Good Gravy! Another Great Saint Joseph Story

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“My grandfather is a saint!”

I’ve heard so many folks refer to their grandfather as such. I’m sure you’ve heard it too. In fact, you’ve might have said the same thing about your own grandfather.

I can say with certainty, however, that my grandfather is a Saint. Uppercase S.

Every evening, my children end their nightly prayers with a Reader’s Digest version of the Litany of Saints. Among Saint John Paul, Saint Padre Pio, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, my boys include my grandfather, their Great-grandfather, and conclude their Holy Litany with the words:

Grandpa Farrell, Pray for us. St. Michael the Archangel, Protect us.

Legend has it, as a young man, after a brush with The Law, my grandfather dedicated his life to Our Lord. He not only gave up the use of foul language, replacing these expletives with the words “Good Gravy!”, he filled his hunger for the Lord as a daily communicant, and rejoiced in His Real Presence daily at morning Mass.

My present commitment to my Faith comes from observing the practice and observance of my Grandfather, who died when I was only seven years old.

He filled my mind and heart with stories of Jesus and of the Saints who followed Him — and not just with the adventures of the Great Saints, like Mathieu, Mark, Luc, and John, but of Catholic contemporaries who would soon become modern day Saints, such as St. Padre Pio and St. Faustina.

Recently, I texted my aunts and uncle a link to a YouTube video title “St. Michael the Archangel & the Marine in Korea” where Fr. Joachim read an account of how Saint Michael the Archangel helped a Marine called Michael in the Korean War.

In the text, I wrote, “This video reminds me of the kinds of stories Grandpa Farrell used to share. Thought you would enjoy.” Immediately, My Uncle Joe responded.

My Uncle Joe is the unofficial keeper of the legendary tales about my Grandfather, James Joseph Farrell, better known by his brothers in NYPD Blue as “Lefty” — a nickname given to this larger-than-life Irishman because he was Southpaw.

“Holly molly, thanks,” Uncle Joe responded, who then went on to share another miraculous story about my grandfather.

This one I never heard. It occurred while he was on the job in Brookyln’s 63rd precinct sometime in the 1950s or 60s.

According to my uncle, one day, “Lefty” felt the need to draw his weapon and fire his gun. Right away, this story was far different from all the stories about my grandfather that I was on raised on.

I always heard that “Lefty”, a father of a large family struggling to make ends meet on a cop’s salary, would, from time-to-time, pawn off his weapon. In the meantime, he would stuff his holster with a black sock until he purchased back his revolver when he got paid, relying only on his night stick or baton.

He didn’t use his Billy club, however, as he called it, to strike an individual. Instead, he would toss it at the legs of a fleeing assailant, skipping it on the side walk or pavement, tripping him, preventing his escape.

My grandfather, I was told, over and over again, would practice tossing his baton in their shared driveway on East 37th Street in Flatbush. Standing at one end of the driveway, he would bounce his club off the cement at his target, an old army helmet at the other end of the drive.

So, the situation had to be dire for “Lefty” to consider drawing his weapon, let alone firing it.

However, my uncle continued, as my grandfather tried to fire his weapon, his finger went numb, and he couldn’t pull the trigger. “Lefty” soon discovered the gunman approaching, through the shadows, was his partner, Johnny Rayan.

“Johnny’s grandson reached out to me to confirm the story,” my Uncle Joe added.

No doubt, Saint Michael the Archangel was there that day, as a shield of protection. At least I thought.

After publishing this post, my Uncle Joe read my blog and quickly contacted me:

Full disclosure … the intervention was by his Patron Saint Joseph the Worker, not Saint Michael.  Joseph is both his and my Patron.  

“That would’ve been a better story being this is the Year of Saint Joseph,” I replied.

Uncle Joe always had better great stories. So, I changed to title of the piece from “Good Gravy! Another Great Saint Michael Story” and gave Saint Joseph the title role.

A more suiting title would’ve been “Good Gravy! Another Great Lefty Farrell Story!” But from what I remember about my grandfather, he would gave the credit to Saint Joseph anyway.

“Lefty” retired after 27 years two months and 27 days of service wearing badge number 820. He now resides among the Saints in Heaven, where he — and St. Joseph — undoubtedly prays for us, and all police, for St. Michael the Archangel to protect us.

