Eucharistic Miracles retreat

This past Saturday Maureen and I attended a Eucharistic Miracles retreat in Ottawa at St. Mary's parish. It was given by Fr. Mark Goring of the Companions of the Cross. (Fr. Mark also does short YouTube videos everyday about the Catholic faith.)

It was an amazing retreat.

As Catholics we believe that in the Mass, transubstantiation takes place. This is when the priest consecrates the unleavened bread (host) into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. The host is then called the Consecrated Host. We believe this is literally the Body and Blood of Jesus.

The retreat described numerous miracles from over the centuries where the Consecrated Host took on the appearance of human tissue/human blood. In current times scientists have analyzed these specimens from these miracles. It makes for interesting reading, not all of which I understand as they get into the scientific results of these tests, identifying cardiac specimens of live flesh, and blood types (always AB positive), etc.The miracles that have been approved by the Church are all listed here. 

For the miracles from centuries ago, obviously there was no scientific testing done, but there were other phenomena identified. Below I include the links from the recent approved miracles which detail some of the scientific testing done on the specimens.

Poland

Sokólka, October 12, 2008 (Part 1) – (PDF: 1.41M) Sokólka, October 12, 2008 (Part 2) – (PDF: 1.31M) Sokólka, October 12, 2008 (Part 3) – (PDF: 1.41M)

Argentina Buenos Aires, 1992 - 1994 - 1996 (part 1) - (PDF: 1.46M) Buenos Aires, 1992 - 1994 - 1996 (part 2) - (PDF: 1.42M) Buenos Aires, 1992 - 1994 - 1996 (part 3) - (PDF: 1.25M)   Italy (testing was done in 1970-71 and 1981) Lanciano, 750 A.D. (part 1) – (PDF: 186k) Lanciano, 750 A.D. (part 2) – (PDF: 194k) So why is Jesus's blood always AB Positive?

"Rarity of the AB blood type among the human population
Together the AB blood type (both positive and negative) is one of the rarest of the human blood types, with only approximately 3.4 percent of the world population having AB+, and only 0.6 percent of the population with AB-.

AB blood type and its universal receptivity
What makes the AB blood type even more special is that people who have AB blood can receive blood from anyone, and are therefore known as “universal recipients”, unlike all other blood types who can only receive from other specific blood types. Therefore AB blood type is referred to as the "Universal Receiver" blood type. 

So what to make of the universal receptivity of Jesus blood type?
So this begs the question--why would Jesus’ blood be universally receptive by all the blood types of humanity? What could this signify? Well, this is where Science and Faith may very well merge. 

In the Eucharist, we often speak of “receiving” Jesus in Holy Communion.  When we consume the Eucharist, Jesus literally unites and becomes one with us, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity."

Part 1 of  Fr. Mark's retreat



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4

Taking up our cross

Beautiful homily by Fr. Shroff. Jesus said we must die to self and follow me. Jesus transforms our human suffering. And makes it holy.

We can use our suffering to glorify God. So we can offer up our suffering in union with Jesus on the Cross.

Evangelism of the trenches

Here is Peter Kreeft's conversion story from Protestantism to a Catholicism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO2NGGmWBQo

He tells us that since converting, he has felt it to be his vocation to build bridges between Catholics and non-Catholics. He was also a signer to the Evangelicals and Catholic Together Statement and supports it very strongly. (I'd never heard of this stattement before. Here it is: Evangelicals & Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium)

This is some of what Kreeft says on this.

"The divisions that exist now are very different than they were 50 years ago when I became a Catholic. The divisions now are far less important now, even though they still exist. That's because we face a common enemy. A culture of death. A society that is becoming increasingly anti-Christian. Whether Mary was assumed into Heaven is pretty important but what's really important is whether Jesus rose from the dead.

The common enemy that we face is doing exactly the opposite of what the devil wants us to do, namely dividing us. They are uniting us, in profound ways sometimes. Common action against a common evil like abortion has united Protestants and Catholics in their hearts and in their works even though not in their heads."

Kreeft tells of a story that he's not sure is literally true or not.

"In the early days of the pro-life movement The Catholics and southern Baptists were protesting at an abortion clinic. They went into the bubble zone and were all thrown into jail together for not observing the bubble zone. They shared a common jail cell. 24 of them. That night they didn't sleep. They prayed and sang hymns together all night. In the morning when they were released, the Baptists went home and asked their families why don’t we love Mary like the Catholics do? And the Catholics went home and asked their families if they accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior?"

Now that's Evangelism of the trenches."