June-July 2013
The undermining of belief in the Real Presence precedes apace, actively and passively, at every level of Catholic life. Not only is Our Lord’s definitive teaching misrepresented or understated, the Eucharistic miracles which affirm the truth of the doctrine are waved away or buried altogether. The month of June, dedicated to the Sacred Heart, is a particularly appropriate time to reflect on the gravity of this subversion and the immense pain it causes Our Saviour. For science repeatedly identifies miraculous Eucharistic tissue as that of a traumatised heart muscle of a person in their death agony.
Perhaps the most famous Eucharistic miracle occurred in the eighth century in Lanciano, Italy. A Basilian monk saying Holy Mass was experiencing doubts as to whether, at the moment of elevation, the bread really became the Body of Christ, and the wine His blood. As he pronounced the words of consecration, the bread changed into Flesh, and the wine blood — and this in such a way as to be verifiable by the human senses.
On 18 November 1970, Paul VI instructed a group of Italian scientists to conduct a thorough analysis of this Eucharistic species. Completed on 4 March 1971, the scientific findings confirmed the traditional belief. From a scientific standpoint the miraculously preserved Host contained a complete human heart. All the elements comprising that muscle were present in it. The studies indicated that the heart was mummified (though no trace of mummifying agents was found), bore no signs of an incision, and that its tissue contained living protein. Preserved also were five globules of coagulated human blood in its normal chemical composition, of the rare AB group — the same blood group as found on the Shroud of Turin. In 1976, the United Nations appointed medical doctors to verify the 1971 findings. They took samples of the flesh and blood from the Lanciano miracle and analysed it. The results of their studies confirmed the expert opinion of the Italian scientists.
In 1996, a Eucharistic miracle occurred in Buenos Aires after a consecrated Host, profaned by unknown perpetrators, was changed into human heart muscle tissue. This was determined in 1999 by a team of American researchers in New York under the direction of the well-known cardiologist and forensic pathologist Professor F. Zugibe. The scientists examining the delivered sample had no idea where it came from. They determined that the material analyzed was a fragment of heart muscle tissue found in the wall of the left ventricle, close to the valve. The muscle was in an inflammatory state and contained a large number of white cells, thus indicating that the heart was alive at the moment the specimen was taken. The fact that the white cells had entered the tissue was evidence that the heart was suffering intensely, as it would, for example, when one was struck hard on the rib cage.
As a further contribution to the Year of Faith, we offer the following reports on a more recent Eucharistic miracle, carried by the Polish magazine Love One Another (Issue. 23).
Quite apart from silencing doubters and giving serious pause to those who take Communion in the hand, all these scientific verifications of the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation should inspire within us the greatest awe, reverence, love, gratitude, humility and devotion at each and every Mass and Holy Communion.
Sokółka
- Poland’s Lanciano -
In October of 2008, an extraordinary event took place at St. Anthony of Padua parish church in Sokółka, Poland. A consecrated Host was transformed into a fragment of muscle tissue belonging to a living human heart suffering severe stress and on the point of death.
Transformation of the Host
At 8:30. on Sunday morning October 12, 2008, Fr. Filip Zdrodovvski was celebrating Holy Mass at the above-mentioned church. While Fr. Jacek Ingielewicz was assisting him in distributing Holy Communion, one of the hosts fell by accident on the altar step. A woman parishioner kneeling nearby noticed it and pointed it out to Fr Jacek who promptly picked it up. Observing that the Host was soiled, he placed it in the vasculum, a small bowl of water standing beside the tabernacle (the vasculum is the little basin the priest washes his fingers in after distributing Holy Communion).
After the Mass, the sacristan. Sister Julia Dubowska, took the vasculum into the sacristy, emptied its contents into another vessel, and locked it away in the safe. Only she and the pastor. Msgr. Stanislaw Gniedziejko. had a key to the safe. It is worth noting that Sr. Julia is a member of the Congregation of the Sisters Servants of Jesus in the Eucharist whose special charism is to promote veneration of Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament.
Having never before dealt with such a situation, Sr. Julia examined the vessel every day to see if the consecrated Host had dissolved. Normally the host dissolves completely in the water after several days. She expected the same to occur in this case. On October 19, around eight o'clock in the morning, upon opening the sacristy safe, Sr. Julia recognized the smell of bread. She assumed that the Host had dissolved completely and that she could now empty the contents of the vasculum into the sacrarium, a special drain located near the altar. When she looked at the Host in the vessel she was struck dumb with amazement. In the centre of the white Host she saw what looked like a bloody piece of living flesh measuring about a centimetre by a centimetre-and-a-half. As laboratory analysis would later show, it was real muscle tissue characteristic of a living human heart in the agony of death, as if on the point of cardiac arrest. Sr. Julia stared at the extraordinary object with the greatest astonishment and reverence. She confessed that she felt like Moses gazing on the bush in the wilderness that burned without being consumed.
