The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano

[pneuma07]

But then , how much help should we expect for our faith ? One could say “nothing at all”, and within XVI century reformation it appears miracles after the apostolic age were largely denied *in toto *( There was a very long road from that to Charismatic groups of the XX century ). Or we could ask for such an overwhelming amount of evidence of the miracle as to get rid of faith at all….

Hence let’s see a little the “whole body” argument on the Eucharist.

I mean the argument according to which
having a whole body out of the consecrated host is requested in order to just consider any assent to this sort of eucharistic ( alleged ) miracle: a piece of heart DISproves the reality of the consecrated species being the whole body.

Now I’m pretty sure having a 1 inch long body would not suffice either, within such an attitude. A larger size, even a natural size would be necessary. And then with or without head ? In either case we could build a case about not having what is needed. And shouldn’t He also speak ?
And what about blood drops from the host ? Where is the gallon and something making for the whole of His blood ?

My point isn’t just that such requests can likely have no end.
What I also invite to ponder is that these are just “ armchair arguments" so to say, after all.
If you were to be present to such an event, ie seeing meat or blood ( even just grams or drops ) coming from the host or replacing it in front of you, you most likely would not ask for the gallon of blood or whatever else. That would be such a powerful and overwhelming signum, that you would not just ask for the whole res.

I am inclined to imagine you would gratefully prize the Lord for being blessed by such an extraordinary event taking place in front of you.
tbc

 

[pneuma07]

On a similar note, you somehow introduced the concept of half-miracle, if I am not mistaken.

Let me point out that IMHO what we could call a half-miracle is …a miracle.

Think of a blind fellow who suddenly recovers the sight, but has to wear glasses as many of us. Or of a quadriplegic fellow who starts walking, without becoming a runner. We’d probably agree these , when and if confirmed, are miracles…

You could remark this is not what we could expect from the Lord. But then, we maybe should not expect Him to be embedded within our boxes ( thoughts, feeling, expectations…) in choosing how to disclose His glory.

If you are more or less with me here, then Lanciano can be considered as a miracle. If not for what is told about VIII century alleged events, even “only” for what has been happening for the last four centuries at least in terms of preservation.

tbc

 

[pneuma07]

If, OTOH, nothing short a VERY good long term preservation can win the day over sound skepticism in your view, then I guess the Siena miracle ( 1730 – nowadays ) could probably help.

For what I have seen, there are some fairly good English language pages on that, ( eg discover-catholic-miracles.com/siena-miracle.htmlbesides ) besides Italian pages.
It could be considered off topic , I know, since preservation itself is the ( alleged ) miracle there, and not transformation. Anyway you may want to tell whether it may help a little from your POV.

tbc

 

[pneuma07]

My almost final note is about something like a picture of the Catholic Church as a “miracles-fabricating- machine” that seem to come out from some of your posts.

I guess we all know the Church receives with what we could call “euristic skepticism” news about possible miracles throughout the world. She does not formally accept events which are dear to many of her children and spiritually fruitful . Mentioning Medjugorie could suffice.
You might presume this is just what we see about the XXI and the XX century. But what about earlier ages ? Even if we want to go back to the notorious and dark Middle Ages, the Church, within a so different cultural environment and mindsets, would set out to systematically scrutinize alleged miracles… You could say the “sieve “ was never fine enough, but not IMHO that there was a miracles-fabricating-machine Church . Also, let’s not forget that people in any pre-modern pre-enlightenment age were not so completely gullible as secular contemporary westerners appear to imagine in our century, or their direct ancestors would even more imagine in XIX century.
In his *Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Miracle, 1150-1350, *much of which we can find on google books the American-Israeli scholar Michael Goodich (1944-2006), , boldly states *“The medieval preacher preferred to deemphasize the miracolous in hagiography in favor of its moral …goals.” *

In its conclusions we read *“the developning principles of canon law supported the notion that evidence of the miracolous requires the application of proper judicial procedures and the deposition of witnesses of unimpeachable character” *

Consider please that the nature itself of what we regard as “miracle” makes expectable that there can be many possible candidates on which a sound sieve has to work, whether feigned or often bona fide.
We can close our hearts and minds to the very possibility that there are real pearls there among other less noble objects, together with many Reformation figures - for post-apostolic Christianity - together with Hume, together with so-called religious liberals, or we can be both careful and open, as you seem to agree we should do.
That has nevertheless IMHO little to do with snipers targeting you or whomever. Moreover, it is always worth reminding that the Church does not oblige anybody to believe any Eucharistic miracle.

On the whole, the Afghan parallel looks unfair under several aspects. And, after all, you are not killed by conditionally accepting an alleged miracle to be afterwards exposed under more advanced scrutiny.
On the contrary, someone could be called to new life by being able to accept the divine message in one single real miracle .

tbc

 

[pneuma07]

Finally, we can rejoice IMHO that so much effort is spent to our days in order to disprove old and new Eucharistic miracles. It would be much worse if the secular world and some protestantisms simply did not care to go on refuting that or whatever else.

That was BTW the environment within which André Frossard grew up, in early XX century France. His atheist family would consider ridiculous those people still wasting time in refuting religion at large, as if we should refute fairy tales. He was that far from Christianity. One day, at 20, he entered by chance an adoration chapel, and after a while he went out catholic in his heart.You could enjoy reading him telling about that U-turn.
We could consider this a Saul-like XX century conversion.

I hope something can help here.

God bless you and yours.

PS While I do look forward to your observations on what above, I cannot tell unfortunately whether I can at present to go on with an exchange.

 

[Radical]

pneuma07:

Hi Radical, and all,

as always good to hear from you. I noted after 8 short (by your standards) responses you ended with:
PS While I do look forward to your observations on what above, I cannot tell unfortunately whether I can at present to go on with an exchange.

I was actually contemplating taking a bit of a break from here when I saw that you had posted…so if it takes a month or two for you to get back to me on what I say in response, that would still work for me…I would still look forward to what you have to say.

pneuma07:

In the present case. if we do not expect the samples to have a natural origin,…our alternative case seems to be forgery. That means…:

1. the forgers decided to use a human heart. Were they really so afraid of an analysis in the Middle Ages as to carefully avoid hearts from pigs or deers or any animal ? Who would know human hearts so well to be able to compare human versus non-human on the mere basis of a slice, even in the unlikely case an expert eye could imagine to detect similarities of the slice with one that could come from the heart of a given non-human species ?

I expect that you are well aware that many historians (most, almost all?) believe that ancient forgers did not view their actions in the negative light that we now use to look upon forgeries. The end, apparently justified the means. In that case, the hypothetical forger in the EMOL would have seen his forgery as a beneficial act, deserving of God’s approval, whereby the forger “helps” God by showing what God is really doing behind the elements. That the EMOL served to encourage the devout would only serve to re-enforce that understanding (ie can something that encourages really be all that bad?) May I suggest that you approach your four points from that perspective? So in response to your first point, the medieval forger would respond that he, of course, used a human heart as the use of an animal heart would be shameful for such a noble cause and wondrous sacrament…also, the local butchers just might recognize the particularities of an animal heart

2)Een if we admit that obtaining that secific slice was not an impossible achievement for a medieval butcher, but only a hard one, that likely means having to cut and cut human hearts from recent corpses until getting that precise kind of slice…Moral doubts on the practice aside, that sounds repulsive ( besides seeming very probably unnecessary to the goal ) doesn’t it ?

I think you have fallen for Linoli’s bias here. From what I have read about Linoli, he strikes me as a devout Catholic who believed in the EMOL and who desparately wanted the EMOL to be affirmed. I don’t think that bias colored his interpretation of the test results, but when he went beyond the test results, his bias spoke loud and clear. From what I see, his comments wrt the difficulty in making the cut apply to the situation where one wanted to replicate the slice. In other words, if one set out to achieve a slice that possessed those exact components, then one would have to be trained in anatomy to pull it off. Well, who would think that the hypothetical forger would have started the procedure with the goal of having a slice with those exact components? What likely happened is, as I have stated earlier, that the forger takes a human heart, slices if a number of times with a nice sharp knife and then picks the nicest, cleanest piece (which happens to have those components by chance, but not design) No grand skill or knowledge needed…and the sample is consistent with a nice slice

1. If we want to neglect what above , it seems still nevertheless hardly plausible that a group of religious and laymen had engineered the fraud, without anybody of them, even on his deathbed, ever finding the strength to denounce the forgery, giving any sign of repentance, with consequent elimination of the hoax.

why would he, when the hoax was achieving such wondrous results for the glorification of the Lord? No, on his deathbed, the forger would keep his mouth shut so that the wondrous results would continue after his death and after he was welcomed into the kingdom (and recognized by God and the saints for contributing so marvelously) His cohorts, if any, would have done likewise.

