"Eucharistic Miracles: A Gift from God!" Sept 30, 2022

Eucharistic Miracles: A Gift from God!

At every Catholic Mass, following the command of Jesus Himself, the celebrant raises the host and says, "Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my Body, which will be given up for you." Then he lifts the chalice and says, "Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me." 

The doctrine of transubstantiation, the teaching that bread and wine are changed into the actual Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, is difficult. When Christ first told His followers of it, many rejected Him. But Jesus did not clarify His statement or correct their misunderstanding. He simply repeated His command to the disciples at the Last Supper. Some Christians today still have trouble accepting this teaching. Throughout history, many people have reported miracles that brought them back to the truth. The Church has recognized over one hundred Eucharistic Miracles, many of which occurred during times of weakened faith in transubstantiation. 

One of the earliest was recorded by the Desert Fathers in Egypt, who were among the first Christian monks. One of these monks had doubts about the Real Presence of Jesus in the consecrated bread and wine. Two of his fellow monks prayed for his faith to be strengthened, and they all attended Mass together. According to the account they left behind, when the bread was placed on the altar, the three men saw a small child there. When the priest put out his hand to break the bread, an angel descended with a sword and poured the child's blood into the chalice. When the priest cut the bread into small pieces, the angel also cut the child into pieces. When the men drew near to receive Communion, the skeptical man alone received a morsel of bloody flesh. Seeing this, he became afraid and cried out: "Lord, I believe that this bread is your flesh and this chalice your blood." Immediately the flesh became bread, and he took it, giving thanks to God. The other monks then had a great insight into the miracle that takes place at each Mass. They explained, "God knows human nature and that man cannot eat raw flesh, and that is why he has changed his body into bread and his blood into wine for those who receive it in faith." 

In 1263, a German priest known as Peter of Prague was struggling with the doctrine of transubstantiation. While he was saying Mass in Bolseno, Italy, blood began to stream out of the host and onto the corporal at the moment of consecration. This was reported to and investigated by Pope Urban IV, who concluded that the miracle was real. The bloodstained linen is still exhibited at the cathedral in Orvieto, Italy. Many Eucharistic Miracles are like the one experienced by Peter of Prague, in which the host turns into flesh and blood. 

Pope Urban had experience with a Eucharistic Miracle. Years earlier, Bl. Juliana of Cornillon, in Belgium, had a vision in which she saw a full moon that was darkened in one spot. A heavenly voice told her that the moon represented the Church at that time, and the dark spot showed that a great feast in honor of Corpus Christi was missing from the liturgical calendar. She reported this vision to a local Church official, the archdeacon of Liege. He later became Pope Urban IV. 

Remembering Juliana's vision as he verified the bloody miracle reported by Peter of Prague, Urban commissioned St. Thomas Aquinas to compose the Office for the Mass and Liturgy of the Hours for a new feast dedicated to devotion of the Eucharist. This liturgy of Corpus Christi (more fully defined in 1312) is pretty much how we celebrate it today. 

At Mass on Easter Sunday, 1331, in Blanot, a small village in the middle of France, one of the last people to receive Communion was a woman named Jacquette. The priest placed the host on her tongue, turned, and started walking toward the altar. He did not notice that the host fell from her mouth and landed on a cloth covering her hands. When he was alerted to it, he went back to the woman, who was still kneeling at the railing. Instead of finding the host on the cloth, the priest saw only a spot of blood. 

When Mass was over, the priest took the cloth into the sacristy and placed it in a basin of water. He washed the spot numerous times but found that it became darker and larger, eventually reaching the size and shape of a host. He took a knife and cut the part bearing the bloody imprint of the host from the cloth. He then put it in the tabernacle along with the consecrated hosts that remained after the Mass. 

Those consecrated hosts were never distributed. Instead, they were kept in the tabernacle along with the cloth relic. After hundreds of years, they were still perfectly preserved. Unfortunately, they were lost during the French Revolution. The bloodstained cloth, though, was preserved by a parishioner named Dominique Cortet. It is solemnly exposed in St. Martin's Church in Blanot every year on the feast of Corpus Christi. 

