By Andrew Winter
1. God’s love for us manifests itself in a most strange and wonderful way through Eucharistic miracles. These unexplainable events have occurred all across history in many different countries, and no two are alike. To date there are approximately 120 approved Eucharistic miracles in the Catholic Church.
2. Usually, Eucharistic miracles occur when a host begins to bleed, or to appear as human flesh. In-depth scientific studies of these cases always reveal that the flesh is tissue from a living male heart, a heart which has recently undergone incredible stress. Sometimes Eucharistic miracles appear as the face of Jesus on the surface of the host.
3. God seems to send Eucharistic miracles when his faithful are most doubtful of His True Presence in the host, or when anti-Catholic forces steal hosts for desecration. In other words, they come when they are most needed. Below are a few of the most famous.
4. The miracle at Lanciano occurred in the 8th century when a priest celebrating Mass had sudden doubts about the doctrine of transubstantiation. As he said the words of consecration, the host’s appearance turned to flesh before his eyes, and the wine coagulated into blood. The host has miraculously survived to this very day, and can still be viewed in Lanciano, Italy.
5. At Santarem in 1266 a woman stole a consecrated host from Mass to give to a sorceress. The sorceress promised to make a love potion with the host in order to make the woman’s unfaithful husband love her again; but before the woman got home, the host was bleeding profusely, and in fear, the woman shut it up in a trunk in her bedroom. During the night, she and her husband were awakened by a powerful light shining from the trunk. They took the host to the parish priest and their marriage was healed. The host today is displayed in a crystal case not made by human hands, but sent by God to contain the miracle.
6. A great flood drowned the city of Avignon, France, in 1433. In the Chapelle Sainte Croix, the friars had the Blessed Sacrament exposed, but the flood waters surrounded the church. The water had risen to 4 feet in depth, but the head of the order and another friar with him found that a lane from the door of the church to the altar was completely dry, and the Eucharist on the altar was untouched, though the water flowed all about it.
7. St. Carlo Acutis created a website with detailed stories of every Eucharistic miracle, and beautiful exhibition pieces for spreading the news of the miracles all over the world. Among the many miracles from about 20 countries, St. Carlo listed 32 from Italy alone, along with many miracles connected to specific saints. His exhibits can be viewed at: https://www.miracolieucaristici.org/en/liste/list.html.
8. There are no approved American Eucharistic miracles, but there have been stories of possible miracles, including one in Thomaston, Conn. Here at the church of St. Thomas, a layman distributing Communion claims to have distributed dozens more hosts than his ciborium originally contained. The Vatican continues to investigate this story.
9. Atheists and Protestants might claim that the Eucharistic miracles are fabricated, but this objection can easily be disproven thanks to scientific investigation. In a few of the miracles, the heart tissue was apparently interlaced with the remaining “bread” in the host, in a molecular structure which humans cannot possibly imitate with science. Also, scientists have examined five of the miracles for blood type, and they have all been AB, the rarest type on earth. The odds that all five of these miracles contained AB blood by mere chance is one in 3.2 million.