1. The goal was something about displaying a piece of heart to be sold as coming from an Eucharist…how could they imagine the meat would remain preserved? Its eventual putrefaction would be rather embarassing for the forgers……

the preservation is a bonus…something that the forger couldn’t guarantee. The hoax would serve a noble cause for a while at least and if longer, the forger would likely see the presrvation as God’s ratification of the noble deception .

But, even IF we assumed we have a mummification-like process in our case, in what environments, in what climates do natural mummifications take place ?

yes, a proper study would have assessed these matters and not jumped to preferred conclusions

…meat cannot be expected to undergo mummification or anything like a long term natural conservation in the climate near italian coasts.

sliced, dried meat is something that is commonly preserved here…again, we shouldn’t be left to speculate, but experts in this area (and I doubt strongly that Linoli is one) should express their opinions so we have a good idea as to how irregular this is

Hence noone could ever bet on the possibility of conservation.
We’re not even speaking about centuries: here even years would suffice.

I don’t think the forger thought it at all necessary to be assured of centuries of preservation…and we should never lose sight of the fact that the custodians of the samples did go to considerable effort to preserve the samples…they weren’t left exposed to the elements.

 

[Radical]

Now, self-refuting nature of the alleged fraud aside, the very fact we do have that sample after 13 or 4 or whatever number of centuries, cannot really be dismissed as business as usual, or even a reasonably probable event.

self-refuting?..that seems wildly and overly optimistic on your part. Not even a reasonably probable event? How exactly are you positioned to make such a declaration? How were the samples stored over the centuries? How airtight were the containers? How dry were the samples when they went in? How do these compare to other samples that have been naturally preserved? Unless you are an informed expert, I am at a loss as to how you can make any such assessment.

On a side note, I was once in Lanciano… A friend of mine who was there with me ( a not particularly religious fellow of catholic background ) commented, specifically on the preservation of the sample, something like “Well, that might mean that God exists”.
While you do not need Lanciano for this conclusion of course, you might see Eucharistic miracles at large , when and if confirmed, rather than just endorsing a specific doctrine, as a potential help for many people whose Christian ( rather than specifically catholic ) faith isn’t as solid as yours.

This strikes me as a vaild point and as something that may not have been given sufficient consideration on this thread. If (among other things), I was to put aside my reservations about only a piece of the body being present in the EMOL and assume that the EMOL is a vaild miracle, then by considering this sort of inspiring affect, I am far less likely to see the EMOL as a validation of a particular Eucharistic belief wrt a real bodily presence. More likely, it is as suggested earlier when I considered miracles in the various branches of Christianity:
We are now left with this situation: We have Catholics claiming that their Eucharistic miracles affirm their understanding of the Eucharist (which includes its importance for salvation). We have certain Charismatic Christians claiming that their ministry (including their teaching that a Eucharist involving a real bodily presence is not at all important for salvation…being a bad teaching it plays no part in salvation whatsoever) is supported by wondrous miracles, all done in the name of Jesus. It would seem that God is affirming opposing teachings. What do we do from there…Perhaps we question the interpretation of them as affirming various teachings? Perhaps rather than affirming Catholic teachings, the Eucharistic miracles are merely God’s way of saying that, “I am with you, even when you don’t have things quite right.” . Perhaps rather than affirming Charismatic teachings, their miracles are merely God’s way of saying that, “I am with you, even when you don’t have things quite right.”.

On a similar note, you somehow introduced the concept of half-miracle, if I am not mistaken. Let me point out that IMHO what we could call a half-miracle is …a miracle.

well, it only becomes a half-miracle if we assume that the preservation is somehow miraculous and not just natural. This brings me to yet another issue. These samples are apparently a bit of Christ’s heart and some of his blood. Although they have enjoyed some preservation, they have also endured considerable deterioration. How does a part of the resurrected body of God undergo any deterioration? How does it dehydrate, have fungi growing on it and have its cells break down? This is an outrageous idea. The Eucharistic body is supposed to be the same body that is at the right hand of the Father, correct? So is a slice of Jesus’s heart in heaven undergoing a corresponding deterioration?..b/c the bit of God’s body in Lanciano is “rotting”, just ever so slowly.

