I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers.

1 Corinthians 15:3-6

I must confess! When the beatification of Carlo Acutis happened I was not really that interested. I felt it was all a bit contrived. The saint in sneakers – lets make a kid, who loved computer games, into a saint to attract young people back to the church. Only at his canonisation did I sit up and take notice. God always speaks to the age we live in and maybe there was something to ‘God’s Influencer’ after all? Carlo’s great passion was for the Eucharist and for the Eucharistic miracles. He created an extraordinary website cataloging all the known Eucharistic miracles.

One of the oldest Eucharistic miracles occurred in Italy at Lanciano in the 8^th century. A monk, who did not believe in the real presence, was saying mass. At the consecration the bread and wine turned into flesh and blood, the blood coagulated forming five particles. It has been preserved over the centuries in a reliquary for devotional purposes. In the 1970’s it was approved for scientific testing and was shown to have belonged to heart tissue that had undergone stress (see Carlo Acutis’ page on the matter – Lanciano – Carlo Acutis -)

A more recent Eucharistic miracle occurred on August 18, 1996 in the Church of Santa Maria y Caballito Almagro in Buenos Aires Argentina. A parishioner had found a consecrated host at the back of the church impaled on a candle holder. After being informed the parish priest put it in a glass of water and left it in the tabernacle over night (normal practice for the disposal of a consecrated host that cannot be consumed). When retrieving it the next day the priest noticed that it had changed into bloody tissue. After consulting the Archbishop (then Jorge Bergolio – the future Pope Francis) it was professionally photographed and left in the tabernacle without publicizing the event. After three years, with the substance not decomposing, Archbishop Bergolio authorised the scientific testing of the tissue. A team of five scientists was assembled, including a famous cardiologist, to examine the tissue without the source being revealed to them. The tissue was found to be from the left ventricle of a human heart. The heart muscle was found to be in an inflammatory condition with a large number of white blood cells present. Remarkably this meant that the sample could only have been taken from a living heart. (you can read more about this in an article by Fr Robert J. Spitzer SJ – https://www.magiscenter.com/hubfs/Contemporary-Eucharistic-Miracles-Magis-Center.pdf – Spitzer is a leading proponent of the links between science and faith, see his website – https://www.magiscenter.com/ – )

Other Eucharistic miracles have occurred in even more recent years. On 31^st of May this year (2025) a miracle that occurred in India at Christ the King Church in Vilakkannur on November 15, 2013, was approved by the church. This time it was an image of Christ that appeared on the host during mass. Two Eucharistic Miracles in Poland, one in Sokolka in 2008 and another in Legnica in 2013, both involved bleeding hosts. In both cases scientific tests revealed that samples were proved to be heart tissue.
Christ is truly present to us in every consecrated host in every mass. This was revealed to us by Jesus himself (see John 6) and he wants this to be taken on faith. So why so many Eucharistic miracles? The mass, and specifically the consecration, is where the spiritual world and the material world intersect. God comes down to us, and we are raised to God. Sometimes a miracle is needed to bring a doubtful person to faith, just in the way the doubting disciple Thomas needed to feel the wounds of the risen Christ by touching them himself (Gospel of John chapter 20). But then Jesus reminds him, “blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) Jesus requires in us a life of faith and trust not proof. Yet sometimes that life needs a kickstart and this intersection of faith with science may well, for many people, be the provision for this. I had an extraordinary experience in Medjugorje in 1986 which opened my eyes to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I have had nothing like it since, but it kickstarted the relationship and life of faith which I have had in and with my Lord Jesus, ever since. It is quite amazing that in all documented Eucharistic miracles, the host has been reported to reveal the presence of human cardiac tissue with the rare AB blood group type. This is consistent with results from the Shroud of Turin.

The enigma that is the Shroud of Turin has baffled scientists for years. (You can find a good summary of the evidence here… – shroud-of-turin-jeremiah-johnston-resurrection – ) It was thought to have been debunked as the genuine burial cloth of Jesus in the 1980’s when radio carbon dating of a cloth sample was proved to be of 13^th century origin. This was later show to be the analysis of a corner of the shroud that was a cloth different from the main body and thought to be a medieval repair. The image has 3D qualities yet would not present a flat 2D image on a cloth that had been wrapped around a body. The image is not made by any pigment or paint but shows a photographic negative like image, created long before photography was invented. ‘Physicists like Paolo Di Lazzaro at ENEA Laboratories in Frascati, Italy, says replicating it would take 34,000 billion watts of energy delivered in 12 billionths of a second.’ (from link above) This is what it would take to impress on the minuscule tip of the fibres without burning the cloth. Recent AI analysis of the image has revealed a mathematical complexity to it that has scientists baffled. Jeremiah Johnston is an evangelical pastor who was a shroud sceptic until a couple of years ago when he visited a shroud exhibition in Jerusalem. He has now become a full time proponent of its authenticity based on the scientific evidence.

(see interview with Michael Knowles – Jeremiah Johnston with Michael Knowles )

Some, like Thomas, need to see to believe. Others, like Jeremiah Johnston, have their faith further confirmed and strengthened by visible evidence. Like the spinning and crashing sun in Fatima, physical phenomena confirm and strengthen our faith. The Christian faith is not make believe but based on real experience and evidence. I had in some way to see in order to believe. My Medjugorje experience in 1986 (an ark of light over the church that was so real and overpowering that it literally brought me to my knees.) Yet I have not come close to having a repeat of that experience since. Jesus has led me on a walk of faith. Faith is based on a relationship of trust. All relationships (and ultimately our relationship with God) are built on trust. Spouses will demonstrate their love in concrete ways every so often but a relationship demanding the need to prove your love all the time will not flourish. You walk in the trust that your partner does in fact loves you.

Ask God to prove it and he will…but then he will ask you to trust!