When I was a kid, we all gathered around the television on Sunday nights and watch “The Wonderful World of Disney“. Every now and then, Walt Disney would introduce a show or pitch a product.
There was something magic about those nights.
Walt Disney’s ideas were all so new. His love for his product undeniable. If there was a new technology, Walt presented it on screen — humbly giving all the credit to the men and women who helped bring that new tech to life.
On Easter Sunday, I couldn’t help but to reflect on those days while my family gathered around the flat screen to watch the premiere of “The Chosen” Season Two.
Before the show began, the series creator, Dallas Jenkins appeared and talked the his show — just like Walt.
The greatest connection between the two, however, was how the nation came together to watch something wholesome that they created, with a sense of unity.
I wonder if Walt has been looking down at Dallas from the Heavens at all this? If so, I’m sure he smiles every time he hears the slogan Get used to different, thinking “Why didn’t I come up with that?”
This Tuesday, April 13, Season Two: Episode 2 will be released. If I had one thing I would change about “The Chosen” it would be that Dallas premiere new episodes and continue bring people together on Sunday nights — just like Walt … and just like Christ intended.
Every time the Collect has to say “Crucify Him” I get chocked up. This year was no different. In fact, I couldn’t even get out the words.
As a pious teenager, I refused to cry out “Crucify Him!” along with everyone else in Church, believing that I would not be among those calling for Jesus’ execution. However, as I get older, I realize that I not only would’ve been among those in the crowd; I probably would’ve suggested a good place to buy a quality hammer and nails.
As tradition would have it, I fell to my knees after hearing the words, “But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed His last.” I removed my glasses and wiped my eyes dry then stood and listened to the rest of the Gospel reading, hiding my tears.
The homily followed — and it was simple.
“Everything that Jesus went through, he did it for YOU,” Pastor reminded us all. “Yes, He came to save the world. However, he died just for YOU!
“Christ would have gone through everything we just read. He would’ve suffered and died on the Cross even if YOU were the only one His death would have given eternal salvation.”
God personally whispered those exact words into my ears while the Gospel was being read, moments before they were spoken from the pulpit to the Collect. That’s why I was crying.
God Almighty, the Great I AM, loved me so much that He took Flesh, suffered extreme humiliation, and brutal torture before being publicly executed, just so He could share His eternal kingdom with me, a sinner — and, He would do the same thing all-over again just for YOU.
So, be like Christ. Make this Holy Week all about YOU.
As a writer, James has been featured on The Inside Success Show, Bob Salter (CBS Radio), Mike Siegel, Mancow, and more.
Beyond writing, James worked with At-Risk youth in Southern California for over six years. His contributions to the classroom — featured on local television and in the LA Daily News and the Los Angeles Times’ Burbank Leader — earned him the honors of “Teacher of the Year”. James was also twice honored by a CASDA Scholar as the teacher who had the greatest influenced that student. As an educator, James also appeared twice on America Live with Megyn Kelly.
Today, James lives in New York where he continues to teach — and write.Besides his books, you can follow his musing on this blog Corporation You.
A few days after Easter, I was resting in my in-laws basement in Gettysburg, watching a 2015 re-run of Last Man Standing‘s Christmas episode.
Tim Allen’s character sent his two son-in-laws off to set up the Nativity scene. Ryan, Allen’s Left-wing son-in-law, convinced Boyd, the shows lovable air-head, to create something that was multicultural, which wouldn’t often “Jews, Muslims, and Zoroastrians.”
Together, they created the “New-tivity Scene” — an empty creche with a sign that read “put your God here.”
Ironically, no place is more “multicultural” than America — and nothing say “America” more than the Nativity scene.
Think about it.
First, speaking of Zoroastrians, the Magi were priests from the East — and possibly Zoroastrians. Mary and Joseph were undoubtedly Jewish parents, as were all the Shepherds. The baby grew up to become one of the revered prophets of Islam — and his mother is revered universally by Muslims.
And on that Holy Night, though the Holy Family technically were not yet refugees or homeless — (they had a home in Nazareth) — they were immigrants, as are most Americans.
Further, they were definitely not a traditional family.
With all-due respect to the Holy Mother, she did not plan her pregnancy — just like many American women today. However, she accepted her predicament giving women throughout history a blessed example to follow. And Joseph, her husband, was not Jesus’ father; he was His step-father. I had a step-dad, as do so many of us today.
Because of the love I had for my father in heaven — my biological father in Heaven, that is, I didn’t make my step-dad’s role easy. However, I can’t image my life today without his wisdom and guidance.
Nearly everybody was represented at the Nativity — except the powers of the world.
The Nativity offers the birth of Freedom: The Freedom of Religion; the Freedom from Want; the Freedom of Worship; Freedom from Fear.
I am often told that Religion has no place in science. Oddly enough, science has not only formed my faith; science has sealed my Faith.
Most Christians have heard of the Shroud of Turin, the ancient relic that bears the image of a crucified male. Blood typing has been done on the Shroud, and it was determined that the crucified male, who many believe to be Jesus of Nazareth, has AB blood.
A lesser know relic is the Sudarium of Oviedo, the cloth, that tradition teaches, covered the face of Jesus before He was wrapped in a burial shroud and laid in the tomb. The blood on this cloth is also from a male and also Type AB.
There has also been several miracles where a consecrated Host miraculously became true flesh and began to bleed true blood.
