Theologian's Almanac for Week of June 2, 2024
Welcome to SALT’s “Theologian’s Almanac,” a weekly selection of important birthdays, holidays, and other upcoming milestones worth marking — specially created for a) writing sermons and prayers, b) creating content for social media channels, and c) enriching your devotional life.
For the week of Sunday, June 2:
June 2 is the day the Salem Witch Trials were convened in Salem Town, Massachusetts. The mass paranoia and panic had begun in January of that year, 1692, when a few preteen and teenage girls, including the daughter of the village’s minister, began having fits and reporting the sensation of being poked or pricked. The village doctor, unable to diagnose a cause, concluded that they must be bewitched — which led the adults to pressure the girls into naming their assailants.
No doubt picking up on the prejudices of their elders, the girls blamed Tituba, the minister’s slave; Sarah Good, a local homeless woman; and Sarah Osborne, an outcast who rarely attended church services. Local residents were aghast at the report of witchcraft, and soon “respected churchgoers,” too (including some who had the presence of mind to question the children’s accounts) fell under the growing cloud of suspicion. Paranoia stirred up paranoia, with some exploiting the atmosphere to play out quarrels or settle old scores. In the end, over 200 people were accused, and 19 were found guilty and sentenced to execution (14 women and 5 men).
Some later expressed remorse or formally apologized to their congregations for participating in the mob mentality, or for failing to speak out against it. In 1695, examiner John Hale wrote, “Such was the darkness of the day, and so great the lamentations of the afflicted, that we walked in the clouds and could not see our way.”
Today in Boston’s State House are five murals depicting key moments in early Massachusetts history, collectively entitled, “Milestones on the Road to Freedom.” One of them features Judge Samuel Sewall standing in the South-Meeting House of Boston, head bowed, while the Rev. Samuel Willard reads aloud Sewall’s statement of repentance for his involvement in the witch trials. Sewall was the only one of the nine participating judges who publicly repented. The mural, painted by the artist Albert Herter in 1942, is entitled, “Dawn of Tolerance in Massachusetts.”
June 2 is also the Feast of Corpus Christi, a holy day celebrated by Roman Catholics and others — historically with a public procession — to honor and give thanks for the “real presence” of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist (technically the feast is May 30, the Thursday after Trinity Sunday; many dioceses, however, have transferred the celebration to the following Sunday). For their part, Protestants also believe in the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, but don’t locate that presence exclusively or specifically in the Communion bread and wine. Some scholars argue that certain Protestant leaders opposed these public processions in part because monarchs sometimes used them, with spectacular pomp and circumstance, to conflate royal and divine power. On the other hand, such processions can also evoke the passion’s Via Dolorosa (“Way of Sorrows”), calling attention to the fact that the Body of Christ is a wounded body, an abused body, a victim of injustice in solidarity with all who suffer injustice, pain, and death, in all times and places.
June 3 is the Feast Day of St. Coemgen (anglicized as St. Kevin), founder of Glendalough monastery in Ireland in the sixth century. Legend has it that Kevin was profoundly connected with the natural world. On one occasion, the story goes, Kevin was holding out his arms in solemn, contemplative stillness and prayer, palms facing up, and a blackbird came and laid an egg in the palm of his hand — whereupon the young monk resolved to hold himself still until the egg hatched. And here’s another: it’s said that Kevin once prepared a meal for his fellow monks, a feast featuring salmon kindly caught and delivered to him by an otter!
Kevin is the patron saint of blackbirds, and of Dublin.
June 4 is the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the day Chinese troops stormed the square in Beijing, cracking down on students’ pro-democracy demonstrations. Ordinary workers had gathered along nearby roads in support of the students; they tried to block the advance of the tanks toward the square, and many lost their lives in the process. The students left a message written on the wall behind them that said, "On June 4, 1989, the Chinese people shed their blood and died for democracy." The famous photograph of a student staring down a tank is one of the most influential revolutionary images of the 20th century. The identity of the steadfast student — and his fate — is unknown.
June 4 is also the anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote in 1920. 2020’s ground-breaking election of Kamala Harris to the office of vice president was the 100th anniversary of the first elections in which women voted in the United States.
June 5 is the anniversary of Robert Kennedy’s assassination. Kennedy had just delivered a victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel after winning California’s Democratic presidential primary, and was exiting via the hotel kitchen. A 17-year-old busboy, Juan Romero, was shaking Kennedy’s hand when the shots rang out. As several people tackled the assassin, Romero knelt next to Kennedy, and put a rosary in his hand.
June 6 is the birthday of poet Maxine Kumin, born in Philadelphia in 1925. Growing up, she was an avid swimmer, and trained to become an Olympian as a teenager. She also loved writing poems, and eventually became a major poet and teacher of poetry. Here’s one of her masterpieces, bringing together her interests in swimming and spirituality. And here’s a glimpse of her teaching style: she would routinely ask her students to memorize 30 to 40 lines of excellent poetry a week, the better to internalize what great verse feels and sounds like. “The other reason,” she said, “as I tell their often stunned faces, is to give them an internal library to draw on when they are taken political prisoner. For many, this is an unthinkable concept; they simply do not believe in anything fervently enough to go to jail for it.”
June 8 is the birthday of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, born in Richland Center, Wisconsin, in 1867. Wright would tell his students: “Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.” He used natural building materials and finishes like stone and wood, never painting them, and his designs were horizontal, with low rooflines, so that the structures would blend in with the landscape (his famous “Falling Waters” house is pictured above). He designed several sacred spaces over his career, including Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, built in 1908 and now considered one of the first examples of modern architecture.
June 8 is also the Feast of Corpus Christi, a holy day celebrated by Roman Catholics and others — historically with a public procession — to honor and give thanks for the “real presence” of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist. For their part, Protestants also believe in the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, but don’t locate that presence exclusively or specifically in the Communion bread and wine. Some scholars argue that certain Protestant leaders opposed these public processions in part because monarchs sometimes used them, with spectacular pomp and circumstance, to conflate royal and divine power. On the other hand, such processions can also evoke the passion’s Via Dolorosa (“Way of Sorrows”), calling attention to the fact that the Body of Christ is a wounded body, an abused body, a victim of injustice in solidarity with all who suffer injustice, pain, and death, in all times and places.