Eucharist Miracles

I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world. John 6:51

Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Every mass since then has been a commemoration of this living sacramental sacrifice. Through transubstantiation, ordinary bread and wine become the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ.

This transformation is a miracle that happens every time a priest says the consecration prayers at Mass. Most of us fail to fully understand and appreciate the magnitude of what we are about to receive. If we are not careful, we can take for granted the gift of the Eucharist and, by so doing, reduce it to something commonplace and mundane. But on rare occasions throughout history, miracles that mere mortals can actually see and study have been recorded to help us fully understand and appreciate the mystery of Jesus’ sacrifice.

There are over 120 Vatican-approved Eucharistic miracles. These include holy images that appear on a consecrated host; laws of nature that have been suspended upon exposition of the Blessed Sacrament; and consecrated hosts that appear to be bleeding. We will examine a few examples of each type.

On December 26, 1392, in Moncada, Spain, the Baby Jesus appeared to a little girl as a priest held up a consecrated host during mass. To test whether she was telling the truth, the priest later asked the girl what she saw when he held up both a consecrated and an unconsecrated host. The little girl said she saw Baby Jesus in one of his hands, and just a little disc in the other.

More recently, on April 28, 2001, in Trivandrum, India, a priest saw three small dots appear on the host. He thought this might stand for the Trinity and asked the faithful to remain with him in prayer. A week later, he put the host out for adoration, and a human face was visible not only to the priest but also to the altar server. As adoration continued, the image became clearer and clearer. Photographs of this image have been published as proof.

Another type of miracle occurs when the laws of nature are suspended as the Eucharist is held up or displayed. In 1240, in the town of Assisi, St. Clare repelled barbarian invaders from entering the convent of San Damiano by holding up a pyx containing the Blessed Sacrament. As she raised the pyx, the soldiers turned and ran in terror. Due to their hasty retreat, the town was spared.

In 1264, thieves in Poland stole a monstrance from a church. They threw the pyx into a nearby marsh near Krakow. Intense light burst through the mud until the pyx was recovered. The light was visible for many miles, and it frightened the villagers. The bishop called for a three-day fast and then led a procession to the source of the light. There, they found the pyx and the consecrated hosts, which amazingly did not deteriorate even underwater. Once the hosts were recovered, the light went away.

In 1433, Avignon, France, was flooded by the Rhone River except for an altar where a monstrance bearing the Blessed Sacrament was displayed. Two friars came by boat to check on the church, and what they saw shocked them. The flood water was six feet deep, and a pathway from the doorway to the altar was completely dry. It was like the parting of the Red Sea.

On January 31, 1906, in Tumaco, Colombia, a huge tidal wave threatened to wipe out this coastal city.  Fr. Gerardo Larrondo and the townspeople carried the Blessed Sacrament to the shore, praying for protection. Suddenly, the waves receded, sparing the town and its people from destruction.

The most dramatic and scientifically provable miracles are those in which the host appears to bleed. One of the first approved miracles of this type was in Lanciano, Italy in 750.  A priest who was having doubts about the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist noticed that the consecrated host had changed into flesh and the wine into blood during Mass. The blood coagulated into five globules, presumably the five wounds of Christ, and the flesh remained the same. They were both preserved intact for almost 1,200 years.

Then, in 1970, Pope Paul VI allowed a scientific study which found the flesh had the structure of the myocardium (heart wall) and the endocardium (membrane of the cardiac cavity). The flesh also contained areoles, veins, and nerve fibers. The blood globules were determined to be human in origin, with proteins that match those of fresh blood.  The blood type was AB, the same as that found on the Shroud of Turin and the face cloth of Oviedo. Fresh white blood cells were also detected in the sample. The sample appeared not to have deteriorated at all after all those centuries, even though it was not hermetically sealed.   

In 1996, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a priest put a desecrated host, which was found by a woman in a candle holder in the back of the church, in a glass of water to dissolve and dispose of later.  After eight days, he opened the tabernacle. Instead of finding the host fully dissolved in the water, it was now a piece of bloody tissue. The host remained this way for three years in the tabernacle without decomposing. To test the veracity of this occurrence, Dr. Ricardo Castanon Gomez took a small sample of the bloody flesh and sent it to New York City for examination. He did not tell the lab its true origin. Dr. Frederick Zugibe, famous for his work in forensic pathology, concluded the following after examining the flesh:

“The analyzed material is a fragment of the heart muscle found in the wall of the left ventricle close to the valves. This muscle is responsible for the contraction of the heart. It should be borne in mind that the left cardiac ventricle pumps blood to all parts of the body. The heart muscle is in an inflammatory condition and contains a large number of white blood cells. It is my contention that the heart was alive, since white blood cells die outside a living organism. They require a living organism to sustain them. Thus, their presence indicates that the heart was alive when the sample was taken. What is more, these white blood cells had penetrated the tissue, which further indicates that the heart had been under severe stress, as if the owner had been beaten severely about the chest.”

In Sokolka, Poland, in 2008, a host was dropped during communion. Again, it was placed in a glass of water to dissolve and appropriately disposed of later. After one week had passed, a sacristan opened the safe, smelled the aroma of baking bread, and saw that the host had a red stain on it. Studies found that the stained portion of the host was myocardial (heart) tissue from a person near death. The muscle fibers are actually interwoven into the bread. No human technology could have replicated this, according to Dr. Maria Sobaniec-Lotowska. She stated:

“Even NASA scientists who have at their disposal the most modern technology would not be able to artificially create such a thing. Furthermore the blood contains enzymes of a dying person.  The studies prove that no foreign substance was added to the consecrated host. Rather that part of the host was taken in the form of human heart muscle of a person near death.”

These many miracles and accompanying scientific studies have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Jesus poured out for our sins. This Holy Thursday, especially when receiving communion and during adoration after mass, spend some time thanking Our Lord for His great sacrifice, renew your promise to love and obey Him, and ask for blessings for yourself and your family.