Seeing the nun standing motionless so long over the transformed Host, Fr. Filip Zdrodowski asked her what was the matter. Sr. Julia explained to him what she had in her hand and how the consecrated Host came to be there. She placed the vessel on the desk so that the Monsignor and the other priests present in the sacristy might see the transformed Host.
Msgr. Stanislaw Gniedziejko would later recall his shock at seeing the blood-red substance on the white Host. The water in which it was immersed remained untinged by the blood. On taking a closer look at the bloody substance on the Host, he saw something resembling a piece of flesh — a bloody fragment of living tissue.
Everyone knew this was a consecrated Host in which the Risen Christ was present in His glorified human nature. They began to wonder if this red substance on the Host were the result of a natural process, or if it might not be a supernatural sign through which Christ wished to make something very important known. The Monsignor immediately cautioned those present against trivializing the mysterious phenomenon. That same day he informed His Excellency Archbishop Edward Ozorowski of the incident. Shortly afterwards, the Archbishop paid a visit to Sokółka On examining the Host, he gave orders that it should be kept safe and observed closely. On October 29, the vessel containing the Host was transferred to the tabernacle of the Divine Mercy Chapel in the parish presbytery. The following day, the Archbishop had the Host removed from the water, placed on a white corporal, enclosed in a pyx, and deposited in the tabernacle. In a short while, the Host dried out. The reddish brown bloody substance encrusted itself onto the corporal, and thus it remains to this day. For three years the Host was kept in the presbytery chapel. Not until October 2, 2011, was it solemnly brought back to the church and displayed for daily adoration in the chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary.
Two outstanding scientists
On August 5, 2009, on the Archbishop's instructions, the Metropolitan Curia of Białystok sent a letter to Profs. Maria Sobaniec-Lotowska and Stanislaw Sulkowski of the Białystok Medical University requesting their scientific expertise on "the material adhering to the Host as preserved at St. Anthony of Padua parish church in Sokółka." The letter stressed the need for treating the matter "with all due seriousness. urgency, and in the strictest confidence."
Profs. Sobaniec-Lotowska and Sulkowski are both outstanding scientists, highly respected in Poland and abroad. For thirty years they have specialized in the field of histopathological diagnostics and have many academic achievements to their credit. They work in two separate branches of the Bialystok Medical University: the Institute of Medical Pathomorphology and the Institute of General Pathomorphology.
On August 7, 2009, Prof. Sobaniec-Lotowska travelled to Sokółka where, in the presence of a special commission, she took a sample of the mysterious substance on the Host. "When I took the sample," she states, "I had no idea what this substance was. I obtained a small amount of it. It was brown in colour and adhered closely to the preserved fragment of the Blessed Host."
The two professors conducted separate, rigorously scientific analyses of the sample of the Host. Using state-of-the-art light and electron microscopes, they photographed and made detailed descriptions of the morphological images.
The results of the separate, independent analyses were in complete agreement with each other, greatly astonishing the two scientists. It turned out that the mysterious substance into which the fragment of the Host had changed was muscle tissue of a human heart experiencing the agony of death — as if on the point of cardiac arrest.
Professor Sobaniec-Lotowska explains:
"In the tiny fragment of material, which we examined, we found the presence of several morphologically distinctive markers indicating myocardial tissue. One of these markers is the phenomenon of segmentation, i.e. damage to heart muscle fibres at the zone of insertion, and the phenomenon of fragmentation. These lesions appear as multiple small cracks, as if cut with a knife. Such changes occur only in necrotic fibres and reflect the rapid contractions of the heart muscle in the final stages of death. Another important proof that the test material comes from the muscle of a human heart is the mainly centralized configuration of the nuclei in the observed fibres, which is characteristic of that muscle. Along the length of some of the fibres we also found patterns consistent with node contractions. Closer electron-microscopic examination revealed outlines of the insertion points and delicate microfibrillar networks. Summarizing our findings in the report to the Archdiocesan Curia, we stated: ‘The material (...) indicates myocardial tissue, or at least, of all the tissues of a living body, it most resembles it.’ And what is important, in our opinion. is the fact that the material we analyzed consists entirely of this tissue.”
Professor Sulkowski emphasises: "The matter comprising the Host quickly dissolves when immersed in water. But the Blessed Host from Sokółka has not broken down for reasons that remain baffling to science. What is still more remarkable is the fact that the middle portion of the Host turned into heart muscle tissue, forming an inseparable structure with the rest of the white Host."
The photomicrographs are empirical, scientific proof that no one could have united the two structures — heart muscle tissue and bread. Even scientists equipped with the most up-to-date equipment could not produce anything like it, so closely is the matter of the Host united and interpenetrated with the heart muscle fibres. This excludes any possibility of human interference.
