A Union at Mass
Once a young student saw such a dazzling light that it caused him to change his life, entering the Order of St. Dominic. The light that he saw was that surrounding St. John of the Cross, who had just concluded saying Mass.
Source: Shapcote, Emily Mary, Legends of the Blessed Sacrament (London, Burns & Oates) p. 100.
More Than Mary First Received
St. Peter Julian Eymard, who was known for his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, used to advise people to approach going to Eucharistic Adoration, “as one would to heaven.”
He also related that:
… in communion we receive the glorified Body of Christ, we receive more than Mary received in the Incarnation. The body Mary carried in Her womb was simply the human body of the Savior; we receive His impassible, celestial Body. Mary carried the Man of Sorrows; we carry the Son of God crowned with glory!
Source: Kaczmarek, Louis, Hidden Treasure, The Riches of the Eucharist (Plattsburgh, N.Y., Trinity Communications, 1990) p. 82.
A Wish Granted
Santarem is a city in the central region of Portugal. It is remembered still to this today as the site of one of the greatest Eucharistic miracles in the history of the Catholic Church. According to an official record of the event commissioned by King Alfonso IV, that event took place in the year 1266.
Only one year earlier, in 1265, a lesser-known event also took place. It seems that two boys from the neighborhood wanted to become what we would refer to today as altar boys. A Dominican priest by the name of Fr. Bernard was given charge over them for this purpose.
Every morning, after Mass, they would retire to a small side chapel to eat a little meal, often some bread and a piece of fruit. They would spend the entire day at the cloister, learning grammar and the Catechism from Fr. Bernard. Thus, they needed to eat something to sustain them for the time to be spent there.
It was also the case that the side chapel contained a depiction of the Blessed Mother, holding the Babe Jesus in her arms. Each day they would greet the Infant as they came in. It came to be that the Infant would often ask them to give Him some of their food, which they proceeded to do, and thus, they would share their meal together.
Eventually, they informed Fr. Bernard of these happenings. He was astonished, but did not doubt they were being truthful. They also had a question for Fr. Bernard. The Child takes some of their food, but never does He bring any food to give them. They inquired, “what shall they do?”
Fr. Bernard’s advice was to ask, the next time this happened, to dine with the Child in His Father’s house. The children did as was suggested. The next day, after having made their request, the Child replied, “You could not give me a greater pleasure than to make such a petition. Yes, I invite you as you desire. Inform your master, that he prepare himself by the Feast of the Ascension. On that day, as you wish it, I will entertain all three.”
The children did as they were told and related all of this to Fr. Bernard. He then prepared himself for what was to come.
On the Feast of the Ascension, after having said Mass, Fr. Bernard prostrated himself on the steps of the altar, signaling to the boys that they should do the same.
After the brothers of the monastery had their dinner, they went into the church as was their custom. There, they saw Fr. Bernard and the two boys, still lying on the steps. They first thought all three slept, but soon discovered that all three were dead; they had passed to their eternal reward in the Father’s house.
The brothers turned to the confessor of Fr. Bernard and asked whether he could shed any light on the passing of all three at the same time, including two so young, without any external injury or apparent cause.
The confessor was aware of the circumstances recounted above, and he boldly told all assembled of these matters.
The bodies of all three, with great ceremony, joy and thanksgiving, were laid in the same grave, and a plaque, bearing the substance of this story, was placed there.
Shapcote, Emily Mary, Legends of the Blessed Sacrament (London, Burns & Oates) p. 43-44, and “The Eucharistic Miracles of the World,” a Vatican international exhibition, as reported by The Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association,
The Moment of Consecration
The following words are those of St. Faustina, taken from entry 684 of her “Diary:”
Holy Hour – Thursday. During this hour of prayer, Jesus allowed me to enter the Cenacle, and I was a witness to what happened there. However, I was most deeply moved when, before the Consecration, Jesus raised His eyes to heaven and entered into a mysterious conversation with His Father. It is only in eternity that we shall really understand that moment. His eyes were like two flames; His face was radiant, white as snow; His whole personage full of majesty, His soul full of longing. At the moment of Consecration, love rested satiated-the sacrifice fully consummated. Now only the external ceremony of death will be carried out-external destruction; the essence [of it] is in the Cenacle. Never in my whole life had I understood this mystery so profoundly as during that hour of adoration. Oh, how ardently I desire that the whole world would come to know this unfathomable mystery!
