Posted 9:21pm CT Jan 22, 2008 in Minneapolis

Researched and written by Gloriscope staff

1998: First visit to Cuba by Pope John Paul II. - He was the first Pope to visit Cuba after the Cuban revolution.

1957: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower invoked God in his second inaugural address. – President Eisenhower said in the beginning of his speech: “Before all else, we seek, upon our common labor as a nation, the blessings of Almighty God. And the hopes in our hearts fashion the deepest prayers of our whole people.”

1871: An Italian law transferred the capital of Italy from Florence to Rome.

1851: Birth of Giuseppe Allamano, an Italian Catholic priest who founded the Consolata missionaries in 1901 (for men) and 1910 (for women). – The first Consolata missionaries were sent to Kenya.

1823: Death of Cayetano José Rodríguez, an Argentinian Franciscan priest, Catholic theologian, politician, and newspaper editor. – He was a professor of theology, a member of the General Constituent Assembly of the young republic of Argentina, and a defender of the Christian faith and Catholic church in his newspaper El Oficial del Dia.

1781: The American bookseller and magazine publisher Robert Aitken of Philadelphia petitioned the Congress to publish the first American edition of the Bible. – Until that time, all English-language copies of the Bible used in the U.S. were printed in England. George Washington was one of the foremost supporters of Aitken’s project to print the Bible in America. In a decision of September 10, 1782, the Congress of the Confederation approved the printing of the Aitken Bible, the first Bible printed in the United States, which became known as the “Bible of the Revolution.” The Congress resolved:

The United States in Congress assembled highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion, as well as an instance of the progress of arts in this country, and being satisfied from the above report of his care and accuracy in the execution of the work, they recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States, and hereby authorize him to publish this recommendation in the manner he shall think proper

1525: The world’s first Anabaptist church was established in Zurich. – Two Swiss Christians, Felix Manz and Conrad Grebel in Zurich, originally supported Ulrich Zwingli’s ideas for a reform of the Church, but later disagreed with him, because Zwingli believed that any reform had to be approved by civil authorities. Manz also believed that the Church could only be made up only of true believers, who therefore had to be baptized as adults, not as infants. Zwingli forbade Manz and Grebel to baptize adults. The turning point happened on January 21, 1525, when Manz and Grebel founded in Zurich the first Baptist community, and the Catholic priest Jörg Blaurock was the first adult to be baptized.

1276: Pierre de Tarentaise (1225-1276) was elected Pope Innocent V, the first Dominican who became a Pope. -(Pierre de Tarentaise, Pope Innocent V, should not be confused with St. Pierre de Tarentaise, who died in 1174.)

304: Death of St. Agnes, a teenage virgin who died as one of the greatest martyrs of the faith. – St. Agnes is one of the greatest saints of the Church, recognized as a saint and celebrated by Roman Catholics, Eastern Catholics, the Church of England, the Anglican Communion churches, and Eastern Orthodox Christians. According to one version of the Christian tradition, Agnes was a girl about 13 years old during the early Church who said her only spouse was Jesus Christ. She refused to marry, but in public punishment for her faith, she was brought into a brothel. However, all men left her untouched, except one, who raped her, but was struck blind. Agnes healed him with her prayer. During the systematic persecution of Christian by the Roman Emperor Diocletian, she was publicly murdered. According to the tradition, she was to be burned on the stake, but the firewood would not burn, so one of the soldiers killed her with a sword. Her bones are in the present-day church of St. Agnese Fuori le Mura in Rome, above the existing underground catacombs where her tomb was kept by the fellow believers of the early Church. She is a hugely popular saint and many churches with her name exist all over the world, including the Anglican cathedral of Kyoto, Japan. She is a patron saint of chastity, girls, Girl Scouts, virgins, rape victims, engaged couples, and gardeners. Her annual feast is on January 21. She has been often portrayed with a lamb, in a mistaken belief that her name means “lamb” – in fact, her name means “pure, chaste” in Greek.

The picture shows a painting of St. Agnes by a Dutch master from Dordrecht, made about the year 1500. (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).

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TO GOD BE ALL THE GLORY!

Published in the U.S.A. Copyright © 4T4C News Corp. 2008. All rights reserved.