Eucharistic Miracles
In the blog post God's Fingerprints a short mention was made of Eucharistic miracles. Here the topic will be discussed in more detail.
First of all what is the Eucharist? At Jesus' last supper on the Thursday before Easter he anticipated his sacrifice on the cross the day after on mount Calvary just outside of Jerusalem.
Some years before John the Baptist had called him the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) refering to the Jews sacrificing an Easter lamb to protect them from the final plague in Egypt (Ex 12:3-13) but also the "scapegoat" that the Jews could burden with their sins in the desert on their way to the promised land (Lev 16:21-22). In the desert there was also the highly symbolic event of the "bronze serpent on the pole" to which the Jews had to look up to be saved from actual snake bites (Num 21:9).
Jesus himself said at his last supper: Take and eat this IS my body; drink all from this, this IS my blood, the blood of the covenant (Mat 26:26-28 / Mark 14:22-24); Do this in my remembrance (Luke 22:19). And some time before: I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my body; my body is the true food and my blood the true drink (John 6:51,55).
As a consequence the catholic church teaches the "Transsubstantiation," that the bread and wine in the Eucharistic celebration turn into the body and blood of Jesus, that somehow puts present his sacrifice on the cross of long ago and far away (like a 'wormhole' in science-fiction language).
Before the Vatican officially accepts a claimed miracle, a commission of experts needs to have investigated it and declare it to be scientifically inexplicable. Actually, each official sanctification (to pronounce someone a saint) requires two miracles, practically always those are impossible healings.
Specifically of Eucharistic miracles, more than 152 have been officially recognised. The Italian whizz kid Carlo Acutis who was beatified last year, built a web site to make them all more known, see www.miracolieucaristici.org
Already in the small country of the Netherlands there have been eight: Alkmaar 1429, Amsterdam 1345, Bergen 1421, Boxmeer 1400, Boxtel-Hoogstraten 1380, Breda-Niervaart 1300, Meerssen 1222-1465 & Stiphout 1342 (note that all occured during the high middle ages?!).
Different types exist: bleeding hosts, hosts that were conserved for hundreds of years (e.g. Siena), hosts conserved in a fire (and levitating like in Amsterdam), or that were stolen, disappeared and miraculously reappeared in the church.
Lanciano is the oldest and most complete eucharistic miracle. It is based on a strong foundation of spoken tradition and written proof (yet a bit later). Lanciano is a small village of 36 thousand inhabitants at the east coast of Italie. It was around the year 730-750 in the monastery of St Longinus (the one that pierced Jesus' side with his lance?!) where Greek monks lived that had fled from persecution to Italy. A monk had doubts during the mass and the host changed into flesh and blood. The flesh has the same size as the big host used in the mass, contains fibers, has a oker yellow colour and pink when lighted from behind. The blood is distributed in 5 clots (refering to Jesus' five cross wounds).
Scientific investigations have been done in 1574 by the bishop, in 1636 by a priest monk, in 1777 by the bishop, in 1886 by the bishop, and in 1971 (with some extensions in 1981) by Linoli, a professor in anatomy and pathological histology (tissue research of deviations). He is also a learned chemist and clinical microscopist.
The results of his investigations are that the flesh is human heart tissue, that the blood proteins have the same ratios as in fresh normal blood, that there are no traces of preservatives (like salt), that the blood type is AB+ (of a universal receiver?!) both of the flesh as of the blood (and the same as on the Shroud of Turin and actually of all other eucharistic miracles?!). So the flesh is a ‘heart’ complete in its essential structure.
The Lanciano results are quite comparable to those of the Buenos Aires' Eucharistic miracle of 1996. Pope Francis then still was auxiliary bishop Bergoglio there. Fallen hosts were put into water to decompose, but they didn't and instead started to bleed (see first picture). A few years later Dr Castañon, an atheist, had Dr Zugibe, a famous cardiologist from New York, do research on part of them without him knowing where it came from. He declared that the tissue was from a tortured, yet living heart (because of the white blood cells present). As a result Dr Castañon became a believer, so quite impressive stuff.
Even more impressive scientific results on miraculous eucharistic hosts were obtained in Tixtla, Mexico (2006) and Sokolka, Poland (2008). Since they're very similar I only describe the last one. A fallen host was put in water to decompose. When a week later a red stain was discovered in the middle, it was put on a corporal cloth and studied by scientific institutes after three years. The results were that the altered fragment of the host consists of heart tissue of someone alive yet dying. Moreover, the flesh and bread parts are microscopically interwoven which is humanly impossible to reproduce. {:-)
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