 

[Radical]

If, OTOH, nothing short a VERY good long term preservation can win the day over sound skepticism in your view, then I guess the Siena miracle ( 1730 – nowadays ) could probably help.
It could be considered off topic , I know, since preservation itself is the ( alleged ) miracle there, and not transformation. Anyway you may want to tell whether it may help a little from your POV.

well, it eliminates (what I perceive as) the demeaning to God and the deterioration of God aspects of the EMOL and so it is much easier to accept at face value.

My almost final note is about something like a picture of the Catholic Church as a “miracles-fabricating- machine” that seem to come out from some of your posts.

I didn’t mean to portray the CC as a “miracles-fabricating- machine”. I expected the “numbers to speak for themselves”. By that I mean, there are 1.1 billion Catholics in the world today (by certain polls) and for argument sake, let’s say that 2/3 of all Catholics who have ever lived are alive right now. Let’s further say that 20% of all thusly counted Catholics are devout and let’s only consider them. If we further assume that the average devout Catholic is devout for 40 years, that would mean that the globe has enjoyed 13,200 million man years of devout Catholicism. Even if we pegged the number of fabricated Catholic miracles at 100 thousand, we would only have one fabrication for every 132,000 man years…which makes for a very slow and inefficient “miracles-fabricating- machine” You should further note that it is my suspicion that most things that are called miracles (but really aren’t), are not fabrications at all, but are instead wishful thinking…I have in mind the person who goes to Lourdes with a soft tissue injury and comes away feeling cured…only to relapse shortly thereafter (I haven’t ever investigated Lourdes, but I am assuming it compares well with Charismatic healing services).

In his *Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Miracle, 1150-1350, *much of which we can find on google books the American-Israeli scholar Michael Goodich (1944-2006), , boldly states *“The medieval preacher preferred to deemphasize the miracolous in hagiography in favor of its moral …goals.” *
In its conclusions we read *“the developing principles of canon law supported the notion that evidence of the miracolous requires the application of proper judicial procedures and the deposition of witnesses of unimpeachable character” *

thanks for adding this…the “dark” ages have been unfairly tarred

On the contrary, someone could be called to new life by being able to accept the divine message in one single real miracle .

and I surely wouldn’t want to throw a wet blanket on this sort of thing…though I wouldn’t want to encourage exaggerated claims either.

Finally, we can rejoice IMHO that so much effort is spent to our days in order to disprove old and new Eucharistic miracles. It would be much worse if the secular world and some protestantisms simply did not care to go on refuting that or whatever else.

you might be overly optimistic here. Before I met you, I hadn’t really encountered Catholic claims for Catholic miracles, except for hearing about Lourdes and Marian appearances…neither of which triggered any investigation on my behalf (let alone an effort at refuting). I did, however, hear of plenty of such claims from Charismatics (b/c there are some in pretty well every Evangelical congregation…you just can’t swing a dead cat w/o hitting somebody with their hands in the air). The Charismatic claims are the miraculous claims that I investigated before showing up here and the Catholic claims seem to be of the same quality (though with a strong Catholic flavoring). The Catholic claims were not even on my radar (this while having enjoyed very good friendships for decades with a number of Catholics). Personally, I wouldn’t try to disprove a miraculous claim made by either a Catholic or a Charismatic friend of mine…I would only offer my opinion/suspicions when asked directly and then (in the situation where it is obviously something other than a miracle) do so with as much diplomacy as possible…there is no doubt I could work on my diplomacy skills a bit more around here. …as such, I doubt that a lot of effort is invested in disproving Eucharistic miracles.

I hope something can help here.

thanks

God bless you and yours.

same to you, of course

 

[pneuma07]

as always good to hear from you. I noted after 8 short (by your standards) responses you ended with:
PS While I do look forward to your observations on what above, I cannot tell unfortunately whether I can at present to go on with an exchange.

I was actually contemplating taking a bit of a break from here when I saw that you had posted…so if it takes a month or two for you to get back to me on what I say in response, that would still work for me…I would still look forward to what you have to say.

.

Thanks. Your kindness deserves being here during what would be (european ) bedtime.

