11/22/2017 Mass Below a Miraculous Crucifix that Embraced the Holy Man of Santa Clara

The day before Thanksgiving this year, on Wednesday, November 22, a group of Catholics will gather at the restored Mission Santa Clara, as they have done for the past nine years. They will attend a sung traditional Latin Mass at 6:30 p.m. and pray for the canonization of Franciscan missionary, Fr. Magin Catala, on the 187th anniversary of his death. Anyone who happens to be in the area is encouraged to attend that Mass.

Fr. Catala was assigned to Mission Santa Clara in 1796, nineteen years after the mission was founded by Saint Junipero Serra in 1777, and he labored there with love and great personal sacrifice for thirty-six years until his death.

According to contemporary eye-witness accounts, Fr. Catala was a mystic, a miracle worker, an exorcist, a prophet, and a wonderfully holy man. A free-for-download 1909 book titled The Holy Man of Santa Clara, (by Fr. Zaephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., published by The James H. Barry Company, San Francisco) describes the miraculous events of his life.

The book records the reports of many reliable witnesses (whose hand-written letters still can be viewed in the University of Santa Clara Library Archives). They tell that they saw Fr. Catala levitate when he prayed in front of a crucifix, and that the figure of Christ detached his hands from the cross and laid them on Fr. Catala’s shoulders.

That very same life-sized crucifix hangs over the altar where Wednesday’s Mass will be celebrated.

A marble marker on the left of the altar marks where the remains of Fr. Catala are buried. Although the gold that originally filled the inscription has since worn away, the letters are still legible.

Another fascinating detail about his life is that only did Fr. Catala levitate like St. Joseph of Cupertino, he was also reportedly seen several times during his life in two places at once, bilocating like St. Padre Pio.

Fifty-four years after he died in 1830, Fr. Catala's cause for canonization was taken up by Archbishop Alemany, the first bishop of San Francisco. Testimony about his life and virtue was submitted to Rome in 1909, but the cause for canonization of this worthy servant of God has stalled for the past 108 years. 

Perhaps you may wish to offer prayers on your own for this cause if you cannot attend the Mass.

If you are interested in attending, you can find the restored Mission Santa Clara Church on the University of Santa Clara campus, at the end of Palm Drive, which is the main drive. Ask directions for parking at the campus entrance, which is located 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053. Be aware that you cannot drive to the entrance of the Mission Church, and the distance between the parking areas and the mission entrance presents a problem for some people who have trouble walking. (Click the map to see a larger view.)

Following are some remarkable prophecies from The Holy Man of Santa Clara:

“It appears that Almighty God in those days allowed His servant a distinct view of the future of California. There were still many witnesses alive in 1884 who under oath declared that the holy man had preached substantially as follows: People from almost all the nations of the earth will come to this coast. Another flag will come from the East and the people that follow it will speak an altogether different language, and they will have a different religion. These people will take possession of the country and the lands. On account of their sins the Californians will lose their lands and become poor, and many of their children's children will give up their own religion.

“‘The Indians will be dispersed, and will not know what to do, and they will be like sheep running wild. Heretics will erect church buildings, but these will not be true temples of God. Sons will be against their fathers, and fathers against their sons, and brother will be against brother. The coming of so many people will create great scarcity, so that a measure of wheat will be bought for its weight in gold. ‘Una fanega de trigo se compraria a peso de oro.’ As a consequence, much distress will come upon the Indians and Californians. ‘I shall not see this,’ he exclaimed, ‘but there are those alive that will see it.’”

 

Ecce Agnus Dei: The Priest's Fourth Turn Away from the Altar during the Traditional Latin Mass

The priest holds up the consecrated host during the Ecce Agnus Dei

Did you know that priest turns to face the people, versus populum, seven times during the traditional Latin Mass? During the rest of the Mass, the priest faces the altar, which is located at the "liturgical East" end of the Church, and so, for most of the Mass, the priest is facing in the same direction as the people, towards the Lord.

"For us, the light is Jesus Christ. All the Church is oriented, facing East, toward Christ: ad Dominum." —"Cardinal Sarah: ‘How to Put God Back at the Center of the Liturgy’ at the National Catholic Register

The fourth turn of the priest away from the altar during Mass occurs at the prayer "Ecce Agnus Dei." The priest recites this prayer when displaying the consecrated Host to the people before giving them Holy Communion. He says: "Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccata mundi. Beati qui ad cenam Agni vocati sunt" ("Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb").  

Why is Christ called the Lamb of God? Christ as the Passover Lamb is prophesied in the Old Testament and clearly identified in the New.

 “Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearer, he was silent and opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).  

The Torah instructed the Jews to observe the Feast of Passover, to recall the deliverance of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. Every year at the Passover feast, Jews ate a "lamb without blemish," to remind them of how the night before they fled Egypt, the Jews were instructed to sacrifice and eat a lamb and paint its blood over their doors.  When God sent angels that night to destroy the first-born of the Egyptians, in punishment for the Pharoah's refusal to let His people go, the angels spared (passed over) His people who were protected by the blood of the Pascal Lamb.  

In the New Testament, Christ is called the Lamb of God by St. John the Baptist in the Gospel of John the Evangelist, and He is revealed as the triumphant Lamb in heaven in the Book of Revelation. Christ instituted the Eucharist during His Last Supper, which was a Passover meal. John the Baptist saw Jesus coming to him, and he said: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world." 

St. Peter wrote, “Realize that you were delivered from the futile way of life your fathers handed on to you, not by any diminishable sum of silver or gold, but by Christ’s blood beyond all price, the blood of a spotless, unblemished lamb…”  

This closing quote from Catholic Straight Answers  is from an excellent article that provides many rich details to more-completely answer the question "Why is Jesus called the 'Lamb of God'?”  

"The Book of Revelation highlights this notion picturing the Lamb surrounded by angels, the “living creatures,” and elders, who cried out, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and praise!” (Revelation 5:12).  Jesus is the King of kings, and Lord of lords (Revelation 17:14) who will be victorious against the powers of evil and will invite the righteous to the wedding feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9), the union of the Church, the new Jerusalem, in heaven with the Lord."

Christ surrounded by the apostles with the Paschal Lamb at the center of the arch. San Vito of Treviso, Italy - Chapel of the Redeemer - twelfth century, by Ognibene of Treviso.  By Didier Descouens (Own work)
[CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons