There are 110 documented miracles of the host which have occurred worldwide throughout the ages, duly recognized by the Church, as shown by a Vatican International Exhibit called The Eucharistic Miracles of the World,. The exhibit has visited about 1,000 parishes worldwide, including the St. James the Greater Parish in Ayala Alabang in 2013. Let us take a look at one of those miracles.
Back in 1966, when Pope Francis was still Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, a miracle of the Host occurred in Buenos Aires that later caused a stir. In hind sight, that story becomes meaningful now that he is Pope. On August 18, 1966, three days after the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, a woman came up to Fr. Alejandro Pezet after Holy Mass in a local church, and pointed to a discarded Host on a candleholder at the back of the church. Unable to consume the Host, Fr. Pezet put it in a container with water and placed it inside the tabernacle.
On August 26, a week later, as he opened the tabernacle, he saw that the Host had turned blood red. He informed Cardinal Bergoglio, who immediately had it photographed. On September 6, the photographs revealed that the Host “had become a fragment of bloodied flesh and had grown significantly in size”. For years, the Host was kept secretly in the tabernacle. On October 5, 1999, the Cardinal, seeing that the Host did not decompose, sent it for scientific analysis in New York City through his representative Dr. Castanon.
Dr. Castanon purposely did not give any background about the Host to Dr. Frederic Zugiba, a well-known cardiologist and forensic pathologist, who did the examination. His findings revealed the it was “real flesh and blood and containing human DNA”. Zugiba testified that the material was a fragment of the heart muscle responsible for contraction to supply blood to all parts of the body.
Dr. Zugiba reported that the examined material was inflamed flesh containing a lot of white blood cells, indicating that the heart was alive at the time the sample was taken. Dr. Zugiba added that white blood cells would die in a matter of minutes if the heart was no longer alive and functioning. The white blood cells had penetrated the tissue, indicating that the heart had been under severe stress, as if the owner had a trauma of being beaten on the chest. This reminds us of the pain and trauma of the Crucifixion of our Lord.
Finally informed that it was a Host, Dr. Zugiba was shocked and said, “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 blind man in Adelaide, Australia, who wanted so much to see a documentary film on the Buenos Aires miracle, after praying intensely for the grace to ‘see’, was given his sight but only for the 30 minute duration of the film. To prove that he really saw it, he described in detail certain scenes. Half an hour was a lifetime for him, and he can ‘see’ today in his blindness more than others who are not blind. (Source – loamagazine-the buenos aires miracle)
The fact that a future Pope was in the midst of this miracle of the Host, the message seems to say that, in whatever crisis the Church is in today, and whatever difficult tasks the Pope has to do to solve that crisis, we must begin and end with the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the Alpha and Omega of solving that crisis. Pope Francis can solve the Church crisis through the Eucharist. It’s not just up to him. It’s up to him with the Lord behind him. Our solution to our personal crisis, whatever it is, begin and depend on our devotion to the Eucharist. Our reconciliation with His heart is through the Eucharist. Only through Him can we weather a severe storm raging inside us.
The Holy Eucharist is a core element of Catholic faith, the sine qua non (that without which there is nothing)’. The deepest intimacy with Jesus is when we eat His flesh, which nourishes us, and which makes Him part of our body when we digest the host. p188 eucharist as bridge to Jesus
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