7 Amazing Eucharistic Miracles

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It is truly glorious, mysterious and miraculous. Although all the sacraments in the Catholic Church are sacred and special, the sacrament of the Eucharist is known as the Blessed Sacrament for a reason. Through the eternal love and sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, it beautifully unites us with Jesus and our brothers and sisters in Christ in a way that nothing else – and nobody else – on this earth can.

Saint Faustina, who was known for sharing Christ’s message of Divine Mercy with the world, wrote about her deep love and devotion to the holy Eucharist on various occasions. “I adore You, Lord and Creator, hidden in the Most Blessed Sacrament,” the saint once wrote. “I adore You for all the works of Your hands that reveal to me so much wisdom, goodness and mercy, O Lord. You have spread so much beauty over the earth and it tells me about Your beauty, even though these beautiful things are but a faint reflection of You, incomprehensible Beauty. And although You have hidden Yourself and concealed Your beauty, my eye, enlightened by faith, reaches You and my soul recognizes its Creator, its Highest Good, and my heart is completely immersed in prayer of adoration.”

But St. Faustina’s poignant words aren’t the only testament to the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Over the years, there have been many amazing Eucharistic miracles that have left indelible impressions on individuals and communities. Here are just seven Church-validated Eucharistic miracles from countries around the world.

Eucharistic Miracle of Montserrat, Spain

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In 1657, at the Monastery of Our Lady of Montserrat, the holy Eucharist saved a soul that had been lingering in purgatory. It was there that a young girl begged Abbot Don Millán de Mirando to celebrate three Masses in memory of her father, because she believed the Masses would free his soul from purgatory. Moved to tears by the girl’s faith and love, he celebrated the first Mass the next day. During the consecration of the Eucharist, the girl saw her father kneeling, among flames, at the step to the altar. When asked to put a tissue near the flames that only she could see, the tissue began to burn.

At the second Mass, she saw her dad, dressed in a colorful suit, standing next to the deacon. And at the third Mass, she saw him wearing a bright white suit. At the end of the Mass, she cried “There is my father going away and rising into the sky!” As she said her father had asked her to do, she thanked the monks at the monastery for freeing her dad from his suffering in purgatory.

Eucharistic Miracle of the Island of Tumaco, Colombia

While the power of Jesus in the Eucharist saved a soul in Spain, it later saved many lives on the small island of Tumaco. In January of 1906, the Ecuador–Colombia earthquake caused tsunamis to form and cause tragic destruction, including the loss of at least 500 lives along the coast of Colombia. But when the water was rising, coming further inland and was poised to destroy the island and its inhabitants, the residents ran to their church and begged Fr. Gerardo Larrondo, the pastor, to lead a procession with the Eucharist.

With enormous faith and courage, the priest consumed the small hosts and picked up the monstrance containing the Eucharist. After asking God to have pity on them, he led the people to the shore. They wept and cried out to God.

Faced with the mighty wave rushing toward them, the priest calmly raised the Blessed Sacrament and traced the sign of the cross. The tsunami immediately hesitated and receded. The people were overjoyed when the sea returned to its normal level, and they excitedly praised and thanked God for the Eucharistic miracle that saved them and their island.

Eucharistic Miracle of Weiten-Raxendorf, Austria

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The Blessed Sacrament has also been known to thwart evil intentions. That’s what happened in 1411 when a thief stole a consecrated Host from the church in the village of Weiten. He hid the Host in his glove and took off on his horse.

But when he reached a certain spot on a valley road, his horse inexplicably stopped and wouldn’t go any farther. The man tried beating the horse to make it move, and – not knowing he was a thief – bystanders also tried to get the horse to move. Then, without prodding, the horse galloped away with the thief. The horse’s sudden movement caused the Host to fall, unnoticed, from the man’s glove.

Days later, a Christian woman from another village spotted the Host encircled in a bright light. Amazed, she picked up the holy Eucharist, which had broken in two but was joined together by bleeding threads of flesh. To give thanks to God, she built a chapel on the spot where it was found. A larger church had to be built later to accommodate the crowds who made pilgrimages there.

