2011

This year marks:

a) The 400th (Quadricentennial or quartercentenary) Anniversary of:
The departure for the Japanese Mission from the Philippines of the great Dominican Missionary and Blessed Martyr Alphonsus Navarette. He is called the "St Vincent de Paul of Japan," because it was he who first began the tremendous task of caring for the abandoned babies there.

b) The 300th (Tercentennial or tricentennial) Anniversary of:
The falling asleep of Bl. Fr Joseph Vaz, Apostle of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), in the Kingdom of Kandy.

c) The 150th (Sesquicentennial) Anniversary of:

The cessation of the persecution of the Catholics of Vietnam which has given the Church 92 Blessed Martyrs. Among these we celebrate the actual 150th anniversary of the martyrdoms of; St Theophane Venard, aged 31; the holy bishop St Stephen Cuenot, Vicar Apostolic of East Cochin-China, consecrated at Singapore (he died in prison perhaps from poison, shortly before the date fixed for his execution); the holy bishop St Theodore Guenot, also Vicar Apostolic in Cochin-China, who died of ill-treatment in prison; Bl. Matthew Phuong, beheaded near Dong-hoi for being a catechist: of St Joseph Khang, a Dominican Tertiary and servant of Bl. Jerome Hermosilla, whom he tried to deliver from prison. Caught in the attempt, he was punished with 120 lashes and after other most cruel tortures, was beheaded. Likewise we commemorate the triumph in China of St John Baptist Lo, a servant beheaded at Tsin-gai and St Martha Wang, a Vietnamese woman who carried letters from the imprisoned seminarians Sts Joseph Tshang and Paul Tcheng to their bishop. She was arrested and beheaded with them at Tsingai.

For more details, please refer to this excellent blog post on the Vietnamese Martyrs: http://andrew4jc.blogspot.com/2007/06/vietnamese-martyrs.html