Every day, on all the altars of the world, the greatest miracle that occurs is possible: the transformation of bread and wine into the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

When we receive Communion we can touch it only by faith, because to our senses only the form of bread and wine is physically unaffected by the consecration.

The Indian miracle?

Church of Christ the King, Vilakkannur, in the state of Kerala. It all happened on November 15, 2013. The then parish priest Don Thomas Pathickal was celebrating the usual morning mass at 7am. At the time of the consecration, Don Thomas realized that a stain had appeared on the host that slowly increased in size. That black and white spot had taken the form of the Holy Face of Jesus. The parish priest, surprised, decided to put the host in a monstrance in such a way as to preserve it.

The news quickly made the tour of the village and spread in the surrounding area and many faithful began to go to the church of Vilakkannur, even from various nearby towns, to admire and venerate the possible Eucharistic miracle.

Three days after the alleged miracle, the Syro-Malabar rite archdiocese of Tellicherry took the host to draw up a scientific evaluation of what had happened.

In the previous three days, the police force had to intervene because the crowd that had formed at the entrance of the Church had blocked the passage of the cars that were heading towards a well-known tourist resort in Northern Kerala.

The miraculous phenomenon occurred while the parish was preparing for the feast of Christ the King on November 24, 2013, a few days after the distribution of anti-Catholic brochures in the area that mocked the Eucharist.

After five years, in the September 2018 issue, the archdiocesan magazine “Girideepam” (Light of the mountain), published a note from the archbishop of Tellicherry, George Njaralakatt, announcing the Church’s decision to return the host and make it available again to the veneration of the faithful.

The Archdiocesan magazine stated that the Host had been subjected to numerous studies by the theological commission of the local Church, the results of which indicated that the phenomenon could be considered a Eucharistic miracle. The archbishop forbade the parish to keep the host on the high altar or to use it for the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Former parish trustee Joseph Payikatt told Matters India that over the past six years the parish has received hundreds of faithful who have come here to ask for special graces and favors that have been answered in most cases.

The “miraculous” host arrives at the Vatican

Finally, it was decided that the miraculous Host should be sent to Rome for further studies as part of a process that could allow one to definitively establish whether to officially declare the fact as a Eucharistic miracle.

On 11 January 2020 the host of the Holy Face of Jesus was handed over to Mgr Diquattro, apostolic nuncio to India and Nepal, to then be sent to the Vatican for a more detailed study.

Credit: ChurchPop

 

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