With some Eucharistic Miracles, the host emits a bright light. In 1247, for instance, a woman in Santarem, Portugal, was concerned about her husband's faithfulness. She went to a sorceress, who promised the woman that her husband would return to his loving ways if the wife would bring a consecrated host back to the sorceress. The woman agreed. At Mass, the woman managed to obtain a consecrated host and put it in a kerchief, but before she could return to the sorceress, the cloth became bloodstained. This frightened the woman. She hurried home and hid the cloth and host in a drawer in her bedroom. That night, the drawer emitted a bright light. When her husband saw it, the woman told him what had happened. The following day, many townspeople came to the house, attracted by the light. 

The people reported the events back to the parish priest, who went to the house. He took the host back to the church and put it in a wax container where it continued to bleed for three days. The host remained in the wax container for four years. One day when the priest opened the tabernacle door, he saw that the wax had broken into numerous pieces. In its place was a crystal container with the blood inside. The house where the miracle took place was converted into a chapel in 1684. Even today, on the second Sunday of April, the incident is re-enacted in the Church of St. Stephen in Santarem. The reliquary that houses the miraculous host rests above the tabernacle in that church, and it can be viewed year-round from a set of stairs behind the main altar. 

A similar phenomenon took place in the 1300s in the village of Wawel, near Krakow, Poland. Thieves broke into a church, forced their way into the tabernacle, and stole the monstrance containing consecrated hosts. When they determined that the monstrance was not made of gold, they threw it into nearby marshlands. When darkness fell, a light emanated from the spot where the monstrance and consecrated hosts had been abandoned. The light was visible for several kilometers, and frightened villagers reported it to the bishop of Krakow. The bishop called for three days of fasting and prayer. On the third day, he led a procession to the marsh. There he found the monstrance and the consecrated hosts, which were unbroken. Annually on the occasion of the Feast of the Corpus Christi, this miracle is celebrated in Corpus Christi Church in Krakow. 

My favorite Eucharistic Miracle took place in Avignon, France, in November 1433. A small church run by the Gray Penitents of the Franciscan order was exhibiting a consecrated host for perpetual adoration. After several days of heavy rain, the Sorgue and Rhone rivers had risen to a dangerous height. On November 30, Avignon was flooded. The head of the order and another friar rowed a boat to the church, certain that their little church had been destroyed. Instead, they saw a miracle. 

Although water around the church was four feet high, a pathway from the doorway to the altar was perfectly dry, and the sacred host was untouched. The water had been held back in the same way the Red Sea had parted. Amazed by what they had seen, the Friars had others from their order come to the church to verify the miracle. The news spread rapidly, and many townspeople and authorities came to the church, singing songs of praise and of thanks to the Lord. Still today, the Gray Penitent brothers reunite at the Chapelle des Penitents Gris every November 30th to celebrate the memory of the miracle. Before the blessing of the sacrament, the brothers perform a sacred chant taken from the Canticle of Moses, which was composed after the parting of the Red Sea. 

Faith, of course, should not be based on miracles alone. Several of the recorded miracles are very old, and it may be possible to dismiss them. There is no doubt, though, that reports of these miracles have strengthened the faith of many in the instructions given by Christ and provided avenues for contemplation of the miracle that takes place at each Mass. 

Divine Mercy Parish is proud to host the Vatican Exhibit of Eucharistic Miracles from Thursday, September 29th – Sunday, October 2nd. With an extensive assortment of photographs and historical descriptions, the exhibition presents some of the principle Eucharistic Miracles that took place throughout the ages in various countries of the world. For additional information and for the complete schedule of events, please visit: https://divinemercyparish.org/eucharistic-miracles.

Through Eucharistic Miracles, Jesus surely does strength our faith.

Fr. Robert T. Cooper, Pastor
Divine Mercy Parish and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School