James is also the author of Corporation YOU: A Business Plan for the Soul, The Christmas Save and two children’s books: The Second Prince and Klaus: The Gift-giver to ALL!  

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.

To contact James or book an interview, please contact Mark of Goldman/McCormick PR at (516) 639-0988or Mark@goldmanmccormick.com.

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This Simple Prayer is a Life-Changer!

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Saint Brother André Bessette had an extraordinary devotion to Saint Joseph.

The eighth of 12 children, Brother André was adopted at 12.  According to Franciscan Media, he had various trades: farmhand, shoemaker, baker, blacksmith.  He was also a factory worker in the United States.

At 25, André applied for entrance into the Congregation of Holy Cross — and the rest, as they say, is history.

      

John Paul II participated in the solemn rite of beatification for Brother André on May 23, 1982 in St. Peter’s Square.  On October 17, 2010, Brother André was canonized in Rome by Pope Benedict XVI. [1]

My first visit to Brother André’s  St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal was life changing.

Built in the Italian Renaissance style, the basilica is set on top of Mount Royal as a model of Christian charity.  It’s shining copper dome — second-largest of its kind in the world, smaller only than St. Peter’s in Rome  — cannot be hidden from the eyes of all people below.  In the nave of L’Oratoire Saint-Joseph, one entire wall is dedicated to crutches miraculously left behind by cured pilgrims for all to see.

However life-changing that experience was, nothing changed my life more than a simple prayer that I found on Pinterest attributed to Brother André.

“When you invoke St. Joseph,” Brother André said, “you don’t have to say much. Say…

If you were in my place, Saint Joseph
What would you do?
Well, pray for this on my behalf.”

It’s a prayer I recite often throughout my day. I have never felt such inner peace since giving this simple prayer a try.

Try it!  Ite ad Joseph. Your life may change as well.

James Henry is the author of Corporation YOU: A Business Plan for the Soul, Kwanzaa Klaus, Hail Mary series, and two children’s books: The Second Prince and Klaus: The Gift-giver to ALL!  As a writer, James has been widely featured on Bob Salter (CBS Radio), Mike Siegel, Mancow, and more.

Today, James lives in New York where he continues to teach — and write.

To contact James or book an interview, please contact Mark of Goldman/McCormick PR at (516) 639-0988 or Mark@goldmanmccormick.com.

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F-YOU! …and the Lord’s Prayer

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F-YOU and the Lord’s Prayer. Now that’s two things which normally DON’T go together — unless you live in my family.

It’s the title I used to describe my Step-Dad life at his funeral memorial. It’s a story of perseverance, rebirth, salvation and, above all, the making of a miracle.

You see, my Step-Dad had Lupus.

He was diagnosed — or misdiagnosed, when he was a teenager in the U.S. Navy.

His whole adult life he suffered from this auto-immune disease.  However, he never let the disease dictate his life. Among his sufferings were frequent strokes.

“I know I’m going to have them,” he informed me one day. “So, I’ve learned to enjoy them.”

He had many. So many, they became almost common place. Almost. However, finally the “big one” hit.

At the time, I was living in Burbank, California. I was at Disneyland when I my Aunt Ro called and gave me the official news.

You see, I knew he had a stroke — and I knew it was severe.

My mom, being my mom, never delivers bad news. My brother and I joke that when we hear my mom say the words, “Everything is going to be alright”, its time to panic.

My sister, being my sister, was just the opposite. Everything was usually blown out of proportion — and usually to the extreme.

Aunt Ro, however, was the voice of reason; my go-to-person, especially in a time like this.

So, when my aunt said, “Maybe it’s time to come home” …  I knew things were serious.

Immediately, my wife and I started making plans to head back East — but for when and for how long? Living long distance from family is never easy.

Daily, my wife and I spoke to my mom as we made arrangements to head home.

“He can say a few words,” she told me as we discussed my step-dad’s condition. “And they’re all curse words.” (This where the F-YOU comes in.)

My mom, being my mom, felt bad for the patient in the bed next to my foul-mouth step father.

“He’s a Rabbi,” she reverently said. “He (my step-dad) got really bad when the Giants were on.”
“He curses at the Giants when he’s well,” I chuckled. “Why don’t you just shut off the game?”
“I did, but he cursed more” she told me. “He remembers his prayers. So, I just have him saying The Lord’s Prayer.” (Part 2 of the title.)
“I’m not sure the Rabbi wants to hear that either,” I joked, though my mom, someone who once considered  being a Catholic Dominican Nun, didn’t laugh. “Keep me posted. I love you.”
“I love you too,” she said, then hung up the phone.

