Eucharistic miracles that defy science
Eucharistic miracles that defy science
According to Catholic Catechism, CCC 1376: The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation." Hard for non-believers to wrap their heads around, so what about the instances where the change was literal??
“Eucharistic miracle" refers to extraordinary empirical signs of Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist, such as bleeding hosts or the transmutation of a consecrated host into a piece of human cardiac muscle tissue.
- The blood is human, AB blood type; human DNA was found; white blood cells, red blood cells, haemoglobin, and macrophages were present, indicating fresh blood; in the Tixtla miracle, the blood clearly emanated from within, because the blood on the surface had begun to coagulate but the interior blood was still fresh, as with a bleeding wound
- The flesh is human myocardium tissue of the left ventricle of an inflamed heart; in the miracles from Argentina and Poland, there was evidence of trauma from the presence of thrombi, indicating repeated lack of oxygen; lesions present showed rapid cardiac spasms typical in the final phases of death
- In the Sokólka miracle, the remaining host is tightly interconnected with the fibres of human tissue, penetrating each other inseparably – as if the bread were transforming into flesh. “Even NASA scientists, who have at their disposal the most modern analytical techniques, would not be able to artificially recreate such a thing,” affirmed Dr Sobaniec-Lotowska, one of the examining experts.
The 2013 Eucharistic Miracle at Legnica, Poland: A Bleeding Host with Human Muscle Tissue
On Christmas Day 2013, a consecrated host fell on the floor at the Church of Saint Hyacinth in Legnica, Poland. The host was put into a container with water so that it would dissolve. Instead of dissolving, it formed red blood stains. In February 2014, the host was examined by various research institutes, including the Department of Forensic Medicine in Szczecin, which concluded:
“In the histopathological image, the fragments were found containing the fragmented parts of the cross-striated muscle. It is most similar to the heart muscle.”
Additionally, and similar to the findings of the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano, Italy, the research found that the tissue had alterations that would appear during great distress.
The bleeding Host in Poland was approved for veneration in April 2016 by Bishop Zbigniew Kiernikowski of Legnica, who said that it “has the hallmarks of a Eucharistic miracle.”
The 2006 Eucharistic Miracle in Tixtla, Mexico: A Bleeding Host
In Oct. 2006, at the Parish of Saint Martin of Tours in the Chilpancingo-Chilapa Diocese of Mexico held a retreat. During mass, two priests and a religious sister were distributing communion when the religious sister looked at the celebrant with tears in her eyes. The Host that she held had begun to effuse a reddish substance.
To determine the validity of the event, Bishop Alejo Zavala Castro asked Dr. Ricardo Castañón Gómez (who researched the Eucharistic miracle in Buenos Aires described below) and his team to conduct scientific research.
In 2013, the research concluded that:
“The reddish substance analyzed corresponds to blood in which there are hemoglobin and DNA of human origin. . . The blood type is AB, similar to the one found in the Host of Lanciano and in the Holy Shroud of Turin.”
Learn more about the Tixtla eucharistic miracle here.
A 2001 Eucharistic Miracle at Chirattakonam, India: A Bleeding Host with Human Face
Though most Eucharistic miracles involve a bleeding host, the one at the parish of St Mary, Chirattakonam, India, was a bit different. On April 28 2001, the church began the Novena to St. Jude Thaddeus as they did every year. At 8:49am, the priest exposed the Most Holy Sacrament in the monstrance for public adoration. After a few moments, they saw what appeared to be three dots in the Holy Eucharist. They prayed to the host for a while and then it was placed securely in the tabernacle.
The priest then went to the archbishop of the diocese to inform him of the change but when he returned to the parish and opened the tabernacle it had in fact developed further as now clearly in the Eucharist was not only the three red dots but a face crowned with a crown of thorns.
It is suggested that the three red dots refer to the three wounds St. Thomas asked to see of Jesus before he would believe he rose from the dead, a thought compounded by the fact that this was the reading of the day. The Eucharist remains there to this day and is often adored by the faithful. Read more about the Miracle at Chirattakonam here.
The 2008 Eucharistic Miracle in Sokólka, Poland: A Bleeding Host with Myocardial Tissue
This miracle took place in 2008 at the church of St. Anthony in the city of Sokólka in Poland. That morning during Mass, a priest accidentally dropped a host while distributing Communion. The Host was then put in a small container of water. The pastor, Fr. Stanislaw Gniedziejko, asked the sacristan, Sister Julia Dubowska of the Congregation of the Eucharistic Sisters, to place the container in a safe in the sacristy. After a week, Sister Julia checked on the host. When she opened the safe, she smelled something like unleavened bread, and the host had a red blood stain on it.
Immediately, Sister Julia and Fr. Gniedziejko told the archbishop of Bialystok, Bishop Edward Ozorowski, about the host. The Bishop had the stained host taken out of the container and placed on a corporal, where it stayed in the tabernacle for three years. During this time, the stained fragment of the host dried out (appearing more like a blood stain or clot), and several studies were commissioned on the host. The studies found that the altered fragment of the host is identical to the myocardial (heart) tissue of a person who is nearing death. Additionally, the structure of the muscle fibres and that of the bread are interwoven in a way impossible to produce by human means.
The 1996-99 Eucharistic Miracle in Buenos Aires, Argentina: A Bleeding Host with Myocardial Tissue
At seven o’clock in the evening on Aug. 18, 1996, Father Alejandro Pezet was celebrating Holy Mass at the Church of Santa Maria y Caballito Almagro in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As he was finishing distributing Holy Communion, a woman came up to tell him that she had found a discarded host on a candleholder at the back of the church. Going to the spot indicated, Father Alejandro saw the defiled Host. Since he could not consume it, he placed it in a container of water and put it away in the Tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel.
On Aug. 26, it was discovered that the Host had several blood stains. These stains became larger every day afterwards. then Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) was contacted. He immediately had the Host professionally photographed on September 6th. For reasons which are not clear, it was decided not to publicize the event and to keep the Host in the holy water. The Host stayed this way for three years and never decomposed.
On October 5, 1999, a scientific investigation was begun under the leadership of Ricardo Castañon Gómez of Bolivia, a clinical psychologist who specializes in brain chemistry. Eight scientists were involved in this investigation from four continents.
On Oct. 21, 1999, Castañon brought a sample to a forensic laboratory in San Francisco to do analysis. On Jan. 28, 2000, scientists found fragments of human DNA in the sample, but not enough to produce amplified DNA. Dr. Robert Lawrence, a top histopathologist, who studies tissues, found human skin and white blood cells upon further analysis.
In 2001, Castañon sent samples to Dr. Edoardo Linoli in Arezzo, Italy, who said the sample was heart tissue and had white blood cells.
In 2002, samples were sent to Dr. John Walker of the University of Sydney in Australia, who said that the sample was muscle cells with intact white blood cells.
On Oct. 5, 1999, in the presence of the Cardinal’s representatives, Dr. Castanon took a sample of the bloody fragment and sent it to New York for analysis. Since he did not wish to prejudice the study, he purposely did not inform the team of scientists of its provenance. One of these scientists was Dr. Frederic Zugibe, a well-known cardiologist and forensic pathologist at Columbia University. He determined that the analyzed substance was real flesh and blood containing human DNA.
Dr Zugibe testified that “the analyzed material is a fragment of the heart muscle found in the wall of the left ventricle close to the valves…The heart muscle is in an inflammatory condition and contains a large number of white blood cells. This indicates that the heart was alive at the time the sample was taken 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.”
What is so remarkable about this testimony is not so much that the tissues came from the wall of the left ventricle but that white blood cells were present in large numbers in it, meaning the tissue was removed from a heart and was still alive and pumping.
Two Australians, journalist Mike Willesee and lawyer Ron Tesoriero, witnessed these tests. Knowing where the sample had come from, they were dumbfounded by Dr. Zugibe’s testimony. Mike Willesee asked the scientist how long the white blood cells would have remained alive if they had come from a piece of human tissue, which had been kept in water. They would have ceased to exist in a matter of minutes, Dr. Zugibe replied. The journalist then told the doctor that the source of the sample had first been kept in ordinary water for a month and then for another three years in a container of distilled water; only then had the sample been taken for analysis.
Dr. Zugibe was at a loss to account for this fact. There was no way of explaining it scientifically, he stated. Only then did Mike Willesee inform Dr. Zugibe that the analyzed sample came from a consecrated Host (white, unleavened bread) that had mysteriously turned into bloody human flesh!
Amazed by this information, Dr Zugibe replied, “How and why a consecrated Host would change its character and become living human flesh and blood will remain an inexplicable mystery to science—a mystery totally beyond her competence.”
Castañon was an atheist when he began the investigation but converted to Catholicism by the end of this investigation.
This Eucharistic miracle does not yet have Church approval.
References
- Magis Center. (2020, August 31). 4 Approved Eucharistic miracles from the 21st century. Magis Center. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://www.magiscenter.com/blog/approved-eucharistic-miracles-21st-century
- The Eucharistic miracle of Buenos Aires, Argentina. (2022, November 4). Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Medford, OR. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://fargodiocese.net/news/the-eucharistic-miracle-of-buenos-aires-argentina
- Ferrisi, S. (2023, June 13). Three Eucharistic miracles: Which cases have undergone the most extensive scientific analysis? National Catholic Register. https://www.ncregister.com/features/three-eucharistic-miracles-which-cases-have-undergone-the-most-extensive-scientific-analysis
- Williams, J. (2021, November 3). The Amazing Science of Recent Eucharistic Miracles: A Message from Heaven? Ascension Press. https://media.ascensionpress.com/2021/11/03/the-amazing-science-of-recent-eucharistic-miracles-a-message-from-heaven/
QR code for this online article
Really good to know of these miracles
ReplyDelete