I expect that you are well aware that many historians (most, almost all?) believe that ancient forgers did not view their actions in the negative light that we now use to look upon forgeries. The end, apparently justified the means. In that case, the hypothetical forger in the EMOL would have seen his forgery as a beneficial act, deserving of God’s approval, whereby the forger “helps” God by showing what God is really doing behind the elements. That the EMOL served to encourage the devout would only serve to re-enforce that understanding (ie can something that encourages really be all that bad?) May I suggest that you approach your four points from that perspective?

Don’t give me too much credit. You could usefully explain what you mean by forgery. If you say fabricating “pseudoepigraphical” documents, then I am well aware the moral attitutude was different than now, back in the high Middle Age or in previous times.

Maybe we should not be too severe with those guys, since the Holy Bible has pseudoepigraphical books itself, it appears, and we probably do not consider them as forgeries. I guess we’re OTOH speaking specifically about alleged miracles here.

So in response to your first point, the medieval forger would respond that he, of course, used a human heart as the use of an animal heart would be shameful for such a noble cause and wondrous sacrament…also, the local butchers just might recognize the particularities of an animal heart

You propose that a butcher could see manifest similarities of the slice with a porcine heart. I am not in a position to accept or totally exclude that, though I am inclined towards excluding. What he could not do was affirming that the slice was not human, since he simply would not know the way human hearts are made, and …there were no anatomists to be called for examinations.

 

[pneuma07]

I think you have fallen for Linoli’s bias here. From what I have read about Linoli, he strikes me as a devout Catholic who believed in the EMOL and who desparately wanted the EMOL to be affirmed. I don’t think that bias colored his interpretation of the test results, but when he went beyond the test results, his bias spoke loud and clear. From what I see, his comments wrt the difficulty in making the cut apply to the situation where one wanted to replicate the slice. In other words, if one set out to achieve a slice that possessed those exact components, then one would have to be trained in anatomy to pull it off. Well, who would think that the hypothetical forger would have started the procedure with the goal of having a slice with those exact components? What likely happened is, as I have stated earlier, that the forger takes a human heart, slices if a number of times with a nice sharp knife and then picks the nicest, cleanest piece (which happens to have those components by chance, but not design) No grand skill or knowledge needed…and the sample is consistent with a nice slice
.

Linoli’s point here, as I get it, is that the originally the slice from what we can see now, must have been uniform. Now, the heart, as we know nowadays, is far from being a homogenous sphere. It is a peculiarly shaped hollow organ. You just can hardly expect to get nice uniform slices without expertise. Just look at a picture of a half-heart. And imagine having the fresh organ. We could ask butchers or cardiologists.

 

[pneuma07]

why would he, when the hoax was achieving such wondrous results for the glorification of the Lord? No, on his deathbed, the forger would keep his mouth shut so that the wondrous results would continue after his death and after he was welcomed into the kingdom (and recognized by God and the saints for contributing so marvelously) His cohorts, if any, would have done likewise.
the preservation is a bonus…something that the forger couldn’t guarantee. The hoax would serve a noble cause for a while at least and if longer, the forger would likely see the presrvation as God’s ratification of the noble deception .

That builds on the key you proposed above, that fabricating miracles was a somehow encouraged practice.

Should we see the degree of preservation through centuries as God’s ratification of a deception ?

yes, a proper study would have assessed these matters and not jumped to preferred conclusions

Now we’d need climatologists. I remember the source you proposed would mention that natural mummifications appear to happen in very dry or very cold climates. That is definitely not the case in coastal central Italy.
You get hot summers with normal temperatures around 30-34 Celsius (or around 95 for Farenheit using brothers ). As for the microclimate within that church, within old walls it is just a bit less than that. Provided there are not many people or candles burning that is. Anything but very cold and dry there.

sliced, dried meat is something that is commonly preserved here…again, we shouldn’t be left to speculate, but experts in this area (and I doubt strongly that Linoli is one) should express their opinions so we have a good idea as to how irregular this is

I second new examinations. The hole in the slice appears as result of rigor mortis, if so then the slice had not been dried. Also, it would not have been so nice for the alleged forgers, showing a dried piece of flesh.

I don’t think the forger thought it at all necessary to be assured of centuries of preservation…and we should never lose sight of the fact that the custodians of the samples did go to considerable effort to preserve the samples…they weren’t left exposed to the elements.

I guess we do not know how the samples used to be kept throughout their existence. Among the factors many of us know are against the preservation of meat is light. Displaying the samples in glass vessels, as it has been the case at least for relatively recent times, is far from even trying an ideal preservation. And we may assume the custodians know that.