That night, I spoke with my wife. She had a similar conversation with my mom and sensed her concern.

My wife, being my wife, told me that she asked my mom if my step-dad, a former seminarian, remembered his Latin prayers. He did! So, my she suggested, to my mom, that my Step-Dad start reciting his prayers in Latin — and give the Rabbi some relief.

Then, three days later, the miracle occurred.

My wife called the hospital to check on my mom. After a few rings, someone answered the phone.

“Hello,” the voice slurred.
“Hello?” my wife replied.
“Hey kid!” It was my Step Dad, John.
“Where’s Mary Ann,” my wife asked, wondering why my mom was not at his bed side.
“I sent her out,” he added. “She’s driving me [bleeping] crazy.”

The two talked for several minutes until my mom returned to his bedside.

It appeared that his Latin prayers exercised his brain back to repair — at least that what the doctors suspected, though they had no rational explanation as to why my Step-Dad recovered so quickly.

Long-story short, I didn’t have to return home. And, against all odds, my Step-Dad walked out of the hospital, on his own accord.

Granted, he had noticeable signs of a stroke until the end of his life — six years later. But this was “the big one”! He shouldn’t have had the ability to do anything on his own accord — ever again.

The Bible is full of stories about miracles.

They occur in both the New and Old Testament. However, I’ve often heard people say that few people today witness a true miracle like they did in the bible.

The sad truth is that people witness miracles every day — there’s just so many of them today that we fail to recognize many of the events that occur around us, as miracles.

Air travel is miraculous. Wi-fi and iPhones, miraculous.

Heart and brain surgery … hip and knew replacements … Organ-transplants … limb transplant … The list goes on-and-on … all miraculous!

Miracles are so common today, we just take them for granted.

Maybe that’s why Jesus suggested that the Apostles not discuss His miracles, knowing all too well how unimpressed mankind becomes with sensation over time.

Think about it.

Let’s take a look at video games as an example.

My generation thought Pong was pretty awesome. Today, you couldn’t pay a kid the price our parents payed for an Atari Playset, to sit down for an hour and play this two-dimensional, Monaural arcade game.

Granted, miracles are much more impressive than Donkey Kong.

However, after walking on water and raising a few people from the dead, the fascination with the Miracle Maker from Nazareth would’ve eventually ran out if He didn’t have something more substantive to offer than just miracles.

Now, I’m not saying that miracles aren’t important? They are.

However, I believe that the act of recognizing these miracles, as a direct gift from God, is more important than the miracle itself.

It’s important to recognize that all miracles, big and small, come from God. Likewise, its important to realize that God can turn any horrific event into an opportunity of glory.

God can even use the unfiltered words of foul-mouth former sailor to guide us to witness an unfathomable modern-day medical miracle.

That’s why in my family,  F-YOU and The Lord’s Prayer will always go together!

 

James Henry is the author of Corporation YOU: A Business Plan for the Soul, ‘Twas, and the new book series Hail Mary. To contact James or book an interview, please contact Mark of Goldman/McCormick PR at (516) 639-0988 or Mark@goldmanmccormick.com.

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The Theology of Jesus’ Blood Type

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.

James Henry is the author of Corporation YOU: A Business Plan for the Soul,  the book series Hail Mary. and two children books: The Second Prince and Klaus: The Gift-giver to All.   For six years, James taught At-Risk kids in Los Angeles. Today, he lives in New York where he continues to write — and teach. To contact James or book an interview, please contact Mark of Goldman & McCormick PR at (516) 639-0988 or Mark@goldmanmccormick.com.

Articles used to write this piece:

The Eucharist and Its Effects – James H. Dobbins

Christ, Our Food and Our Life: Chapter 12

Eucharist: Communion with God and Communion with one another – Rev. Dr. Stany Antony OMI

Two eucharistic miracles 1,300 years apart show same blood type and DNA – Ryan Fitzgerald  •  ChurchMilitant.com

The Divine Blood Type: Revealed by “Coincidence” of Eucharistic Miracles? • ChurchPOP

READ MORE ABOUT THE SCIENCE OF THE SHROUD

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