); WTS (Bruges), in red]
Emilianus, bishop (of Nantes), martyr [GTZ: Nantes]
Fridolinus, confessor (Translation) [GTZ: Switzerland]
Gallicanus, martyr [GTZ: Regensburg, France]
Iterius, bishop (of Nevers), confessor [GTZ: Nevers]
Kanute, duke [of Sleswig], martyr (Translation) [GTZ: Sleswig, Scandinavia]
Lebuinus, confessor [GTZ: Utrecht (Translation); HCC, in red]
Luan, abbot (of Bangor) [BLS]
Moloc, bishop, confessor [BLS; GTZ: Scotland]
Maximus, bishop (of Turin) [BLS]
Pecinna, virgin [GTZ: Poitiers]
Prosper (of Aquitaine), confessor [BLS]
Radbod, bishop, confessor (Translation (of Lebwin and Radbod)) [GTZ: Utrecht]
Saturninus, bishop (of Toulouse), martyr [GTZ: Toulouse, Narbonne (Translation); Limoges (Revelation)]
Severa, virgin [GTZ: Paderborn]
Simplicius, bishop (of Autun), confessor [GTZ: Autun]
Sisters of Charity of Arras, martyrs [BLS]
Vindicianus, bishop (of Cambrai), confessor [GTZ: Cambrai]
William (of Montevergine) [BLS]

On This Day

Prosper of Aquitaine
Prosper of Reggio
William of Montevergine
LGBT Flag Day

In History

1530 - Lutheran Augsburg Confession is presented to the Holy Roman Emperor
1678 - Elena Cornaro Piscopia is the first woman awarded a doctorate of philosophy
1938 - Douglas Hyde is inaugurated the first President of Ireland
1947 - Diary of Anne Frank is published
1950 - Korean War begins
1991 - Croatia and Slovenia declare their independence from Yugoslavia

James Weldon Johnson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Weldon_Johnson

JAMES WELDON JOHNSON
POET, 1938

James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 – June 26, 1938) was an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is remembered best for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and collections of folklore. He was also one of the first African-American professors at New York University. Later in life he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University.

He was born in Jacksonville, Florida, into a middle-class black family of Bahamian ancestry. He graduated from Atlanta University and became the first African-American admitted to the Florida bar. From 1906 to 1913 he was Consul in Venezuela and then Nicaragua; during this period he wrote the fictional Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.

In 1913 he returned to the U. S., lived in New York, and engaged initially in songwriting and the theater with his brother, but then became involved in political activism.

In the fall of 1916, because Johnson excelled as a reconciler of differences among those whose ideological agendas seemed to preclude unified, cooperative action, he was asked to become the national organizer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Opposing race riots in northern cities and the lynchings that pervaded the South during and immediately after the end of World War I, Johnson engaged the NAACP in mass tactics, such as a silent protest parade down New York’s Fifth Avenue in which ten thousand African Americans took part on July 28, 1917. In 1920 Johnson was elected to manage the NAACP, the first African American to hold this position. While serving the NAACP from 1914 through 1930 Johnson started as an organizer and eventually became the first black male secretary in the organization’s history. Throughout the 1920s he was one of the major inspirations and promoters of the Harlem Renaissance trying to refute condescending white criticism and helping young black authors to get published. While serving in the NAACP Johnson was involved in sparking the drive behind the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill of 1921.

By the 1930’s, he had tired of politics, and “retired” as Professor of Creative Literature and Writing at Fisk University. He died in an automobile accident in Maine in 1938.

— more at Wikipedia

Johnson is well-known as a poet and author. Some of his published works include:

Poetry:
* To a Friend (1892)
* A Brand (1893)
* The Color Sergeant (1898)
* Lift Every Voice and Sing (1899)
* Sense You Went Away (1900)
* The Black Mammy (1900)
* O Black and Unknown Bards (1908)
* Brothers (1916)
* Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917)
* The Creation (1919)
* My City (1923)
* God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927)
* Saint Peter Relates an Incident (1935)
* The Glory of the Day was in Her Face
* Complete Poems (2000)

Other works and collections:
* The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912/1927)
* Self-Determining Haiti
* Second Book of Negro Spirituals
* Black Manhattan
* Negro Americans, What Now?
* Along This Way (autobiography)
* Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson

Readings:

