Day: July 12, 2017

Parts One and Two – here:  https://anastpaul.wordpress.com/2017/07/10/the-wonders-of-the-holy-name-fr-paul-osullivan-o-p-revealing-the-simplest-secret-ever-of-holiness-and-happiness/https://anastpaul.wordpress.com/category/the-holy-name/

The Plague in Of Lisbon.
The City saved by the Holy Name.

A devastating plague broke out in Lisbon in
I432.    All who could do so fled in terror from the
city and thus carried the plague to every corner
of the entire country of Portugal.
Thousands of men, women and children, of all
classes, were swept away by the cruel sickness.
So virulent was the epidemic that men died everywhere,
at table, in the streets, in their houses, in
the shops, in the market places, in the Churches.    To
use the words of historians, it flashed like lightning
from man to man, or from a coat, a hat or
any garment that had been used by the plague
stricken.   Priests, doctors and nurses were carried
off in such numbers that the bodies of many lay
unburied in the streets so that the dogs licked up
the blood and ate the flesh of the dead, becoming
as a result infested with the dread disease and
spreading it still more widely among the unfortunate
people.
Among those who assisted the dying with
unflagging zeal was a venerable Bishop, Monsignor
Andre ‘ Dias who lived in the Convent of St. Dominic.
This holy man seeing that the epidemic,
far from diminishing, grew every day in intensity
and, despairing of human help, urged the
unhappy people to call on the Holy Name of
Jesus.   He was seen wherever the disease
was fiercest, urging, imploring the sick and the
dying as well as those who had not as yet been
stricken down, to repeat Jesus. Jesus.   “Write it
on cards”, he said, “and keep those cards on your
persons, place them at night under your pillows,
place them on your doors but above all constantly
invoke with your lips and in your hearts this most
powerful Name”.
He went about as an Angel of peace filling the
sick and the dying with courage and confidence.
The poor sufferers felt within them a new life and,
calling on Jesus, they wore the cards on their
breasts or carried them in their pockets.
Then summoning them to the great Church of St.
Dominic he once more spoke to them of the power
of the Name of Jesus, blessed wafer in the same
Holy Name, ordering all the people to sprinkle themselves
with it and sprinkle it on the faces of the sick
and dying.   ‘Wonder of wonders! the sick got well,
the dying arose from their agonies, the plague
ceased and the city was delivered in a few days from
the most awful scourge that had ever visited it.
The news spread to the whole country and all
began to call, with one accord, on the Name of
J esus.    In an incredibly short time all Portugal
was freed from the dread sickness.
The grateful people, mindful of the marvels they
had witnessed, continued their love and confidence
in the Name of our Saviour, so that in all their
troubles, in all dangers, when evils of any kind
threatened them they invoked the Name of Jesus.
Confraternities were formed in the Churches, processions
of the Holy Name were made monthly,
altars were raised in honour of this blessed Name,
so that the greatest curse that had ever fallen upon
the country was transformed into the greatest
blessing.
For long centuries this great confidence in the
Name of Jesus continued in Portugal and thence
spread to Spain, to France, and to the whole World.