 

[pneuma07]

self-refuting?..that seems wildly and overly optimistic on your part. Not even a reasonably probable event? How exactly are you positioned to make such a declaration? How were the samples stored over the centuries? How airtight were the containers? How dry were the samples when they went in? How do these compare to other samples that have been naturally preserved? Unless you are an informed expert, I am at a loss as to how you can make any such assessment.
.

You are fully on target. I am no expert, either on forgeries or on meat spoilage. What I mean, possibly in a not adequate English, is that a forgery in this case for what I could consider seems unlikely, not unimaginable.
Back to preservation, the blood has a large quantity of Ca, in every likelihood coming from surrounding walls. That tells us the samples were not preserved hermetically sealed at all. Not an ideal condition, again.

This strikes me as a vaild point and as something that may not have been given sufficient consideration on this thread. If (among other things), I was to put aside my reservations about only a piece of the body being present in the EMOL and assume that the EMOL is a vaild miracle, then by considering this sort of inspiring affect, I am far less likely to see the EMOL as a validation of a particular Eucharistic belief wrt a real bodily presence. More likely, it is as suggested earlier when I considered miracles in the various branches of Christianity:

This was not my point. Again we see IMHO the different mindset between the et…et of Catholicism, and the frequent aut…aut of many protestant brothers. I suggest that besides ( and by ) endorsing RP a confirmed eucharistic miracle could move to a firmer or even a new faith in Jesus. You cannot accept RP … withouth accepting Chrsitianity. I was inviting to consider this side…also.

I cannot imagine to tell the truth that eucharistic miracles have nothing to do with endorsing RP.

 

[pneuma07]

good, I actually did want to come back to that matter. Given that it is Christ’s body that is said to be really present at your Eucharist, is it fair to say that this sample would have to be a piece of Christ’s body? I suppose it could be a piece of some other guy’s heart, miraculously made present for the purpose of encouragement, but I understand that the samples are adored… If so, is it not assumed that the flesh is a bit of Christ? Earlier you commented on how slicing human heart(s) would be repulsive and morally questionable. I don’t think that the medieval man had the same delicate sensibilities that the modern western man now possesses. This modern man is not so troubled by the slicing of a human heart as he is by the concept of putting God in a box…or rather a piece of God in a little glass jar. Besides being inconsistent with the claim, it strikes me as being demeaning to the majesty of God…it just seems wrong (in a few ways) to have a bit of God on display in a jar.
.

I doubt that opening corpses was generally speaking a morally accepted activity in the Middle Ages, BTW.

There is nothing as the concept of “a bit of God” in Catholic theology, to my poor knowledge. Hence, no bit of God on display in a jar, if that is the present difficulty.

well, the bread never seems to change in front of a viewing audience and the bleeding host seems to provide such a miniscule amount that I would wonder if it was a miracle or something else.

The point is how you imagine your reaction, as a mental experiment, in front of such an event.

well, it only becomes a half-miracle if we assume that the preservation is somehow miraculous and not just natural.

Of course

 

[pneuma07]

These samples are apparently a bit of Christ’s heart and some of his blood. Although they have enjoyed some preservation, they have also endured considerable deterioration. How does a part of the resurrected body of God undergo any deterioration? How does it dehydrate, have fungi growing on it and have its cells break down? This is an outrageous idea. The Eucharistic body is supposed to be the same body that is at the right hand of the Father, correct? So is a slice of Jesus’s heart in heaven undergoing a corresponding deterioration?..b/c the bit of God’s body in Lanciano is “rotting”, just ever so slowly.

Since now you’re focusing on high theological questions, I call Aquinas for help

*Christ’s body under its proper species can be seen only in one place, wherein it is definitively contained. Hence since it is seen in its proper species, and is adored in heaven, it is not seen under its proper species in this sacrament. Secondly, because a glorified body, which appears at will, disappears when it wills after the apparition; thus it is related (Luke 24:31) that our Lord “vanished out of sight” of the disciples. But that which appears under the likeness of flesh in this sacrament, continues for a long time; indeed, one reads of its being sometimes enclosed, and, by order of many bishops, preserved in a pyx, which it would be wicked to think of Christ under His proper semblance.
Consequently, it remains to be said, that, while the dimensions remain the same as before, there is a miraculous change wrought in the other accidents, such as shape, color, and the rest, so that flesh, or blood, or a child, is seen. And, as was said already, this is not deception, because it is done “to represent the truth,” namely, to show by this miraculous apparition that Christ’s body and blood are truly in this sacrament. And thus it is clear that as the dimensions remain, which are the foundation of the other accidents, as we shall see later on (77, 2), the body of Christ truly remains in this sacrament. *

Summa Theologica, Book III, Quaestio 76

In short, Saint Thomas teaches that the Real Presence remains under the new species. You have the res, ie the whole Christ, under the signum of the flesh. Not a bit of His glorious body.

