Communion Miracles

Father Charles Eugene Houde, the parish priest of Beauceville, Quebec, Canada had advised parishioners they were now allowed to receive the Host in their hands at Communion. This was 1970. He had received instructions from the Archbishop of Quebec following the Second Vatican Council. Before the 7am Sunday Mass on 21 June, Fr Houde made a new announcement to the congregation. “Henceforth to avoid complications everyone of you will receive the Host in your hand for Communion." This was going further than the Bishop, who ostensibly allowed people the freedom to choose whether to receive on the tongue or take the Host in their own hands ministering to themselves. When the moment came for Communion, Father Houde turned to the people, holding the Ciborium containing the Hosts. Before he took one step, about fifty consecrated Hosts suddenly flew out of the Ciborium like birds. They rose in the air, then circled around and around his head, and then slowly fluttered to the ground where they lay all around him. His face turned white as snow and for a few minutes he just stood there. Interiorly chastened and inspired, he then addressed the faithful. “Henceforth all of you will receive the Holy Host on your tongue, and not in your hand, because God just gave us a sign.” The priest knelt down and picked up the Holy Hosts from the floor, marking off the area for later ritual cleansing, then distributed Holy Communion. Afterwards he would often remark, “Never again in my life will I give Holy Communion in the hand.”

Christmas Mourning by Fr Seguno Llorente SJ: A priest told me what happened to him once in his first parish. After the Midnight Mass on Christmas Day he locked the church. With the keys in his pocket he went to his room and had a good sleep. At 7:30 he got up and went back to church intendeing to have one hour of prayer all to himself. He opened the side door leading to the sacristy, turned a light on, and then turned on a couple of lights for the church. As he opened the sacristy door and walked into the church, he froze. Most of the pews were occupied by strange people clad in the poorest of clothes and all were in total silence. No one so much as wiggled and nobody cared to look at him. A small group was standing at the Nativity scene contemplating the manger in total silence. The priest receovered quickly and in a loud voice asked them how did they get in? Nobody answered. He walked closer to them and asked again who had let them in? A woman answered totally unconcerned: "Strange things happen on the night of Christmas." And back to total silence. The priest went to check the main door and found it locked just as he had left it. He was now determined to get the facts and turned around to face the pews but the pews were empty. The people had vanished. He kept this puzzle to himself for some time. Unable to hold it any longer, he told me just what I have told you. Could I help with any plausible explanation? Let me hurry to say that the priest in question is a model of sanity and is as well educated academically as most of the priests I know, if not better. My explanation was and still is as follows. Those were dead people who were doing their purgatory or part of it in the church. It is safe to assume that we atone for our sins where we committed them. Those people were immersed in total silence. Why? Consider the irreverences committed before the Blessed Sacrament. How many people act in church, chatting, giggling, looking around. After Mass some people gather in small groups among the pews and turn the church into a market place with no regard for Christ'a Real Presence in the Tabernacle. Why did they vanish? They did not vanish. They simply became invisible but they remained tied to their pews unable to utter one single word to atone for their disrespectful chatter while living. The Blessed Sacrament is no laughing matter. There is a price tag to all that we do or say. In the end it is God who gets the last laugh so Psalm 2 says. Those people had to give the Blessed Sacrament the adoration and respect that Christ deserves. For how long? Only God can answer that. Why did the priest see them? So that he could pray for them and for all the other poor souls detained in other churches. Why do other priests not see these people? Well, perhaps they already know that in theory souls can be detained in churches as well as anywhere else, so they do not need a miracle. Why were they clad in such poor clothes? To atone for their vanity while living. People often use clothese not so much to cover their nakedness but as a status symbol to impress others. But God is not impressed by say mink coats. Also in summer people walk into a church with hardly any clothes on. It is not unusual for people, mostly women, to go to receive Holy Communion in the most indecent clothing. The pastor may or may not put up with it, but God will have his day in court about this. Rags could be an appropriate punishment for these excesses. A nun in purgatory revealed to another nun in the 1850s: "It is not however on All Soul's Day that most go to heaven. It is on Christmas night. On Christrmas night, thousands of souls leave their place of expiation for heaven."

Father Leloir was interned at Buchenwald the Nazi concentraion camp where at 6pm each day prisoners and deportees were lined up for inspection by SS troops. On 23 August 1944 Father Leloir had carefully concealed on his person a small white envelope containing six consecrated Hosts, which he intended to distribute secretly among his comrades. The presence of the Blessed Sacrament on the person of the priest was known to several fellow-prisoners. Consternation filled all when the soldiers began to search the prisoners one by one. What would be the fate of the priest when the envelope containing the Hosts was found? Too well they knew what punishment would be given him. And what unspeakable irreverence would be done to the Sacred Hosts? Down the line the SS troops went, contemptuously searching each man. Finally came Father Lelior’s turn. Into his pockets one after another the Nazi soldiers pried and found the “evidence.” Father Leloir stood erect, a trifle pale, but silently praying to the Lord whose Precious Body was within the folds of the white envelope. His companions trembled and grew faint. With an insolent air the SS guard tore open the envelope. Several prisoners gasped. Father Leloir stared in open amazement as the Nazi soldiers threw the envelope scornfully to the ground saying: “Just an empty envelope.” Just an empty envelope! The Hosts had disappeared! To prevent the desecration of the Sacred Hosts and to save the priest and his fellow Catholics from certain punishment, perhaps death, Our Lord had worked this “little miracle!”

Father Aloysius Ellacuria, founder of the Missionaries of Perpetual Adoration, had a young mother come to him, eyes filled with tears, an aching body saturated with cancer, and given little hope to live. He took her into the chapel asking her, "Have you ever asked Our Lord to cure you?" "No," she replied. "Well he said, "Let us kneel down right here in the front of the Most Blessed Sacrament, and ask Him to cure you. You know Our Lord is really present in the Most Blessed Sacrament; do you believe that?" "Yes," she promptly replied. Father continued, "Our Lord is the same as He who walked on this earth 2,000 years ago; and who blessed the sick and healed the sick. Do you believe that He is the same Lord that is living here in this Most Blessed Sacrament?" "Yes, He is," was her pain-filled response. "Well, He cured them and He can cure you." Together they prayed a series of Our Father’s, Hail Mary’s, and Glory Be’s. After three of each the woman, startled, said: "Father, I don’t think it is necessary to continue to go on. I feel healed." The next day X-rays were taken of the young mother and the astonished doctor said: "All the cells that were attacked by cancer are now like the cells of a new-born baby." This was but one of the many cures Father Aloysius witnessed while imploring assistance from Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Sacred Particles by Fr Andrew Horvath: A memorable incident was related in Dallas, Texas in 1993. During a marvelous sermon, the priest was urgently begging the congregation not to receive Holy Communion in the hand ever again. He told of the time when recently he and his driver were rushing in the middle of the night to take our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament to a dying person. He was in the act of transferring some Hosts from a ciborium to a pyx, when suddenly in the darkness of the night the tiny fragments of the Blessed Eucharist left on his fingers began to glow brilliantly, shooting off beams of light. It lit up the car, and the driver almost ran off the road in shock. They arrived and delivered Jesus but from then on the priest has been preaching against communion in the hand. He said, "I don't want to contradict the bishops and I know the practice is now permitted but..." Why not contradict them?