MAY 15
Hymnist Hastings Sang in a New World (1872)
“It is not rash by any means to say that the whole scheme of social and economic life is now such as to put in the way of vast numbers of mankind most...”
Pope Pius XI. Quadragesimo anno, 1931.
Let Us Enjoy Our Privileges (1916)
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household...
Events
719
Wynfrith, from Devon, England, is consecrated in Rome as Bishop Boniface. He will carry the gospel across Germany and Prussia.
Authority for the date: Mayr-Harting, Henry. Coming of Christ to Anglo Saxon England. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.1164
Death of the abbess, Heloise, whose love affair with, and secret marriage to, the philosopher-theologian Abelard is known to history.
Authority for the date: Britannica.1170
Death at Madrid of Isidore the Farmer, a Spanish farmworker considered by some a patron saint of rural and agricultural workers.
Authority for the date: catholicrurallife.org1576
Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremias II and his associates issue the Epicrisis on the Confession of Augsburg, an answer to the Lutheran confession, showing points of agreement and disagreement. They declare there are two sources of true faith: the Holy Bible and Sacred Tradition.
Authority for the date: http://www.patriarchate.org/patriarchate/former-patriarchs/jeremias-ii-1st-time1778
Death at St-Omer, France, of Alban Butler, author of a well-known five-volume Lives of the Saints.
Authority for the date: Catholic Encyclopedia1831
Death of Catherine Clewes Leigh, in Paramatta, New South Wales, from illness contracted while fearlessly tending the sick during an epidemic. She was the wife of Samuel Leigh, the first Wesleyan Methodist missionary in Australia and New Zealand.
Authority for the date: Strachan, Remarkable Incidents in the Life of Samuel Leigh.1879
Death at Angaston of George Fife Angas, Baptist businessman and colonizer of Southern Australia.
Authority for the date: Larsen, Timothy T., David W. Bebbington, and Mark Noll. Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals. IVP Academic, 20031891
Pope Leo XIII issues the influential encyclical Rerum novarum, which grapples with social issues, saying the earth is given for the common good, that there needs to be more equality between capital and labor, and that the state has a central role in regulating justice in these matters.
Authority for the date: Paul Collins, Absolute Power1937
Death in Woking, England, of hymnwriter Ada Rundall Greenaway. Her best-known hymns are “For the Dear Ones Parted from Us,” “O Father, We Would Thank Thee,” “O Perfect God, Thy Love,” “O Word of Pity, for Our Pardon Pleading,” “Rise at the Cry of Battle,” and “Rise in the Strength of God.”
Authority for the date: Cyberhymnal.1955
Obadiah Kariuki and Festo Olang' are consecrated as the first African assistant bishops in the Anglican diocese of Mombasa, covering East Africa. Kariuki will be a bishop and spiritual leader in the Kenyan church after the nation’s independence, his diocese growing so rapidly that it will have to be divided in two. Twenty-two years to the day after his consecration, thousands will attend a thanksgiving service in his honor when he retires.
Authority for the date: Dictionary of African Christian Biography.1984
Death in Rochester, Minnesota, of Francis Schaeffer, a Christian apologist. With his wife, Edith, he had operated L’Abri, a ministry to intellectuals. His most important book may have been his smallest, Escape from Reason, which caused many evangelicals to look at the development of literature and art. He had often argued that moral relativity is responsible for social ills.
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.