This sort of miracle could be then regarded, following Aquinas, as a divine change of the species. What is so slowly rotting, then, is the signum.

I understand this can be seen as an exception to the following rule we find in the CCC

1377 The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.205

I understand there isn’t a definitive magisterial teaching on Aquinas’ proposition.

Would you see outrage or beauty in the EMOL miracle, from S. Thomas’s point of view ?

 

[pneuma07]

well, it eliminates (what I perceive as) the demeaning to God and the deterioration of God aspects of the EMOL and so it is much easier to accept at face value.

If the Eucharistic Miracle of Siena, or EMOS, gets your attention, you could start a thread on that also. I invite others as well to consider this less popular ( alleged ) miracle.

I was also striken by a tale about an ( alleged ) Eucharistic miracle just in your own Province. A moving case of levitation of the consecrated Host in 1946. michaeljournal.org/cowley.htm Maybe you can easily discover it is a pure legend.

Or maybe, one of Sergeant Parsons children or relatives is still there to tell you how the eye witness would describe his experience. ,

 

[pneuma07]

I didn’t mean to portray the CC as a “miracles-fabricating- machine”. I expected the “numbers to speak for themselves”. By that I mean, there are 1.1 billion Catholics in the world today (by certain polls) and for argument sake, let’s say that 2/3 of all Catholics who have ever lived are alive right now. Let’s further say that 20% of all thusly counted Catholics are devout and let’s only consider them. If we further assume that the average devout Catholic is devout for 40 years, that would mean that the globe has enjoyed 13,200 million man years of devout Catholicism. Even if we pegged the number of fabricated Catholic miracles at 100 thousand, we would only have one fabrication for every 132,000 man years…which makes for a very slow and inefficient “miracles-fabricating- machine” You should further note that it is my suspicion that most things that are called miracles (but really aren’t), are not fabrications at all, but are instead wishful thinking…I have in mind the person who goes to Lourdes with a soft tissue injury and comes away feeling cured…only to relapse shortly thereafter (I haven’t ever investigated Lourdes, but I am assuming it compares well with Charismatic healing services).

Fine stats. What I do not know is whether Charismatics scrutinize their (alleged) miracles as the Church does.

thanks for adding this…the “dark” ages have been unfairly tarred

and I surely wouldn’t want to throw a wet blanket on this sort of thing…though I wouldn’t want to encourage exaggerated claims either.
you might be overly optimistic here. Before I met you, I hadn’t really encountered Catholic claims for Catholic miracles, except for hearing about Lourdes and Marian appearances…neither of which triggered any investigation on my behalf (let alone an effort at refuting). I did, however, hear of plenty of such claims from Charismatics (b/c there are some in pretty well every Evangelical congregation…you just can’t swing a dead cat w/o hitting somebody with their hands in the air). The Charismatic claims are the miraculous claims that I investigated before showing up here and the Catholic claims seem to be of the same quality (though with a strong Catholic flavoring). The Catholic claims were not even on my radar (this while having enjoyed very good friendships for decades with a number of Catholics). Personally, I wouldn’t try to disprove a miraculous claim made by either a Catholic or a Charismatic friend of mine…I would only offer my opinion/suspicions when asked directly and then (in the situation where it is obviously something other than a miracle) do so with as much diplomacy as possible…there is no doubt I could work on my diplomacy skills a bit more around here. …as such, I doubt that a lot of effort is invested in disproving Eucharistic miracles.
thanks
same to you, of course

I receive gratefully invitations against overoptimism. In the cybersphere there are, so it seems, a number of debates on the nature of alleged Eucharistic miracles. For sure, OTOH, most people ignore both EMOS and EMOL within Italy itself. Society as a whole is more post-religious than anti-religious.

