Today (30 May) the Church celebrates and remembers the lives, ministries and actions ofJosephine Butler, Joan of Arc, Visionary, and Apolo Kivebulaya.

𝗝𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗿 (née Grey) was born in Northumberland in April 1828, and baptized on this day in the same year. She married an Anglican priest in 1852.

She became incensed by the way contemporary society treated prostitutes, most of whom were forced into such activity through desperate poverty. From 1869, she campaigned for the repeal of the legislation which put all opprobrium onto the women concerned, and the issue became international after she travelled in Europe addressing meetings in 1874 and 1875. Her campaign succeeded with the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act in 1883.

She was a devout Anglican and a woman of prayer, basing her spirituality on that of Catherine of Siena, whose biography she wrote. She died on 30 December 1906.

𝗝𝗼𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗿𝗰 was born at Domrémy in 1412, the daughter of a peasant farmer. 

She first heard voices of particular saints when she was fourteen years old, telling her to save France, which was caught up in the Hundred Years War with England. Though at first she was dismissed, her credibility increased when some of her predictions began to come true. She managed to identify the disguised dauphin – later to become Charles vii – whose approval she gained. She persuaded troops to be sent to relieve Orléans and rode at their head, wearing white armour. They were successful in battle, which increased the morale of the army and enhanced the reputation of Joan. 

When the dauphin was crowned king at Rheims, she stood at his side. Her voices had warned her that her life would be short yet she was dangerously naïve in not seeing the jealousies she provoked. 

 After some failures in battle, she lost favour and was eventually sold by the Duke of Burgundy to the English, tried in a court for heresy by the Bishop of Beauvais and burned at the stake on this day in 1431. 

Twenty-five years later, the pope formally declared her innocent. She was made second patron of France after her canonisation in 1920. 

𝗔𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗼 𝗞𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗯𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗮’s first contact with Christian teaching was in 1884 and he was baptised the following year, becoming a teacher in the Church of Uganda. 

 He went as an evangelist and catechist to Boga in the Belgian Congo and was ordained priest in 1903. 

He built many churches and prepared countless catechumens for baptism. He spent the rest of his life at Boga, training teachers, supervising the school and evangelising the people of the forest. After his death on this day in 1933, the Church Missionary Society sent British missionaries to carry on his work.