The Boy From The Marketplace
The following story was told by Fr. Joseph, a priest from India, on September 8, 2018, at a parish church in Manning, S.C. called Our Lady of Hope.
Once, back in India, a boy who was 17-18 years old had come home from school. He had completed his studies to be a teacher and was given 10 days off to prepare for his final exam. While in the marketplace, he was suddenly struck dumb and could not speak. All his studies had been rendered a waste. He could no longer teach any of the children for whom he had wished to devote his life.
Wanting to help, I decided to pay a trip he could take. There was a priest known for having the gift of healing known as Fr. Ju. Perhaps he could help the boy.
That night, however, I could not sleep. I was troubled by questions about myself. “Why am I a priest?” kept going through my head.
In the morning, I sent for the boy. The whole poor, little village came to watch as I prayed for him in our church. An entire hour passed. Nothing happened.
Perhaps in some degree of desperation or with new fervor, I prayed to the Tabernacle, “so that they may know You are here; please help this boy so that they may know You are here.”
Then, I dipped a Host in holy water and gave it to the boy. He received it and drank the holy water.
Immediately, he was cured.
Fr. Joe told this story to illustrate a reading from the Mass that day. It was from Isiah, chapter 35:
Thus says the LORD:
Say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
with divine recompense
he comes to save you.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared.
Erding
About 20 miles northeast of Munich lies the town of Erding, Germany. On Holy Thursday, 1417, a poor peasant went into the local church and stole a consecrated Host.
He thought he could use it to make his life prosperous economically. He had a neighbor who seemed to work the same amount but was always more successful. When he inquired as to how he did it, the neighbor simply replied that he kept the Blessed Sacrament in his house, meaning that he kept Jesus, the Real Presence of the Eucharist, in his heart. The peasant, however, not at all versed in the doctrines of the Church, came away from his neighbor’s reply with the idea that the Host must be some sort of amulet or lucky charm. This was the backdrop to his decision to steal a Host.
So, he went to Mass on Holy Thursday and received Communion, but instead of consuming the Host, secreted it in a linen cloth. Feeling some pangs of conscience on what he knew was an act of deception, he decided to return the Host back to the church. As he was walking back, the Host flew out of the cloth and up into the air. Then it fell to the ground and disappeared.
Already feeling remorse, and now panic, he immediately ran and confessed to the pastor what had taken place. As soon as he got to the spot where the peasant had lost the Host, the priest caught sight of the Sacred Particle resting on a clump of dirt and gleaming a bright white. The priest reached down to grasp It, but It again flew up into the air, fell to the ground and disappeared.
The priest then informed the Bishop of these events. He also wanted to go to the site where these things had happened. Again, the Host flew up into the air, for a longer period than the previous two times and then fell to the ground and, once again, disappeared. It was never seen again.
The people in the area then decided to build a chapel in honor of the miraculous occurrence. So many pilgrims came to the site that, in 1675, a new and bigger sanctuary was built, which can be visited to this day (although, at present, it may still be closed for some structural repairs).
Source: “The Eucharistic Miracles of the World,” a Vatican international exhibition, as reported by The Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Associationhttp://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/english_pdf/Erding.pdf, and
The Catholic Travel Guide: https://thecatholictravelguide.com/destinations/germany/erding-germany-eucharistic-miracle/.
Blanot
On Easter Sunday, March 31, 1331, the first Mass of the day was being said in Blanot, a village in the center of France. The Mass was being said by the vicar, Hugues de la Baume. One of the last people to receive Communion was a woman named Jacquette, the widow of Regnaut d’Effour. The priest placed the Host on her tongue, turned, and started walking toward the altar. He did not notice that a Particle from the Host fell and landed upon a cloth that covered the woman’s hands. Thomas Caillot who was assisting at the Mass went to the altar and said: “Father, you must return to the rail because the Body of Our Lord fell from the mouth of this lady onto the cloth.”