Psalm 46:1-8
Sirach 39:1-11
Ephesians 6:10-18
Luke 1:57-75

Preface of the Epiphany

PRAYER (traditional language)

Eternal God, we give thanks for the gifts that thou didst bestow upon thy servant James Weldon Johnson: a heart and voice to praise thy Name in verse. As he gave us powerful words to glorify you, may we also speak with joy and boldness to banish hatred from thy creation, in the Name of Jesus Christ; who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

PRAYER (contemporary language)

Eternal God, we give thanks for the gifts that you gave your servant James Weldon Johnson: a heart and voice to praise your Name in verse. As he gave us powerful words to glorify you, may we also speak with joy and boldness to banish hatred from your creation, in the Name of Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

ST. WILLIAM OF VERCELLI
FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 2010

William was born in 11th-century Italy to a noble family. He was orphaned as an infant and raised by relatives. At the young age of 14, he made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and decided to devote his life to God as a hermit.

He returned to Italy and lived as a hermit for two years at Monte Solicoli, where he was credited with healing a blind man. At Monte Vergiliano, his reputation for holiness attracted many disciples, and in 1119, he established a monastery with a Rule based on the Benedictines.

Five other houses were formed during his lifetime, but only the original survives today. He died June 25, 1142 of natural causes.
Jun 25 - Holy Father Dionysios, Founder Of The Monastery Of St. John The Forerunner On Mt. Athos

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/saintoftheday/jun_25_-_holy_father_dionysios_founder_of_the_monastery_of_st._john_the_for#7681

June 25, 2010
Blessed Jutta of Thuringia
(d. 1264?)

Today’s patroness of Prussia began her life amidst luxury and power but died the death of a simple servant of the poor.

In truth, virtue and piety were always of prime importance to Jutta and her husband, both of noble rank. The two were set to make a pilgrimage together to the holy places in Jerusalem, but her husband died on the way. The newly widowed Jutta, after taking care to provide for her children, resolved to live in a manner utterly pleasing to God. She disposed of the costly clothes, jewels and furniture befitting one of her rank, and became a Secular Franciscan, taking on the simple garment of a religious.

From that point her life was utterly devoted to others: caring for the sick, particularly lepers; tending to the poor, whom she visited in their hovels; helping the crippled and blind with whom she shared her own home. Many of the townspeople of Thuringia laughed at how the once-distinguished lady now spent all her time. But Jutta saw the face of God in the poor and felt honored to render whatever services she could.

About the year 1260, not long before her death, Jutta lived near the non-Christians in eastern Germany. There she built a small hermitage and prayed unceasingly for their conversion. She has been venerated for centuries as the special patron of Prussia.

National Catfish Day

When : Always June 25th

It’s National Catfish Day. It’s a day to enjoy some tasty, fried catfish. Or, enjoy catfish cooked to your favorite recipe……yummy.

Guess who said: “More and more Americans are discovering a uniquely American food delicacy — farm-raised catfish.” For the author, read on below to the “Origin of National Catfish Day”.

You should have no doubt what to do today. Enjoy a plateful of catfish, cooked anyway you want. Chances are, you will eat farm raised catfish, which supplies the vast majority of catfish to the U.S. market. But, wouldn’t it be much more fun to fish in the morning, and catch the catfish you will eat?

The Origin of National Catfish Day:

Yes, today is truely a National day!

On June 25, 1987, President Ronald Reagan began a presidential proclamation with the words “More and more Americans are discovering a uniquely American food delicacy — farm-raised catfish.”

Log Cabin Day

When : June 25th

Log Cabin Day brings you back to a quieter, simpler, more rugged era. A couple hundred years ago, life was far more rugged. Americans moving West (west at the time may have been Ohio, or Tennessee) found an untouched wilderness, filled with pristine forests. They built their homes out of logs. These log cabins were solid, long lasting, and served them well.

Life was rustic and simple. Heat was provided by an open fireplace, where they also cooked their meals. Need air conditioning in the summer? Just open the window (there wasn’t any glass or screening). There was no electricity (no television, stereos or boom boxes blasting, or computers). And, plumbing? Just look back towards the woods to the outhouse. The path to it is well worn.

Log Cabin Day celebrates what was then the “Modern” home in America, and all of the lifestyle that accompanied it. Today is a day to appreciate the history and significance of log cabins. Visit them at historical museums today, or sometime this summer.

The Origin of Log Cabin Day: