Photo exhibit chronicles Eucharistic miracles

There are more than 170 of these around the world that have been verified

The Catholic Register
MARKHAM, ONT.

The Holy Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. This is the great mystery upon which the Catholic Church is built.

The fact that there are more than 170 verified Eucharistic miracles around the world could make one wonder if it is as mysterious as it first seems.

St. Patrick’s Parish in Markham, Ont., recently hosted a Vatican-commissioned photo exhibition of Eucharistic miracles from around the world.

The parish hall was filled with rows of displays, each one telling a unique story of how a consecrated host physically turned to flesh and blood, often before the eyes of witnesses.

“These are miracles where the host becomes more tangibly the Body and Blood of Christ. Through modern-day testing, it has been verified,” said St. Patrick’s pastor Father Dominic Barber. Even then, however, “there is still that step of faith that you take.”

In Sokolka, Poland, in 2008, a host was dropped by a priest. He placed the host in a small bowl of water which he placed in the tabernacle, as is customary in such cases.

A week later the host had mostly dissolved, except for a “strange red clot.” Two specialists in pathological anatomy at the Medical University of Bialystok were consulted and they found fibres similar to those of a human heart. That host has been kept for veneration by the public.

“In many, many instances, these miracles took place where there had been a real waning (of faith) or even doubt,” said Father Barber.

Pope Francis experienced his own Eucharistic miracle in 1996 as Auxiliary Bishop Jorge Bergoglio in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires. A priest in his diocese informed him a host found at the back of the church, placed in water, and locked in the tabernacle had turned into a bloody substance.

Three years later it still had not decomposed, so then-Archbishop Bergoglio had it examined. The scientific investigation revealed human DNA in the host that matched DNA found on the Shroud of Turin.