Professor Sobaniec-Lotowska stresses,
"This extraordinary and mysterious interpenetration of the white Host's material with human heart muscle fibres was observed, examined, and photographed using both light and electron microscopy. The indication is that there could not have been any human intervention. Yet another extraordinary fact bears mentioning. The Host remained immersed in water for a considerable length of time, after which it was placed on the corporal. Yet our studies indicated none of the changes one would have expected of heart muscle fibres being immersed in water for so long a period. From the point of view of empirical research, we are unable to explain this fact. These are undoubtedly the most important studies I have conducted in my life. The results were shocking to me. They point to an extraordinary phenomenon, which from a scientific standpoint. is simply inexplicable."
Pseudo-scientific propagandists
The liberal and left-leaning media have endeavoured to cast doubt on the results of the pathomorphological studies conducted by the two outstanding scientists from Białystok. These media rely on the commentaries of pseudo-experts who have no substantive grounds for forming a competent opinion on these studies. One of these pseudo-experts, for example, opines: "It is not a miracle, but simple biology." Another attributes the red colouring on the Host to a bacilli-shaped bacterium (serratia marcescens). He presumes to comment on the Phenomenon even though he has never seen it, let alone analyzed the miraculously transformed Host or even read the scientific documentation. Such an attitude is not only a denial of scientific objectivity, but also flies in the face of human logic and elementary principles of ethics; the more so, since both professors Sulkowski and Sobaniec-Lolowska clearly state that "no bacterium known to science is able to create tissue structures; still less is it able to create muscle fibres characteristic of the human heart; and yet we have observed such fibres in the Host."
This is a statement of objective and incontrovertible fact. Alas, there are some who, for ideological reasons, deny facts that cast doubt on their own ideologìcal assumptions. Far from being objective, scientific claims, their opinions are pure ideology. They are the propaganda of lies.
Other preposterous charges have also been made. One group of so-called rationalists notified the public procurator, alleging that, since the sample analyzed by the scientists indicated heart muscle tissue of a dying man, a murder must have been committed. The prosecutor undertook to investigate the matter, but quickly dismissed the allegation for lack of proof. Atheists who reject objective facts behave irrationally. They are closed to the perception of truth for a very simple reason: they clap ideological irons on the reality that surrounds us. Only that exists which can be perceived by the senses, they claim with doctrinaire certainty. Hence, they state with absolute conviction, God and the spiritual world could not exist. Yet when confronted with clear, irrefutable facts such as those that came to light at Sokółka — facts that cast doubt on their ideological assumptions — these same "rationalists" proceed to explain them away by resorting to laughable, irrational arguments.
"The indication of heart muscle tissue in the sample taken from the communion wafer points to a miracle, and one would need strong scientific evidence to disprove it," observed pathomorphologist Dr. Janusz Mietkiewski in a letter to Maria Sobaniec-Lotowska shortly after the appearance of the Curia's first communiqué.
The results of the pathomorphological studies conducted on the Flesh-Host from Sokółka were sent to the Metropolitan Curia in Białystok on January 21, 2009. The upshot of the report was unequivocal. The fragment of the consecrated wafer had been changed into heart muscle tissue belonging to a human being in the final stages of death. The structures of the heart muscle fibres and bread wafer were so closely integrated as to exclude of the possibility of human intervention.
True science confirms the true Faith
Neither Professor Maria Sobaniec-Lotowska nor Professor Stanislaw Sulkowski conceals the fact that they are believers. As scientists they are keenly aware of the awesome complexity and design of both the macro- and micro-cosmos. Since all this could not be of accidental origin, one comes to the logical conclusion that there must exist a Supreme Intelligence — the One Triune God. However, a rejection of faith in God is also an act of faith, but one that rejects the clear logical conclusions that arise from our perception of the world around us, the events associated with the life, death and resurrection of Christ, the history of the Catholic Church, and the lives of the saints.
Obviously, in studying the sample of the Host, Professors Sobaniec-Lotowska and Sulkowski were not guided by their faith; rather they conducted their expertise in accordance with the rigorous norms of scientific research, which they scrupulously documented with numerous photomicrographs.
On November 4, 2009, Profs. Sulkowski and Sobaniec-Lotowska published a statement in which they once again certified the results of their studies conducted on the sample taken from the transformed Host. In it, they deplored the way in which "the public is being led into error by being presented with hypothetical, pseudoscientific explanations of the phenomenon, which we studied, especially by individuals who are ignorant of the parameters of these studies, who do not have access to the material examined, and who all too often lack even an elementary knowledge of the research methods used."
The transformation of the consecrated Host into the muscle of a human heart in its death agony is a sign calling us all to repentance. It is a reminder to all of us that every Holy Mass is a re-presentation (making present) of the passion, death and resurrection of Christ and that Christ is truly present in the consecrated Host in His glorified, resurrected humanity, in order that He may offer Himself to us as our "antidote to death."