The priest immediately went to the woman, still kneeling at the railing, but instead of finding the Host on the cloth, he saw a small spot of Blood. When Mass was over, the priest took the cloth into the sacristy and placed the stained area in a basin filled with clear water. After washing the spot and scrubbing it numerous times, he found that it had become darker and larger (reaching about the size and shape of a Host). Moreover, the water in the basin turned Bloody. The priest took a knife and, after washing the cloth, cut from it the piece bearing the Bloody imprint of the Host. He held up the Sacred Host and said: “Good people: here is the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I sought in every way to wash and to wring the stain from the cloth, and in no way was I able to do so.” This square of cloth was reverently placed in the tabernacle. Every year, on the feast of Corpus Christi, the relic is solemnly exposed in the church of Blanot.
An additional note: The Hosts that remained in the ciborium after the distribution of Holy Communion on that Easter Sunday were also returned to the tabernacle, never to be distributed. Hundreds of years later they were found to have been perfectly preserved.
Source: “The Eucharistic Miracles of the World,” a Vatican international exhibition, as reported by The Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/english_pdf/Blanot.pdf
Weiten
In 1411, a thief broke into a parish church in the village of Weiten and stole a consecrated Host. There had been thefts of Hosts around that time and authorities began to keep them in the sacristy. This was not enough to stop this theft.
The thief in this case got on his horse and headed for the village of Spitz nearby. He took a side road that went through the valley of Mühldorf. At a certain spot, his horse stopped and would move no further. The man beat him, but the horse would not yield. Some workers in a nearby field came to help, but none of them could get the horse to budge.
Then all at once, the horse bolted and the Host fell to the ground. No one noticed.
A few days later, a woman named Mrs. Scheck, from Mannersdorf, came by and noticed the Host encircled in a strong light. In great wonder, she picked up the Holy Eucharist and noticed that the consecrated Host was broken in two Parts but remained joined together by threads of Bleeding Flesh. Greatly moved and at her own expense, she built a small chapel on the spot.
Great crowds came every year and it became necessary to build a larger church.
Source: “The Eucharistic Miracles of the World,” a Vatican international exhibition, as reported by The Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration and http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/english_pdf/Weiten.pdf.
St. Catherine of Siena at Mass
“… while he was saying the words of consecration, and I manifested Myself to you, and you saw issue from My breast a light, like a ray from the sun, which proceeds from the circle of the sun without being separated from it, out of the midst of which light came a dove and hovered over the host, in virtue of the words which the minister was saying. But sight remained alone in the eye of your intellect, because your bodily sight was not strong enough to stand the light, and in that place you saw and tasted the Abyss of the Trinity, whole God and whole man concealed and veiled in that whiteness that you saw in the bread; and you perceived that the seeing of the Light and the presence of the Word, which you saw intellectually in the whiteness of the bread, did not prevent you seeing at the same time the actual whiteness of the bread, the one vision did not prevent the other vision, that is to say, the sight of the God- Man revealed in the bread did not prevent the sight of the bread, for neither its whiteness, nor its touch, nor its savor were taken away.”
St. Catherine of Sienna, Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena (Charlotte, N.C., Tan Books 2010) p. 143.
St. Joseph Benedict LaBre
St. Joseph Benedict LaBre often slept at night in the Coliseum, under its open-air arches. He spent his days praying in the churches around Rome. He liked especially to churches where the Forty Hours devotion was practiced, in which the Sacred Host was adored. It was typical for him to spend five to six hours in such adoration.
He was known, for such extended periods of time, for having a glow about his face, a luminous spectacle, there in the presence of His Lord.
He died young, at age 35. His concern for others did not end then. Within but a few months of his death, more than 130 miracles were recorded that were ascribed to his intercession.
Source: “Guardians of the Eucharist,” The Spirit of Adoration, ed. June Klins, Issue No.1, Erie, PA, p.2, http://www.spiritofmedjugorje.org/files/AdorationIssue1.pdf.