December 7, 2016

Herkenrode

 

Viversel is a hamlet and the oldest parish in the district of Zolder, in the present Belgian municipality of Heusden-Zolder. It was there, on July 25, 1317, that the pastor of the local church was called to the bedside of one his parishioners. The man was seriously ill and the priest had been summoned to hear the man’s confession, distribute Holy Viaticum and prepare the man for death in a state of grace.
Upon arriving at the man’s home, the priest left the bad he had been carrying at the entrance. He then went in further to the man’s bedside, to hear his confession. The bag was not simply any bag, for it carried a pyx containing the Blessed Sacrament.While the priest was attending to the sick man, a member of his family, who reportedly was in a state of mortal sin, took the bag, opened the pyx and put his hand inside. Discovering the Host, he put everything back the way it was, to hopefully keep his intrusion secret.

The priest then returned and discovered that the Host, which he recognized as one he himself had consecrated at Mass, was stained with blood which caused it to stick to the linen cloth covering the bottom of the pyx.

 

The priest was understandably troubled and, unsure of what should properly be done, make an excuse of having forgotten something, rushed out of the house. He consulted the pastor if the church in nearby Lumen, who advised him to take the Host to the Benedictine monastery in Herkenrode. The priest left and, as he reported it, extraordinary things took place along the road.

At the monastery, he displayed the Host to everybody there. Numerous witnesses saw, and later attested to having seen in the Host, the face of Christ crowned with thorns.

In this place, called Sacramentsberg, a chapel was built as a perpetual memorial. From that time on, “the Blessed Sacrament of the Miracle,” which had been placed in a reliquary and exposed to public veneration, more than once protected the monastery of Herkenrode from fire. The reliquary of the miracle was kept at the Abbey until 1796, and in 1804, it was transferred to the Church of St. Quintinus in Hasselt, where it can still be seen to this day.

As has been documented on this webpage before, a piece of bread or article made of wheat flour will seriously begin to decompose within six months. Here, some 700 years later, that has still not taken place although the Host has not been treated with any chemical preservative.

Sources: http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/english_pdf/Herkenrode.pdf;https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viversel; https://www.americaneedsfatima.org/Miracles/eucharistic-miracle-in-hasselt-belgium.html.

 

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