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Body and Blood of Christ / Eucharistic Miracles

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decipheringscars

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This site - http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/a3.html - has a number of odd stories about "Eucharistic Miracles" - that is, miracles in which consecrated wine and bread manifested the properties of actual flesh and blood. I'm curious to see what people here think of this stuff.

One in particular (http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html) caught my attention. According to this site, some consecrated bread became the flesh of a human heart - and has remained so, perfectly preserved, for centuries. The article claims that in this case, as in "all other" such cases, the blood is type AB. (My initial thought was that Jesus ought to be a universal donor, type O.)

Anyway, despite the photos of specimen slides and all that, which seems scientifically convincing on the surface, the fact is the consecration and miracle supposedly took place in the 8th century, and has been studied officially by the Church since 1574 (why the huge gap?). In other words, we may be able to study what's there now, but we have to trust the reports of its origins - that it started out as ordinary bread.

Some of these stories may have come up on other threads here, but my search didn't turn up a thread devoted specifically to this type of miracle. In some ways, it seems related to the topic of "incorruptibles," saints whose bodies fail to decompose, a topic which has been covered by FT and in these threads.

Any thoughts one way or the other? Hopefully this thread will draw more than just mockery... although I should show my hand and admit that I'm very doubtful about all this stuff, though I am a Christian (Episcopalian) with a high view of the Sacraments, but I don't believe in transubstantiation. If I turn up any other sources of info about any of these reputed miracles, I'll post more links.

[edited to fix a slight code problem]
 
More links --

http://www.acfp2000.com/Miracles/eucharistic.html - This site contains several stories which I find disturbing from a pastoral viewpoint: a Eucharistic miracle pulls a priest away from a dying person's side (leaving them without last rites, apparently), and another involving a poor farmer whose family is starving shows a blessed host playing around performing disappearing acts with the result that the townspeople construct a beautiful church - with no mention of whether the farmer's family was cared for or not. It's that sort of thing that makes me seriously question these stories!

http://www.franciscan-sfo.org/lancimir.htm - another source of mostly the same info about the Lanciano miracle

http://home.earthlink.net/~mlbakke1/r_para8.htm - a skeptical discussion:
"Then, what's the point of touting the Lanciano "miracle" in the first place? The only evidence that it actually happened is the say-so of an 8th-century monk. Even if the stuff is real flesh and blood, that is not evidence that it came from any sort of miraculous transformation of a Host."

http://www.ewtn.com/library/CHISTORY/ZLANCIAN.HTM - a 2005 article about Dr. Edoardo Linoli's findings

http://www.the-brights.net/forums/forum ... t4338.html - discussion on another forum

http://www.skepticreport.com/print/hvidtmiracle-p.htm - Scroll down for the Lanciano discussion; other miracles are also discussed.

These are some of the first sites that popped up googling "Lanciano."

Of course, if the "miracle" is assumed to be sleight-of-hand, one has to wonder what the motive would be for the priest to go to such lengths. I guess the oldest reports play up his doubts and that he was unlearned; one might suspect that his position was in jeopardy? I also wonder why his name hasn't been preserved in these stories - why is he anonymous?
 
Thanks for posting this. Lots of great links to pursue. Reassuring to see all the style and taste of the goods in a Catholic repository applied to website-design too!

Some I knew about it: the Amsterdam vomit-story is often reprinted in visitors' guides. As a Catholic boy, Transubstantiation was the first six-syllable word I learned. It would have been in preparation for First Holy Communion: I can date that exactly from my Missal so I had the doctrine drummed into me aged seven!

I think the idea was to reassure us that we would not get a mouthful of meat. However, I did nearly spit out my lunch when I saw that several of the links are to pages by one Fr. John Hardon, SJ! :shock:
 
decipheringscars said:
...with the result that the townspeople construct a beautiful church - with no mention of whether the farmer's family was cared for or not.
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The Old Testament contains some rather strong prohibitions against the practice of magic, and rightfully so, I think. The change from the metaphor "This is my body..." to the idea of transubstaniation or even co-substaniation is a change from symbol to the practice of magic.

Human beings, in general, seem to have a very hard time getting along without some form of magic influencing how they think, and building a beautiful church instead of feeding the poor demonstrates how this sort of thinking leads people away from good sense.
 
