EUCHARISTIC MIRACLES. - The Eucharist, although it implies Transubstantiation, the presence "per modum substantiae" of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and the permanence of the accidents (v.) without a subject of "inhesion," is not a miracle in the strict sense, since everything in it is realized outside of sensible experience; the Eucharist is therefore a mystery, not a miracle. Sometimes, however, sensible and extraordinary facts have occurred in the consecrated Species or in relation to them, e.g., the change of the Host into living flesh or of the wine into blood, the preservation of the Species for a long time, the instantaneous healing of some sick person. These facts are properly the Eucharistic miracles, with which the history of Christian piety is studded.
From the patristic era onward, extraordinary facts in relation to the Eucharist were reported by eminent men; prodigies of various kinds (St. Cyprian, De Lapsis, 25-26: PL 4, 499-501), healings (St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Adv. Iulianum, 2, 1: PG 35, 666; St. Augustine, Ep., 98, 4: PL 33, 361), divine protection (St. Ambrose, De excessu fratris Satyri, 1, 46: PL 16, 132; St. Gregory the Great, Dialog., 3, 36: PL 77, 304), punishment of sacrileges (Optatus of Milevis, De schismate Donatistarum, 2, 19: PL 11, 972), defense of Catholic doctrine and condemnation of heresy (John Moschus, De prato spirituali, 29, 30, 79, in P. Pourrat, La spiritualité chrétienne, I, Paris 1931, p. 445). At Paray-le-Monial there exists a large map, on which are indicated 132 places in which Eucharistic miracles have occurred, and the list would grow much longer if one wished to add all the similar facts with which religious chronicles are filled.
St. Thomas had already posed the problem "utrum quando in hoc Sacramento miraculose apparet caro vel puer, sit ibi vere corpus Christi" (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 76, a. 8); it is known that his solution, finely circumscribed, concerns the manner, not the fact, since the Eucharistic miracle falls, as regards its possibility and its probative value, within the general economy of those extraordinary facts that are at the foundation of the Christian faith.
The Eucharistic miracle, particularly directed at confirming faith in the mystery of the real presence, is therefore beyond dispute as regards its possibility and its probative efficacy, but it is subject to all the cautions that sound historical criticism imposes.
Eucharistic miracles, according to the various phenomena, are classified as follows: a) Bleeding Hosts: Lanciano (8th century), Ferrara (1171), Alatri (1228), Florence (1230), Bolsena (1263), Offida (1273), Berlin (1510), etc.; b) Miraculously preserved Hosts: Morrovalle (1562), Favernay (1618), Siena (1730), etc.; c) Luminous apparition of consecrated Hosts: Turin (1453), Paterno near Naples (1772), etc.; d) Apparition of Jesus in the Host: Braine (1153), Ulmes in the diocese of Angers (1668), etc.; e) Punishment of profaners of the Eucharist: Louvain-Brussels (1369), Volterra (1471), Boston (1834), etc.; f) Prodigious healings: Paris (1725), Lourdes, Loreto, Fatima. Of these Eucharistic miracles, those that occurred at Turin, Siena, and Favernay are particularly well documented, especially those that occur at Lourdes. On the famous miracle of Bolsena (the Sacred Corporal of Orvieto) see the study by A. Lazzarini (v. ORVIETO). - See plate LXX.
Bibliography8 works
In particular: J. Corblet, Histoire du Sacrement de l'Eucharistie, II, Paris 1886, pp. 559-88 (numerous Latin, Italian, French, English, and German works on the various Eucharistic miracles are noted, but they can serve only as a starting point); anonymous, Monografia storica dell'Ostia incornata, ovvero il miracolo eucaristico avvenuto in Alatri, Alatri 1896; B. Altaner, Venturino von Bergamo, Breslau 1911 (speaks of the miracle of Bl. Imelda); A. Ruelli, De sacris particulis ab anno 1730 in Senensi basilica S. Francisci incorrupte servatis, Siena 1917 (a well-conducted work); A. Morini, La reliquia del «Corpus Christi» di Cascia, Florence 1930; E. Allodoli, Il m. e. del 1230 a Firenze, in Mistero di Fede (special issue of the 2nd Florentine Eucharistic Congress), ibid. 1937, pp. 31-33; P. Browe, Die eucharistischen Wunder des Mittelalters, Breslau 1938 (the best work on the subject, though it does not treat ex professo of the miracle of Bolsena); E. Pirollay, L'Hostie sauvée des flammes, Paris 1950 (a reliable monograph on the miracle of Favernay); A. Lazzarini, Documenti dei sec. XIII e XIV sul Miracolo di Bolsena, Rome 1951.
Antonio Piolanti