The fact that in your case you decided to examine miracles reaching your radar screens on a case by case basis sounds very important . You do not seemingly share the classic post-Reformation approach on “no miracles after Revelation”. But then, I could be overoptimist again here.

I also guess that your statement about RP not being supported by miracles ( besides failing scripturally, historically and theologically ) is qualified by an implicit “ as for what I could detect so far on the alleged miracles I could consider”.

Hoping something can help.

God bless you

 

[Jcnava15]

Sorry Radical, but you’ve lost all credibility with me in regards to you at all being objective if you are seriously going to assume that the CC’s miracle standards are on par with the Charismatic healings. Although I believe some Charismatic healings might be real, I can’t tell Christ what he is and isn’t allowed to do, you are very ignorant of the strict standards the CC has, especially the Lourdes committe.

Here is an excerpt from an article on Alexis Carrel;

*There is a story, a true story, that takes us back almost three hundred years, to Rome. A young English aristocrat arrives there and establishes contact with someone high in the Vatican. He wants to know what really happens when miracles are being approved by the Church in support of beatifications and canonizations. He is convinced that Rome carelessly admits any sudden cure as a miracle. In response, his contact in the Vatican gives him a thick dossier about a miraculous cure recently submitted to the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

The aristocrat goes home, studies the dossier and a few days later hands it back with the words: This most certainly was a miracle. The Vatican man, still Monsignore Prospero Lambertini and not yet Pope Benedict XIV, replies with a dry smile: the case has already been rejected.*

Also as a personal consideration, you should be very careful when you go around accusing miracles who’s nature you are not aware of being lies, and fabrications. That’s dangerously close to Blasphemy of the Holy spirit.

 

[grannymh]

My sincere apology for jumping in without reading the thread beyond the first posts.
I did notice that people used two different meanings for the word sample and consequently the word preservation. The wording in these two links may help clear up the confusion. On the other hand, I apologize if I am repeating what someone else has posted.

These two links go to two museum-type posters of the Lanciano miracle from the Vatican International Exhibition, The Eucharistic Miracles of the World.

therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/english_pdf/Lanciano1.pdf

therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/english_pdf/Lanciano2.pdf

What does need to be repeated and often is that the miracle which took place at Lanciano in 750 A.D. belongs to a select, unique, distinctive group of miracles which cannot be compared to any other kind of miracle. The greatest Miracle of All is the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. An Eucharistic miracle is one which occurs during Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist.

Related to the Lanciano miracle is the one at Siena, Italy. A poster mentioned starting a new thread about it which would be interesting. Nonetheless, I think it is important to realize that the Lanciano miracle is not the only miracle involving the appearances of the Sacred Consecrated Host.

To understand the power of Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist, the miracle at Siena contrasts the change in appearance at Lanciano with no change in the appearance of the Sacred Hosts. These Hosts originally had been reserved after the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in 1730. They exist today, fresh, intact, and without chemical preservatives. During his visit to Siena, Pope John Paul II knelt in prayer before these Hosts and said regarding them: “It is the Real Presence!”

This miracle is also part of the Vatican International Exhibition, The Eucharistic Miracles of the World.
Link to miracle therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/english_pdf/Siena.pdf

Source for the Vatican Exhibit www.therealpresence.org

Blessings,
granny

The Holy Eucharist is the Light, Strength, and Life of our souls.

 

[Holly3278]

The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano is such an amazing miracle. I learned about it when I was still in RCIA and while I think I already believed in the real presence and such, this miracle only confirmed my belief in it. God is such an amazing God. It is wonderful that He gave us this miracle to prove to us that the Eucharist really is His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity!

 

[Radical]

You could usefully explain what you mean by forgery.

anything that made it look like the miraculous was involved when it wasn’t

If you say fabricating “pseudoepigraphical” documents, then I am well aware the moral attitutude was different than now, back in the high Middle Age or in previous times.

and I don’t see why something analogous wouldn’t work with miracles, relics etc.

Maybe we should not be too severe with those guys, since the Holy Bible has pseudoepigraphical books itself, it appears, and we probably do not consider them as forgeries.

agreed, we can’t judge them by our standards…nor should we attribute our perspectives to them.

pose that a butcher could see manifest similarities of the slice with a porcine heart. I am not in a position to accept or totally exclude that, though I am inclined towards excluding.

I have only butchered cattle, not pigs…so I am not in a position to exclude either…though flesh/fat color may be telling…but why chance it?