Ember Wednesday
ST.
JANUARIUS
Psalm 111, verse 10
The fear of
the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; prudent are all who practice it. His
praise endures forever.
Fear of the Lord is reverence for God. Is there any
reverence for anything left in America?
The sixth chapter of St. John’s gospel takes us to the core of our Church. Everything and anything Catholic flows from the Real Presence of Jesus Christ here in the Blessed Sacrament. Christ’s Presence among us in the Blessed Sacrament is the summit and source of our lives together in the Church. It is the heart of the matter. I can remember as a boy participating in Forty Hours Devotions, Eucharistic Adorations, Corpus Christi Processions, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, reciting prayers of thanksgiving after Mass, genuflection to the Presence, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, fasting from midnight prior to receiving Holy Communion the next morning, and other practices – all built up from and pointing toward our contact with Jesus Christ truly and really present in the Blessed Sacrament. We were careful always to refer to the consecrated host as the Body of Christ; we never spoke of it simply as “the bread”. We referred to the consecrated wine as the Precious Blood, never “the wine”. In those days, when Catholic men passed by a Catholic church, they tipped their hats (in those days men wore hats) to acknowledge and reverence the Presence of Christ in the tabernacle. Women covered their heads with hats, shawls, babushkas and even hankies while in church.
·
In
recent years I’ve seen both boys, and men as well, wearing baseball caps in
church, oblivious to the irreverence.
·
And
certainly, when I was young everyone — man, woman and child — dressed up to
attend Mass. Attending Mass in, T-shirts, tank tops, blue jeans, cutoffs, and
what have you was UNTHINKABLE. Church was special, not ordinary. Church was
supposed to be extra-ordinary. The inside of a Catholic Church was holy space;
it was sacred space. God in His holiness dwelled therein — and people dressed
accordingly.
There are even those who advocate that we abolish kneeling in church and during the Eucharistic Prayers of Mass. But in my view, kneeling during worship is the only thing left for us by which we can express our profound reverence for God’s presence. Kneeling is our last remaining experience of reverence and awe in God’s closeness to us. I am not here to scold you or to harangue you. I’m here trying to hold up a vision before your eyes. For it does appear to me that in our American culture little is revered . . . except, perhaps, for the popstar, singer who calls herself Madonna. Even human life itself is no longer revered. If human life gets in the way now, we kill it, either in its beginning, or lately at its end (and a whole lot of the rest of the time during our lifetime!) I am distressed, to say the least, at what has happened. I’m saddened to see how we lack respect for each other; we’ve lost reverence not only in the way we live but for human life itself, and how we seem to be losing reverence and respect for the Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
So, whatever happened to sacred space? Remember when the interior of a church was regarded as sacred space? Now it’s regarded as an auditorium in which loud talk and joking around occurs (especially so during wedding rehearsals). Some even treat it as a playpen. Some eat in church, or drink soda pop, read newspapers, or simply sit there bored out of their minds with absolutely no awareness of God’s Presence in this sacred space. I’ve even had people come to receive Holy Communion while chewing gum! (And I’m not talking about kids, either.) If we dress up to go to a party, why can’t we dress up to attend the Lord’s Supper, the Wedding Feast of the Lamb? Ever see anyone go to a friend’s wedding dressed in cutoffs and a t-shirt? There’s nothing hypocritical in dressing up to go to church . . . any more than there’s anything hypocritical in dressing up to go over to a friend’s house for a special dinner or party. Anybody ever claim THAT is hypocritical? And as for talking in church- well, there’s certainly a way of talking that reverences other persons. Where better to reverence another, and pay quality attention to what they have to say, than in church, talking with them in that holy space, in front of Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament? You see, we need to learn to reverence the Presence of the Holy Spirit in other people while at the same time reverencing the Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. As a matter of fact all social justice and all economic justice flow from the central reality. As Catholic Christians we judge our political, economic and political systems on the truth that each and every human person is sacred unto the Lord; each and every person is a temple of God’s Holy Spirit. The communion of the Mystical Body of Christ flows from the Holy Communion we share in the Eucharist. We need to reverence His presence in a whole lot of different ways, not just in church. Reverence of God, I think, is multidimensional; it takes many forms. We need to reverence the Son of God, present for us here in the Eucharist. We need to reverence the presence of the Holy Spirit in other people, along with the Presence of God in all of His creation. We’ve lost reverence for the presence of God in our world, in the trees and natural resources, in nature’s pure waters, in animals, in all of God’s creatures. We regard them today merely as useful, as things to exploit for profit. We’ve lost our reverence for them. Perhaps if we recovered a sense of reverence, our world would be a whole lot better place in which to live. There was a time when the things of nature, water, trees, and natural resources were seen as given to us by God as His stewards, to be used to accomplish His work.
