On Christmas Day in 2013, a consecrated Host fell to the floor, the bishop said in a statement. It was put in a container of water and red stains subsequently appeared on the Host.Tests were performed at the Department of Forensic Medicine in Wroclaw at the beginning of 2014. Another study was subsequently performed by the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, which concluded that “in the histopathological image, the fragments (of the Host) were found containing the fragmented parts of the cross striated muscle. It is most similar to the heart muscle. Tests also determined the tissue to be of human origin, and found that it bore signs of distress.”
This raises some intriguing questions:
i) Could it be staged? After all, the priest has custody of the wavers. So could that be engineered behind-the-scenes? Catholic miracles are good for business.
ii) But let's grant for discussions purposes that this is a supernatural phenomenon. Given how little a wafer weighs, the Host must suffer from hemophilia to bleed when dropped.
Indeed, if it bleeds when dropped on the floor, won't it bleed when eaten? Won't worshipers taste blood when they consume the wafer?
iii) So the concreted wafer contained parts of the cross striated muscle. Remind me again of how that's supposed to be different from cannibalism?
iv) Is the eucharistic miracle actually consistent with Catholic dogma? According to transubstantiation, isn't the body/blood of Christ supposed to be empirically undetectable? Phenomenogically, it's supposed to be indistinguishable from bread and wine. It retains the species of bread and wine.
Another problem is that according to Trent, the Host isn't supposed to be bits and pieces of Jesus' flesh but "Christ whole and entire under the species of bread, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity". So the eucharistic miracle falsifies Catholic dogma.
In fact, since transubstantiation is already supposed to be a miracle, a eucharistic miracle is a counter-miracle that suspends or nullifies the "ordinary" miracle of transubstantiation to make the body/blood manifest. An anti-miracle miracle. So the eucharist miracle poses a dilemma for Catholics.
This might be relevant:
ReplyDeleteThe ability of pigmented strains of Serratia marcescens to grow on bread has led to a possible explanation of Medieval transubstantiation miracles, in which Eucharistic bread is converted into the Body of Christ. Such miracles led to Pope Urban IV instituting the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264. This followed celebration of a Mass at Bolsena in 1263, led by a Bohemian priest who had doubts concerning transubstantiation. During the Mass, the eucharist appeared to bleed and each time the priest wiped away the blood, more would appear. This event is celebrated in a fresco in the Pontifical Palace in the Vatican City, painted by Raphael.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigiosin#Religious_function
Im not clear on something here. Why would a dropped wafer be placed in water in the first place?
ReplyDeleteWhats the rationale?
The five second rule. Duh!
ReplyDeleteVery early on, the Desert Father, St. Anthony saw the Infant Jesus take the place of the consecrated host. (I sure hope he didn't gobble him up, then and there!)
ReplyDeleteThe Miracle of Lanciano in 750 CE was likewise scientifically tested and came back as "cardiac tissue."
But the Eucharistic flesh is dogmatically the glorified and living [entire] body of Christ (and not individual, detached, inanimate bodily organs).
I'm unsure how Catholic commentators cannot see the obvious contradiction. Corporeality is not the only characteristic of the Catholic dogma of the Eucharist.
Traditionalist RCs will likely also see some instances of eucharistic miracles as not from God since it would be consecreated under the post-Vatican II rite which many Trads consider invalid or at least illicit.
ReplyDelete