XXXII

There are numerous eucharistic miracles verified and attested by the Vatican. 

One at Santarem Portugal 50 miles from Fatima is one that I have seen during my last visit to Fatima.

A woman living in Santarém, Portugal in the 13th century was distressed over the unfaithfulness of her husband,  and decided to consult a sorceress for help. The sorceress told her the price of her services was a consecrated host.

She went to Mass at the Church of St. Stephen and received the Eucharist on her tongue, removed the Eucharist from her mouth, wrapped it in her veil, and headed to the door of the church. But before she got out, the host began to bleed.

When she got home, she put the bloodied host in a trunk. That night, a miraculous light emanated from the trunk. She repented of what she had done and the next morning confessed to her priest. Her priest came and retrieved the host and took it back to the church.

The bloody Host was taken in procession to the Church of St. Stephen, where it was encased in wax (to contain the blood and the Host) and secured in the tabernacle. Sometime later when the tabernacle was opened, the wax that had encased the Host was found broken into pieces, and the Host was found miraculously enclosed in a crystal pyx, along with the precious Blood. After the investigation and approval by the Church authorities, the Church of St. Stephen was renamed "The Church of the Holy Miracle."

Argentina-miracle-of-the Host

Back in 1996, when Pope Francis was formerly Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, a miracle of the Host occurred in Buenos Aires. On August 18, 1996, three days after the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, a woman came up to Fr. Alejandro Pezet after Holy Mass in a local church, and pointed to a discarded Host on a candleholder at the back of the church. Unable to consume the Host, Fr. Pezet put it in a container with water and placed it inside the tabernacle.

On August 26, a week later, as he opened the tabernacle, he saw that the Host had turned blood red. He informed Bergoglio, who immediately had it photographed. On September 6, the photographs revealed that the Host “had become a fragment of bloodied flesh and had grown significantly in size”. For years, the Host was kept secretly in the tabernacle. On October 5, 1999, Bergoglio, now an Archbishop, seeing that the Host did not decompose, sent it for scientific analysis in New York City through his representative Dr. Castanon.

Dr. Castanon purposely did not give any background about the Host to Dr. Frederic Zugiba, a well-known cardiologist and forensic pathologist, who did the examination. His findings revealed that it was “real flesh and blood and containing human DNA. Zugiba testified that the material was a fragment of the heart muscle responsible for contraction to supply blood to all parts of the body.

Dr. Zugiba reported that the examined material was inflamed flesh containing a lot of white blood cells, indicating that the heart was alive at the time the sample was taken. Dr. Zugiba added that white blood cells would die in a matter of minutes if the heart was no longer alive and functioning. The white blood cells had penetrated the tissue, indicating that the heart had been under severe stress, as if the owner had a trauma of being beaten on the chest. This reminds us of the pain and trauma of the Crucifixion of our Lord.

Finally informed that it was a Host, Dr. Zugiba was shocked and said, “How and why a consecrated Host would change its character and become living human flesh and blood will remain an inexplicable mystery to science.”

Every day, on the altars of Catholic churches around the world, the greatest miracle possible takes place: the transformation of bread and wine into the true Body and Blood of Christ.

Nonetheless, when we receive Communion, we can only touch its true nature with our faith, because our senses only perceive bread and wine, physically unaltered by the consecration.