One such miracle occurred in the 8th century.
A priest in Lanciano, Italy was doubting the real presence in the Eucharist while offering Mass, when suddenly the Eucharist miraculously turned into human flesh and blood.
Similarly, 500 years after the miracle of Lanciano, another priest, in Orvieto, Italy, who was also doubting the real presence of Jesus, similarly experienced a Eucharistic miracle where the host started bleeding all over his corporal (a cloth used in the liturgy).
You can still see the cloth on display in the Cathedral of Orvieto and the non-decomposing flesh and blood in the Church of San Francesco today.
Miracle of Buenos Aires
More recently, in 1996, another Eucharistic miracle occurred in Buenos Aires, Argentina when a consecrated Host was found on the ground and placed in a glass of water to dissolve, as is custom.
Days later, the Eucharist hadn’t dissolved at all — it had, however, turned into bloody Flesh.
The Cardinal and then-Bishop Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) had a photograph taken of the bloody Host, then stored the Host in a tabernacle to decompose.
Three years later, that same bloody Flesh remained!
That’s when Dr. Ricardo Castañón, a Bolivian neurophysiologist, was called in to have samples from the Host examined in a laboratory environment.
Doctor Castañón took it to the San Francisco Forensic Institute without telling anyone there what it was or where it came from. After testing, he was told the samples constituted heart muscle, specifically from the myocardium of the left ventricle.
Further, the tests showed the blood was human, with human DNA, and of the AB type — the same as found on the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo. Upon further investigation, he also discovered the Host from the miracle of Lanciano was Blood Type AB, as well!
Coincidence? Maybe?
But consider this: Blood Types were not discovered until 1900. The discovery of Blood Type AB came along seven years later, in 1907. Maybe because it’s so rare? Only four-percent of the World population has Blood Type AB.
Well, here’s where it gets interesting…
Where Science and Theology Merge
The Eucharist is the sacrament of communion with one another in the one body of Christ, writes Rev. Dr. Stany Antony OMI. This, he continued, was the full meaning of eucharistic koinonia in the early Church.
Scriptures appears to be in agreement.
St. Paul tells us in 1 Cor 10:16-17 that we just don’t participate in the Eucharist, we are in communion in the blood of Christ. “…nonne communicatio sanguinis?” as it is written in the Latin Vulgate; κοινωνία or koinonia in Greek.
Early Church Father and Orator, St. John Chrysostom (c. 349 – 407) commenting on Paul’s words, — almost 1500 years before the discovery of blood types — said this:
The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the Body of Christ? Wherefore said he not, the participation? Because he intended to express something more and to point out how close was the union: in that we communicate not only by participating and partaking, but also by being united. For as that body is united to Christ, so also are we united to Him by this bread. (Homily 24 on First Corinthians: 4)
In 1485, more than 400 years before the classification of blood based on the presence and absence of antibodies, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “…the Eucharist is the sacrament of the unity of the Church, which results from the fact that many are one in Christ”.
In 1566, almost 300 years before science established the ABO Blood Group System, the Church had this to say about the Eucharist:
“For what bread and wine are to the body, the Eucharist is to the health and delight of the soul, but in a higher and better way. This Sacrament is not, like bread and wine, changed into our substance; but we are, in some wise, changed into its nature, so that we may well apply here the words of St. Augustine: I am the food of the frown. Grow and thou shalt eat Me; nor shalt thou change Me into thee, as thy bodily food, but thou shalt be changed into Me.”
In other words, “by this sacrament we unite ourselves to Christ, who makes us sharers in his Body and Blood to form a single body.” (Cathecism 1331).
Or simply put, “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me and I in you” (John 6:56)
So, what’s this have to do with Blood Typing?
You see, I, like many, once believed that Jesus’ Body and Blood just enters our body during Holy Communion. However, if that was the true theology of the Eucharist, Jesus’ divine Blood Type could be not AB.
Why?
Because theologically if Jesus’ Blood just enters us, He would be simply donating His sacred blood to all.
Science has shown that only Universal Donors can give blood to all without any harm to the recipient; only people with Blood Type O. However, with Blood Type O, one could not receive blood from any other type, but their own.
The Church has always taught that during Holy Communion we unite with The Body of Christ.
Simply put, Jesus receives us all, body and soul, and unites us all, body and soul, in Him — and by all bodies, I mean all blood types.
Christ is therefore the Universal Acceptor, theologically and biologically. Anyone who took High School Biology knows blood type of the universal acceptor.
That blood type is … AB Blood.
If the Shroud of Turin is a fake, how would the forgers get Jesus’ Blood Type theologically correct — centuries before science knew blood type existed?
Further, if these Eucharistic miracles were also all staged, how would all these Blood Types not just match, but also coincide theologically and biologically?
Coincidence?
Maybe, but the odds would favor coincidence to favor the most popular Blood Type.
Approximately, 47% of Italians have Blood Type O, while less than 4% share AB. In Argentina, where the most recent miracle took place, half the population is Blood Type O. [note]
When you include Rh factors, the statistic of chance is almost eliminated.
Rh factor was discovered after the discovery of Blood Types — 40 years after! Only five percent of the world population is AB-positive … the same Blood Type in the Eucharistic miracles in Buenos Aires and Lanciano — miracles which occurred 1,300 years apart.
The science is clear — and because it’s clear, my Faith is sealed.
Corporation YOU 