ElishevaBarsabe said:
decipheringscars said:
...with the result that the townspeople construct a beautiful church - with no mention of whether the farmer's family was cared for or not.
Click to expand...

The Old Testament contains some rather strong prohibitions against the practice of magic, and rightfully so, I think. The change from the metaphor "This is my body..." to the idea of transubstaniation or even co-substaniation is a change from symbol to the practice of magic.

Human beings, in general, seem to have a very hard time getting along without some form of magic influencing how they think, and building a beautiful church instead of feeding the poor demonstrates how this sort of thinking leads people away from good sense.
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Agreed. The story of the host turning into a slice of cardiac tissue also bothers me for a similar reason. The doctrine of the Real Presence doesn't mean that each person gets a little piece of Jesus to eat; it means that in participating in this ritual feast (at which Christ is really present and presiding), you are incorporated into the Body of Christ - that is, the community called to carry on his work on earth and act in his stead. The whole idea of the host and/or wine changing into human tissue that can be analyzed in a lab seriously detracts (I'm putting it mildly) from the underlying purpose of the Eucharist. It also detracts from the Real Presence (ironically!) - I mean, would you say I was "really present" if there was a slice of some of my tissue on a plate or a sample of my blood in a cup?

BTW, the word "hocus pocus" comes from the Mass - it's a corruption of "hoc est corpus meus" - "this is my body" - which the priest says at the elevation of the Host. Back in medieval England, most priests didn't know Latin, so when they read the transliterated syllables, they'd repeat such important phrases (incantations, really) over and over with different inflections to make sure they got it right so the magic would really happen. That was also at the time when the people weren't given any of the bread or wine, so the best they could do was know when to look at the Host as it was elevated and magically changed into a little slice of Jesus.
 
BTW, the word "hocus pocus" comes from the Mass - it's a corruption of "hoc est corpus meus" - "this is my body" - which the priest says at the elevation of the Host. Back in medieval England, most priests didn't know Latin, so when they read the transliterated syllables, they'd repeat such important phrases (incantations, really) over and over with different inflections to make sure they got it right so the magic would really happen. That was also at the time when the people weren't given any of the bread or wine, so the best they could do was know when to look at the Host as it was elevated and magically changed into a little slice of Jesus
Click to expand...

Interesting. As a child brought up in Catholicism ,(now Buddhist/Atheist) as far as I can remember we were led to believe that during the mass - the transformation was not simply symbolic as I would have thought at the time - but actual - that in some way, the bread and wine was actually the body and blood of Christ - though not it seems quite as explcitly as the links suggest -

However , by coincidence - I just happen to be reading Fortean Times 124 page 20 July 1999 which mentions how thw "Hokey Cokey" dance came to England in the 1940s with us solders but had a early folk version wich ws probably performed by migrants to the US in the 19th century . A certain Canon George Nairn Briggs , Proviost of Wakefied Cathedral west Yorkshire discovered that the dance and actions were a parody of the Latin Mass.

In the days when the priest perfomed the mass with his back to the congregation , with many hand movements they would mimic the actions as they saw them. "Hokey Cokey" was a mishearing or a deliberate parady of "Hoc est enim corpus meum " -" This is my body"

Fascinating.

-
 
There is a skit on transsubstanciation in the graphic novel (but not the movie) of V for Vendetta. IIRC V feeds a cyanide laced communion wafer to a concentration camp priest, then when he dies, laments that it was still cyanide when it reached his stomach...
 
Rrose_Selavy,

Thanks for sharing that. I've never heard the dance called "Hokey Cokey" - in my lifetime it's always been called "Hokey Pokey." I'd never thought of how similar that sounds to "hocus pocus."
 
'Miracle' as communion wafer becomes heart tissue
The Catholic Church in Poland is investigating claims of a miracle after a piece of communion wafer was reported to have been transformed into human heart tissue after falling into water during a mass.
By Matthew Day in Warsaw
Published: 3:14PM GMT 29 Oct 2009

In an incident that has generated a storm of publicity in devout Poland, Professor Maria Sobaniec-Lotowaska, of the medical university in Bialystok, has dumbfounded sceptics by saying she considered the material found in the container as heart tissue.

But her findings have already been dismissed by other scientists. "The professor saw what she wanted to see.
She is very religious," said Prof Lech Chyczewski, a blood specialist. "In order to rule out any doubts, it would have been necessary to carry out molecular and genetic testing."

