Historical Events in Church Annals for June 23:

• 304 A.D.
• Death of Saint Alban, first martyr of Britain who was beheaded for hiding a priest during the persecution of Diocletian. After being converted by the priest he exchanged identities with the priest so that the priest could go free.

• 304 A.D.
• On the same day as St. Alban, Saint Febronia, a nun who refused to take a pagan husband, was killed in Nisbis, Mesopotamia. Just before her death she was quoted as saying to her persecuting judge, "I have a marriage chamber in Heaven, not made with hands, and a wedding feast that will never come to an end has been prepared for me. I have as my dowry the entire kingdom of Heaven, and my Bridegroom is immortal, incorruptible, and unchangeable."

• 679 A.D.
• Death of Saint Audrey, also known as Etheldreda, daoughter of the King of the East Anglo Saxons, who, after being forced to marry a young boy for political reasons, was submitted to humiliation and gave her life to God, refusing to consummate the marriage once the young boy came of age twelve years later. She fled and eventually became an abbess of a convent where she died on this day.

• 1526 A.D.
• Pope Clement VII sends one of his top men Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio to the diet of Nuremberg to reassure the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of his backing for the edict of Worms which outlawed the teachings of Martin Luther. However, the powerful princes of Germany had stolen Luther away in hiding, allowing the former monk to formulate the Lutheran creed. It would come down to Charles' inability to control the protestant princes that would allow the Diet of Augsburg and force the emperor and the Catholic League into a bitter war with the Protestant forces for many years.

Historical Events in Church Annals for June 24:

• 1 B.C.
• Birth of Saint John the Baptist, son of Elizabeth and Zachary and cousin of Jesus Who would not be born for another six months. John, who spent most of his adult life preaching in the desert, would be the one to baptize Our Lord during his first year of public ministry. See DAILY LITURGY

• 1209 A.D.
• Pope Innocent III launches a crusade against the Albigensians and their heresy in southern France after a papal legate had been murdered a year earlier.

• 1537 A.D.
• Founders of the Society of Jesus - Saint Ignatius Loyola and Saint Francis Xavier, along with fellow seminarians Nicholas Bobadilla, Peter Favre, Diego Laynez, Simon Rodriguez, and Alfonso Salmeron are ordained in Venice.

• 1542 A.D.
• Birth of Juan de Yepes y Alvarez, son of a silk weaver in Spain. The young man would go on to become a Carmelite priest and be appointed spiritual director to Saint Teresa of Avila. He would join her in a massive reform movement of the Carmelite order as well as write the book "Dark Night of the Soul." He was, of course, Saint John of the Cross.

• 1559 A.D.
• A dark day in England for Catholics as Queen Elizabeth I outlaws all Catholic services in Britain, allowing Anglicanism - the Church of England - to take a firm hold with no opposition from Rome to the detriment of loyal Catholics.

• 1888 A.D.
• Pope Leo XIII issues the encyclical to Ireland Saepe Nos directed to the Irish bishops regarding the boycotting prevalent in the emerald isle.

• 1967 A.D.
• Pope Paul VI issues the meaningful encyclical on celibacy and the priesthood for the world Sacerdotalis caelibatus.

• 1981 A.D.
• The Blessed Virgin Mary appears in a vision on Podrbo - a rocky hillside in Medjugorje, in the former Yugoslavia. She did not speak on this day, but did so the next to the six visionaries present, thus making the anniversary the 25th of the month, rather than the feast of Saint John the Baptist which has significance in Our Lady choosing this date to first appear to the children as one making ready the way of the Lord - her Divine Son.

Historical Events in Church Annals for June 25:

• 253 A.D.
• Pope Saint Lucius I becomes the 22nd successor of Peter and would die less than a year later as a martyr. During his short papacy he forbade, under penalty of sin, men and women who were not married, to live together.

• 295 A.D.
• Death of Saint Orientos and his six brothers, all members of the Roman legion headed by Emperior Maximian. When they revealed that they were not afraid to die in battle and gained their strength from the risen Christ, they were isolated from the rest and jealous soldiers in charge of guarding them starved the seven men on orders from the top out of fear they would convert other soldiers.

• 841 A.D.
• Defeat of Lothair, bitter enemy of the former Holy Roman Emperor Louis I, son of Charlemagne the Great. Lothair was felled at Fontenoy-en-Puisaye by Louis' son, Louis the German, king of Germany and Austria, and Louis' brother Charles the Bald, who succeeded Louis as Emperor a year earlier after Louis' death. Pope Gregory IV had originally thrown his support behind Lothair, but the latter deceived the Pope and coronated Louis' son who established All Saints Day in France.

• 1080 A.D.
• Cardinal Guibert is elevated to the papal chair as the antipope Clement IIIby the German king Henry IV who was a bitter enemy of the true Vicar of Christ during that time - Pope Saint Gregory VII, the monk known as Hildebrand who had promoted Henry's rival Rudolf I.

• 1513 A.D.
• The Confessions of Augsburg which marked the official break between Catholics and the followers of Martin Luther and put into motion the Protestant Reformation.

• 1981 A.D.
• The Mother of God appears and speaks to six visionaries in the tiny mountain village of Medjugorje, saying "I have come to tell you God exists." Since that day, Our Lady or "Gospa," as she is known in Bosnia, has appeared to one to four of the visionaries everyday with a special message for the world on the 25th of each month since 1985. The fruits of these apparitions and the messages imparted have reached every corner of the earth with countless conversions and nearly 20 million pilgrims making the trek to this rugged, but serene and inspiring Oasis of Peace. The Blessed Virgin Mary has proclaimed that when her messages end here, it will be her last visit to this earth in these times.

June 23-25, 2000
volume 11, no. 112
MILLENNIUM MILESTONES

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