June 7, 2015
Opening Prayer First Reading: Exodus 24:3-8 Psalm: 116:12-13, 15-18 Second Reading: Hebrews 9:11-15
QUESTIONS:
Catechism of the Catholic Church: §§ 1323, 1328, 1339-1344, 1403 In all He did from the Incarnation to the Cross, the end Jesus Christ had in mind was the gift of the Eucharist, his personal and corporal union with each Christian through Communion. He saw in It the means of communicating to us all the treasures of His Passion, all the virtues of His Sacred Humanity, and all the merits of His Life. -St. Peter Julian Eymard
Pope Francis and the Eucharistic Miracle of Buenos Aires
Pastor’s Column
Corpus Christi
June 7, 2015
One of the great themes of the gospel for those who are listening is that things are quite frequently not as they seem in this world, and nothing typifies this more than the Holy Eucharist. Here, Jesus hides himself under the form of bread and wine, not unlike he hid his divinity while on earth, all of this so that those who follow him will have faith.
The great Eucharistic miracle of Buenos Aires occurred in 1996, when Pope Francis was an auxiliary bishop there. This great miracle began when someone found a discarded consecrated host that had been stuck to a candleholder. Things like this happen occasionally in our church as well, and the common way of handling this is to place the host in a glass of water in the tabernacle until it disintegrates, after which it is no longer the Body and Blood of Christ. This is precisely what they did in 1966, giving it to the local priest. Eight days later, this priest, Fr. Alejandro Pezet, discovered that the host had turned to a bloody substance in the glass where it was soaking, after which he promptly informed Bishop Bergoglio (now Pope Francis), who immediately ordered that the potential miracle be photographed and then placed back in the tabernacle. There it sat for three years.
After three years, having become now Archbishop, he had the miracle (still in existence and not in any way dissolved) examined scientifically. Archbishop Bergoglio decided not to let the scientists studying it know from where the sample came so as not to prejudice the investigation. And what they found was startling! One of the investigators was a very well known cardiologist, Dr. Frederick Zugiba, who concluded that the sample he was given was human flesh with human DNA, a fragment of the heart muscle from the left ventricle of real human heart. Furthermore, the doctor concluded that the sample was alive (!) at the time the sample was taken, since it was full of living white blood cells!
The doctors also concluded from where the presence of the white blood cells were in relation to the heart tissue that the person had been severely beaten. When the scientists were informed that the sample had been soaking in plain water for three years prior to the investigation, they were dumbfounded, as such a piece of tissue should have died almost immediately without nourishment and then dissolved. So the Archbishop, now Pope, approved this Eucharistic miracle and has allowed it for public veneration. Please feel free to look this up on the internet, as well as another approved miracle I have spoken of often, the Miracle of Lanciano, Italy, which has been equally scientifically studied, is also inexplicable to science and has existed, without embalming of any kind, for over 1100 years now.
While there are many other such (approved) Eucharistic Miracles in the world (whole books have been written about them), the reality is that every single Mass properly celebrated is a Eucharistic Miracle, for Christ is truly present there. The question is, do we really believe this? It wasn’t any easier for the disciples who actually saw Jesus in person with their own eyes. Jesus wants us to have faith in him. Jesus wants us to prepare a place for him to live within us by regular confession and reverence when we receive him! Father Gary