Eucharistic Miracle of Bordeaux, France

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Elsewhere in Europe, a different kind of Eucharistic miracle occurred in the Church of St. Eulalia in Rue Mazarin, Bordeaux. It happened in 1822, 20 months after the formation of the Holy Family of Bordeaux Community that worshipped in the church. Right after Abbot Delort gave the benediction with the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus appeared – to him and several people – in the Blessed Sacrament.

The priest wrote “I saw our Saviour, head, chest, and arms, in the middle of the circle that served Him as a frame like a painting, but with this difference, that the painting looked alive. His figure was . . . a young man about thirty years old, extraordinarily beautiful. He was dressed with a dark red scarf draped over His shoulder and chest.”

For more than 20 minutes, the people who had gathered for Adoration, watched Jesus smile at them and give them a blessing by raising his right hand. One person reportedly heard Jesus say “I Am He Who Is.” The miracle is so well known that people still go to the chapel to venerate the holy relic of the monstrance of the apparition.

Eucharistic Miracle of Eten, Peru

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In 1649, in Eten, Peru, two other beautiful apparitions of Jesus appeared to crowds of faithful parishioners and to Jerome de Silva Manrique, a Franciscan monk. During the Vespers and the solemn exposition in honor of the feast of Corpus Christi, an apparition of the Child Jesus appeared in the Blessed Sacrament.

The second apparition appeared not long after the first one. The miracle happened during a celebration to honor St. Mary of Magdalene, Patroness of the city of Eten. And it also happened during the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Brother Marco Lopez, superior of the convent in Chiclayo, testified “The Divine Child Jesus again appeared in the Host, dressed in a purple tunic. Beneath it, he wore a shirt up to the middle of the chest, according to the custom of the South American Indians.”

In the second apparition, it’s believed that Jesus dressed as he did to show His love for the Mochican people of the city. In the same apparition, many people also saw three small united white hearts, which represent the Holy Trinity present in the Blessed Sacrament.

Eucharistic Miracle of Betania, Venezuela

Not all Eucharistic miracles happened hundreds of years ago. At the Marian Shrine of Finca Betania in Cúa, Venezuela, one happened in 1991, and a related Eucharistic miracle happened in 1998. The first one took place during the midnight Mass on Dec. 8, 1991.

“After having consumed one of the pieces of the large Host which I had divided into four parts, I returned them to the paten,” Fr. Otty, Chaplain of the Shrine, once reported. “A little later, I looked down towards the paten and I could not believe what I saw: one of the pieces of the Host that I divided was showing a red spot and from It a red substance began to emanate, similar to the manner in which blood escapes from a wound. After Mass, I took the Host and preserved It safely in the sacristy of the Shrine. The next day, at six in the morning, I went to see the Host and verified that some blood continued to flow that a little later began to dry.”

That blood was discovered to be AB positive, the same type found in the cloth of the Shroud of Turin. Later, in 1998, when a young man went on a prayer group pilgrimage to Betania to see the bleeding Host, he witnessed another miracle. After Mass, for about 30 seconds, he saw a pulsating heart bleeding inside the Host, and it looked “as if in flames.” He captured part of the miracle on video.

Eucharistic Miracle of Chirattakonam, India

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In the Archdiocese of Trivandrum in India, another modern Eucharistic miracle took place. In 2001, a priest and some parishioners at St. Mary of Chirattakonam church saw a likeness of Jesus crowned with thorns on the Blessed Sacrament.

“We began Adoration and as the minutes went by, the image became more and more clear,” said Rev. Fr. Johnson Karnoor, the pastor of the church, in a deposition. “I did not have the courage to say anything, and I began to cry. During Adoration, we have the practice of reading a passage from Holy Scriptures. The reading of the day was the one from Chapter 20 in the Gospel of John, which narrates the story of when Jesus appeared to St. Thomas and asked him to look at the wounds. I was only able to say a few words in my homily, and, having to leave for the nearby parish of Kokkodu to celebrate Mass, I immediately summoned a photographer to take pictures of the Holy Eucharist with the human face on it.”