Pawel Grzesiowskia, a leading biologist from the National Medical Institute, has attributed the miracle to nothing more than bacteria growing on the small piece of wafer, which fell into a water container during a mass in the eastern village of Sokolka.

But this has failed to quell many believing that something miraculous took place. The Catholic Church said already ruled out the possibility of a hoax, and local police have said that there is no evidence of fraud.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... issue.html
 
No miracle here, just a storm in a ...dogbowl?

Canadian priest sorry for giving dog Holy Communion

A priest in Canada has apologised after giving Holy Communion to a dog.

Reverend Marguerite Rea of St Peter's Anglican Church, in Toronto, received complaints from Christians all over Canada after she fed communion bread to a German Shepherd cross named Trapper.

Area Bishop Patrick Yu said the priest had contravened church policy with her "strange and shocking" actions.

Ms Rea said it had been a "simple church act of reaching out" to a new congregation member and his pet.

"If I have hurt, upset or embarrassed anyone, I apologise," she told her congregation on Sunday morning, the Toronto Star reports.

The canine controversy began last month when four-year-old Trapper and his owner, Donald Keith, 56, attended the church in Toronto's downtown area for the first time.

"The minister welcomed me and said come up and take communion, and Trapper came up with me and the minister gave him communion as well," Mr Keith told the Toronto Star.

"I thought it was a nice way to welcome me into the church. I thought it was acceptable. There was an old lady in the front just beaming when she saw this." :)

But not all parishioners at the service were quite so charmed by the sight of the priest leaning down and placing a wafer on the wagging tongue of Trapper, a German Shepherd-Rhodesian ridgeback cross.

Communion bread is considered by Anglicans to represent the body of Jesus Christ.

One onlooker filed a complaint with the Anglican Diocese of Toronto about the incident and has since left the church. :(

When news spread of the canine communion, St Peter's Church began receiving e-mails from angry Christians all over the country.

"Communion is a symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus' body; he died for all of us. But I don't recall anything from the scripture about Jesus dying for the salvation of our pets," said Cheryl Chang, director of the Anglican Network in Canada, the National Post newspaper reports.

"I can see why people would be offended," said Bishop Yu.

"I have never heard of it happening before. I think the reverend was overcome by what I consider a misguided gesture of welcoming."

Mr Keith has since been told that he and his dog are most welcome at the church, but Trapper can no longer receive communion.

"This has blown me away. The church is even getting e-mails from Catholics," said the truck driver.

"Ninety-nine-point-nine per cent of the people in the church love Trapper and the kids play with him. It was just one person who got his nose out of joint.

"Holy smokes. We are living in the downtown core. This is small stuff. I thought it was innocent and it made me think of the Blessing of the Animals."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10774706
 
kamalktk said:
or possibly germs.
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Quite so. If this priest knew anything about Christian theology he would have put an end to this nonsense by pointing out that the risen Christ doesn't bleed. The fact that he and other clergy in his diocese are taking this incident seriously reveals their appalling ignorance about their own faith. Obviously more than a few of them need remedial lessons in theology.
 
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Mythopoeika said:
I'm struggling to think how that happened.
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...and man said "What I need is an animal smart enough to train, but that does whatever I ask without question and loves me whatever I do."

Luckily, only a dog was created at this time.
 
As an RC, I view the Mass as pure magic. (well, and also theatre!)

The change in the physical world (and others) brought about by an initiate using words and gestures laid down in ritual...... doesn't get much more magical in my view.

Some of the congregation would probably get spooked by the idea but I've not found a priest who has a problem with it.

Of course, you have to BELIEVE in it first but isn't that always the way?
 
There is a theory that Jesus is actually fly agaric. In this form, he is the body and blood of Christ and performs miracles attributed to him.

Turns water into wine - mix dried fly agaric and water and you have a lovely "wine" (the drying has removed the main poison, ibotenic acid)

Heals the sick - fly agaric was traditionally used as a health tonic (the mushroom boost of the Super Mario fly agaric mushroom - you can buy it pickled in Japan) and is still used today in Russia and eastern European countries. It is found in Culpeper's Herbal, so was known in Britain fairly recently

Raises the dead - the muscarine in the fly agaric acts as an antidote to paralysis brought on by lack of acetylcholine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacred_Mushroom_and_the_Cross
 
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