Okay, I’ve just returned 2 hours ago from my visit with the White Father mentioned in posts 29,30,31,33. We had a chance to speak a little on that incident mentioned. Of course no one has to believe any of it, but at least I can give you *his accurate account *now :
He’d spent about 30 years in the missions in Africa but the event I related to you didn’t happen in Africa as I thought…it happened here - before he went to the missions. He said that back then he’d only been ordained several months. The medium sized chapel where the Mass was being celebrated privately( - only the Father presiding and a brother from another religious order serving the Mass) was isolated from all wind and any breezes or drafts.
The disappearance of the Host account was accurate, after the consecration and elevation he placed the Host back on the paten continued reading the Eucharistic prayer from the Missal and when he glanced back at the paten…the Host was gone. He said to me, "You see, I was newly ordained then, so I had to read the prayers from the Missal… now I know them by heart… so now when I celebrate I try to fix my gaze on our Lord in the consecrated Host.
When he and the brother both noticed the Host had disappeared, they spent about 10 minutes looking for it. Finally they took another Host and Father consecrated it, and continued the Mass. He said after Mass concluded, they spent more than an hour searching for the large host without any success ( he confirmed that they moved the altar so as to conduct a thorough search). He said they even searched outside.
Something he hadn’t told me the other time: Roughly 35 years after the fact he learned of an aged priest in our adjoining province of Ontario, who was on his deathbed around the same time of the event. This elderly priest didn’t have a chance to be seen by a priest so he’d made an act of contrition and asked the Lord to come and forgive him. He had written this in his final memoirs adding that he didn’t wan’t anyone to worry about him not being seen by a priest because after his act of contrition our Lord had come to him in the form of a large Host.
That’s the info I got today. I don’t think I’ll be able to give any further information on that event, because this priest is extremely busy, and I went to see him today as my spiritual director and confessor. So I apologize if any new questions have popped up in anyone’s head from reading the aforementioned. It really does give a shot of juice to the imagination doesn’t it ?
What surprised me a little was that the White Father appeared more amazed that, finally, after 35 years, the information had somehow been made known to him when he wasn’t searching for it - he found that more amazing than the actual story about the elderly priest itself.