Today? Well, water, resources and the environment are only useful for their owners, as things to be sold for profit, as things to be exploited. A sense of reverence perhaps would return balance to the way in which we treat our environment and our natural resources. The recovery of reverence, it seems to me, ought to be one of our chief goals, particularly in the context of the “culture” that surrounds us.
Little is known about St. Januarius. He
was Bishop of Benevento in Campania. He died near Naples, about the year 305,
martyred under the persecution of Emperor Diocletian. Around the year 400 the
relics of St. Januarius were moved to Naples, which honors Januarius as a
patron saint. He supposedly protected Naples from a threatened eruption of the
volcano Mt. Vesuvius. The "miracle of Januarius" has world-wide fame.
At least three times a year—on his feast day, December 16 and the first Sunday
of May—the sealed vial with congealed blood of the saint liquifies, froths and
bubbles up. This miraculous event has occurred every year, with rare
exceptions. Popular tradition holds that the liquefaction is a sign that the
year will be preserved from disasters. (In 1939, the beginning of World War II,
the blood did not bubble up.)
Things
to Do:
·
Find
out more about this "miracle of Januarius", including pictures.
·
Have
an Italian dinner.
·
If
you live close to New York city you can participate in The Feast of San
Gennaro
celebrated in lower Manhattan.
Saint
Raphael is one of the three archangels mentioned in the bible in the book of
Tobit. He is the angel of peace, health and joy. We should call upon his help
in conquering the devils influence and overcoming the flesh. He is the angel
sent by God to guide and guard, to heal and save. He is forever watchful, and
tender and helpful along with our own guardian angel. When tempted call upon
the help of Saint Raphael; he is more powerful than a ninja turtle.
On 3 August 1992 during the
morning prayers I received the following message from the Holy Angel Raphael.
The Holy Raphael spoke:
"Coming in the Name of my Lord and Master Jesus Christ, to bring you
the following message destined for all the youth of the earth.
I bring a special blessing from my Lord and Master, the Lord Jesus
Christ. His love goes out to them and all who are true to Him. He calls all
youth to unite into a large army at the helm my Master, the Lord Jesus Christ
and his beloved mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who together will lead them to
victory.
Therefore, everyone who joins this army shall carry with them a
medallion, with on one side hereof the image of my Lord and Master, dressed as
King, with in his left hand the sceptre and in the other hand the staff with
the cross. Thereby the following writing: “Christus Vincit, Christus regnat,
Christus imperat.” On the other side thereof must be the image of the mother of
my Master, with on her arm my Master, depicted as a child. In the hand of my
Master is the globe with above that the cross and the hand of the Blessed
Virgin. Hereby the three titles that belong to her: “Queen of Peace, Queen of
the Universe and Queen, Our Lady of All Peoples.”
This is your assignment: let these shields or medallions be made
according to the description given above. After that these shields or medals
must be blessed by a God-anointed. Spread them over all the earth. Of everyone
who joins this army, the following is expected: with conviction of faith, pray
the rosary every day and carry this rosary always with you. Attached to this
rosary shall be the above described shield or medallion, so that everyone knows
that my Master, the Lord Jesus Christ and his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary
stand behind them and protect them.
All who wish, can join this army under the same conditions, so that they
can form a mighty army together with the youth, and so call a halt to the
needless slaughter of the unborn children in the mother’s womb. They shall
avoid the places where sin is openly committed against purity, and also
occasions were Satanic music plays to
please their ears, because in this way is the message spread of hatred and
loveless behaviour. They shall divert their eyes from all immoral depictions of
the human body. All of you, join, and so stop the evil in this world.
Place this message for affirmation before the supreme shepherd of the
Church of my Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, so that he can give his blessing to
this task. Urge also your near relatives to give their full support in
fulfilling this task.
Pax Domini sit semper
vobiscum.”
“Even though I walk through the darkest
valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff comfort
me.”
-Ps 23:4
-Ps 23:4
Daily Devotions
On September 19, 1846, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Maximin
Giraud and Melanie Calvat on the mountain of La Salette, France.
[1]http://www.catholicjournal.us/2016/07/01/on-reverence/
[3] St. Michael and the Angels, Tan Books,
1983.
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