If you're interested in serving as a lector or usher at either of the Sunday masses, we'd live to have you. Serving is easy and it's a wonderful ministry to assist with worship. If you're interested and willing to be scheduled once a month, please contact the parish office or email Kate Williamson at katewilliamson@mac.com.

May 22, 452: Leo, bishop of Rome, sends three angry letters to protest the Council of Chalcedon's recent elevation of Constantinople to the preeminent see in Christendom. The two cities had been placed on equal footing by a 381 ecumenical council in Constantinople, but Chalcedon tipped the scale, saying that since the imperial capital had moved to "New Rome" (Constantinople), that city deserved the benefits Rome once enjoyed. This event was one of many leading up to the East-West schism of 1054.

May 23, 1430: French mystic and military hero Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians. They sold her to English, who tried her for sorcery and heresy.

May 23, 1498: Italian reformer Girolamo Savonarola, who preached aggressively against the corruption of northern Italy's church and society, is hanged for heresy and his body burned. After gaining fame for successful prophecies, he sought to establish an ascetic Christian community. Scholars still debate whether he was a saintly prophet or a fanatic.

May 23, 1533: Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, declares King Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon null and void: a key moment in the English Reformation.

May 23, 1618: Bohemian Protestant rebels storm the castle of Catholic Hapsburg king Ferdinand II and throw his governors out the window (and into a pile of manure). This act touched off Europe's Thirty Years War, which ended in 1648 by the Treaty of Westphalia.

May 24, 1089 (traditional date): Archbishop of Canterbury, scholar, and church reformer Lanfranc dies. Known primarily for his development of the doctrine of transubstantiation, in which the Eucharistic bread and wine become Christ's body and blood, he also educated brilliant scholar Anselm and future pope Alexander II.

May 24, 1689: Parliament passes England's Toleration Act, granting freedom of worship to Dissenters (non-Anglican Protestants). but not to Catholics and atheists.

May 24, 1844: Samuel Morse sends the first long-distance telegraph message: "What hath God wrought."

May 25, 1865: Evangelist and ecumenist John R. Mott is born in New York. He served 40 years with the Y.M.C.A. (while that organization was still aggressively evangelistic), chaired the 1910 Edinburgh Missionary Conference, and was named honorary president of the World Council of Churches at its inaugural session.

May 26, 1647: Massachusetts enacts a law forbidding any Jesuit or Roman Catholic priest from entering Puritan jurisdictions. Second-time offenders could face execution.

May 26, 1926: Church of the Foursquare Gospel founder Sister Aimee Semple McPherson disappears from a California beach. Her mother announced that Aimee must have drowned, telling the Angelus Temple congregation, "Sister is gone." However, three days after an elaborate memorial service on June 20, Sister reappeared in Arizona, saying she had been kidnapped. (Rumors circulated that she had eloped for a romantic tryst.) Her support base remained strong, but media coverage turned negative, and her image never fully recovered.