Eucharistic Miracles

July starts tomorrow, the month dedicated by the Church to devotion to the Precious Blood of Jesus. As such, I thought I'd finally follow up on my Eucharist posts with an article about Eucharistic Miracles.

Back when I wrote my series about the Eucharist, I had planned to follow it up with a few articles about those phenomena in the history of the Church when Jesus had gone even beyond the great miracle of Transubstantiation, in order to provide tangible proof of His Real Presence in the Eucharist. I own a book (which I lent to someone and have yet to get back), which catalogues and summarises over 100 Church-approved Eucharistic Miracles, and was hoping to use it as a springboard for the series. However, I've discovered that the contents of the entire book are available online, as well as other goodies, at The Real Presence Association's website. I very much encourage you to check out this website, and the various miracles recorded there.

In particular, please read Monsignor Raffaello Martinelli's essay explaining what a Eucharistic Miracle is (and, importantly, what it's not!). As well, if all 100+ miracles are a bit daunting to you, dear reader, I would especially encourage you to check out the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano (and part 2), one of the earliest, most dramatic, most scientifically-researched Eucharistic miracles of all--and one that still exists after nearly 1300 years!

People often accuse Christians of accepting their beliefs based on blind faith. Eucharistic Miracles show that, to the contrary, God provides evidence for us from time to time! An atheist friend with whom I used to work once asked, "If God wants us all to believe in Him, why doesn't He give us some proof?" When I showed him the book of Eucharistic Miracles, and in particular, the Miracle of Lanciano, he replied, "I dunno. Seems kinda like a dog-and-pony show." It's not Christians who believe on blind faith; it's sceptics who disbelieve on blind faith!

To whet your appetite to check out the above website, I've included a two-part presentation on YouTube:



The first Eucharistic Miracle presented in the video is that of Lanciano, linked above. The second one is that of Bolsena (and part 2). The third is the one which I linked to back at the beginning of the Eucharist series, and can be found here.

God bless,
Gregory


(Category: Catholic Distinctives: Sacraments--The Eucharist)