/sent.h1.jpg) Sent
to Earth (new from
Michael Brown)Throughout the centuries, since Noah, there have been strange times: periods when floods, earthquakes, tidal waves, storms, droughts, plagues, volcanoes, and even asteroid or comet activity have haunted the earth. The hints are right there in the nightly news. It's about to happen again. Mother Angelica features it and calls it 'awesome.' click here |
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ICON THAT BLED ON HOLY THURSDAY INDICATES THE POWER OF HIS BLOOD
By Michael H. Brown
Some years ago while speaking in Tucson, Arizona, I was taken to a local church, St. Demetrius Greek Orthodox parish, where the pastor, Reverend Anthony K. Moschonas, showed me a small icon of the Crucified Christ on a Bible that was now in a glass case. The feeling surrounding it -- especially when you touched it -- was powerful. I can't actually convey how powerful. Actual blood had oozed out of the icon's side wound and there is nothing as powerful as the Blood of Christ.
It's this Blood that broke the power of the devil. It is this Blood that was the ultimate sacrifice. It's this Blood that still cleanses.
"On the evening of April 27, Holy Thursday, 1987, at 7:30 p.m., we started the Service of the Holy Passion," explained Father Moschonas. "Before I started the reading of the holy Gospels, I placed a stand at the Holy Door and laid the holy Gospel on it. When I finished the reading of the Fifth Gospel, I picked it up to place it on the holy altar while preparing for the procession of the Crucified Christ on the Cross. When I picked up the Gospel, it was too heavy for me. I did not pay much attention to it, thinking to myself that I was tired from the work of the day."
It was after a procession with another priest, Father Anthony Sipsas, that Moschonas noticed something unfathomable.
"As I stood in front of the holy altar, my eyes focused on the holy Gospel's icon of the Crucifixion," he said. "With great astonishment, I saw blood on the holy body of Our Lord. Fear came over me. After looking at it for a long time, I called Father Sipsas and asked him what he saw. `Blood, my son, blood... I don't know,' he replied.
"The blood was on the holy icon of Christ on the right side of His body at the place where he was pieced," wrote Moschonas in a fact sheet. "Blood also appeared on the left side of His chest."
It was a miracle at a time when there weren't supposed to be any more miracles and it brought forth the power of Holy Week and it showed as God has shown so many times that the death of Christ really was supernatural. Instead of hiding it (as many dioceses do with such things happen), Moschonas announced the event and placed the Bible in a special case for the public to see and "for glorification to the Almighty God."
And so in Tucson for the public to see is the little icon with the huge miracle, with the reminder of Christ, with the reminder of His power. I am often asked what we should do to ward off evil and the answer is in the Blood. When we are attacked by the evil one we invoke it, we plead it, we cover ourselves with it. We consume it from the chalice. We feel its power in wine which was pressed from grapes as this Blood was pressed from His body. So powerful is His Blood that when it seeped from Him on the Cross it caused an earthquake. It is when we plead His Blood, when we invoke it, when we seek refuge in it during the consecration as the chalice is lifted -- as at the Last Supper -- that evil takes flight. No evil can stand before it. This is well-known among exorcists: the power of pleading Christ's Blood. For His Blood is the most stark representation of His suffering and it was by His suffering -- by the most horrible death imaginable -- that He broke Satan's grip on a fallen world.