A few weeks ago before I celebrated the Eucharistic sacrifice I received a very encouraging SMS which boosted me up to celebrate the Sacred Mysteries with the greatest enthusiasm and hope in the Lord Jesus. Thus ran the text: “May God bless you as you celebrate HIM”.
These powerful words set me thinking, rejoicing and writing!
This caring person was 100 per cent right! The Mass is in fact the celebration of God the Father’s love, shown through the Flesh and Blood of His beloved Son and our brother Jesus, in and through the Holy Spirit. I came to a better understanding of this extraordinary mystery of faith when I lately visited the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano with Thy Kingdom Come Community.
In the privileged city of the Frentanese, one comes across the first and greatest Eucharistic Miracle of the Catholic Church. Over 12 centuries ago, in the tiny Church of St Legontian, a Basilian monk was heavily tormented by all kinds of doubt concerning Jesus’s real presence in the Eucharist. Soon after the twofold consecration, the host miraculously was changed into a live flesh and the wine was changed into live blood, which solidified into five pellets of coagulated blood of different sizes and shapes.
Among the various and extensive scientific research carried out on this Eucharist miracle I would like to mention the one done in 1970-71, which was then undertaken 10 years later by the most renowned scientist Prof. Odoardo Linoli, outstanding professor in anatomy and pathological histology and in chemistry and clinical microscopy. He was aided by Prof. Ruggero Bertelli of the University of Siena.
The most rigorous and accurate scientific analyses which were reported with a series of microscopic photographs produced the subsequent conclusions: (i) The Flesh is real flesh. The Blood is real blood; (ii) The Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species; (iii) The Flesh is made up of muscular tissue of the heart; (iv) In the Flesh we see present in section: the myocardium, the endocardium, the vagus nerve as well as the left ventricle of the heart for the large thickness of the myocardium; (v) The Flesh is a “heart” complete in its essential structure; (vi) The Flesh and the blood contain the same blood type: AB (the same blood type which Prof. Baima Bollone uncovered in the Holy Shroud of Turin); (vii) In the Blood there were detected proteins in the same normal proportions as are detected in the seroproteic make-up of fresh, normal blood; (viii) In the Blood there were also found the following minerals: chlorides, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium. The preservation of the Flesh and Blood, which were left in their natural state for the 12 centuries (without any chemical preservatives) and exposed to the action of atmospheric and biological agents, remains an extraordinary phenomenon.
The aforementioned results concretely show how science is the handmaid of faith. Scientia ancilla fidei.
The certain and detailed scientific response which unravelled the authenticity of the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano made me realise my priestly responsibility to celebrate the Eucharist, the source and summit of the individual believer’s relationship with God as well as the life and mission of the Church, with the utmost loving devotion.
Praise be to you, O Christ for this Eucharistic Miracle you have left us as a sign of predilection, in order to increase our faith in your real presence in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Make O Lord, that receiving your Body and Blood, transformed by your love, we can be for all mankind epiphany of your greatest love, and a prophecy of your Kingdom, in front of the world in the Third Millennium. Amen.