When the Eucharist becomes the Body and Blood of Christ during Mass, one does not typically see flesh and blood at first glance. However, there have been noted instances of Hosts exhibiting unique properties.
One such instance occurred in the diocese of Buenos Aires on August 18th, 1996, when Pope Francis (then Cardinal Bergoglio) reigned there. A parishioner approached Father Alejandro Pezet, concerned about a desecrated Host left on a candle holder. Unable to consume the Host in this instance, the priest reverently left the Host to dissolve into water in a container placed in the tabernacle.
Opening the tabernacle again on August 26th, he discovered that the Host had become bloody tissue. Then Cardinal Bergoglio ordered that the Host be photographed professionally on September 6th. For several years the Host was kept in the tabernacle. As the Host had suffered no decomposition after all that time, Cardinal Bergoglio requested the Host be scientifically analyzed.
On October 5th, 1999, the Host was sent to a lab in New York City. The scientists examining the Host (including Dr. Frederic Zugibe, a cardiologist and forensic pathologist), were not told that the test subject was a Host. Dr. Zugibe, in his report, concluded: “The slides contain cardiac (heart) tissue that displays degenerative changes of the myocardial tissue (cardiac muscular tissue) with loss of striation of the muscle fibers, nuclear pyknosis, aggregates of mixed Inflammatory cells consisting of chronic inflammatory cells (macrophages) which are predominant and smaller numbers of acute inflammatory cells (white blood cells primarily polymorphonuclear leukocytes) which are admixed…These degenerative changes are consistent with a recent heart attack (myocardial infarction of a few days duration) due to an obstruction of a coronary artery…this obstruction may be the result of atherosclerosis (process of fatty acid plaque buildup), or a coronary thrombosis (obstruction of the coronary artery by a blood clot), or a severe blow to the chest over the heart.”
One might think that the sample could have been falsified by being taken from a cadaver, but this cannot be the case. Father Robert Spitzer, S.J., writes “[As] white blood cells are present in large numbers [in the host], [the tissue] must be removed when the heart was still alive and pumping…solid medical evaluation shows that the sample had not decomposed and cannot be obtained from a deceased subject.”
Since the white blood cells were present in the tissue in such large amounts, the heart tissue must have been live tissue at the time of examination, despite being only stored in water for years.
Dr. Zugibe himself corroborates Father Spitzer’s argument, further noting in the report “When I was later told that the heart tissue was kept in tap water for about a month and transferred to sterile, distilled water for three years, I indicated that it would be impossible to see white blood cells or macrophages in the sample. Moreover, it would be impossible to identify the tissue per se as there would be no morphological characteristics.”
One might argue that the tissue did degenerate in the tabernacle as the tissue showed degenerative changes when examined, however, the degeneration is not due to natural tissue death over time, but due to injury sustained due to trauma or a heart attack.
Although some view Jesus’s words in the Gospel of John concerning the Eucharist as metaphorical, this interpretation does not seem to be correct in light of the evidence presented. This report would lead one to reasonably conclude that the Eucharistic Hosts we eat every Mass are, in fact, really Jesus’s body and blood.
Dr. Zuigbe’s Report: https://nacn-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/Zugibe-scanned-reports-26-3-05-and-15-3-05-RON-ack.pdf/.
Fr. Spitzer’s Article:
Diocese of Fargo Outlining Events:
https://fargodiocese.net/news/the-eucharistic-miracle-of-buenos-aires-argentina.
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