Cascia Miracle of the Eucharist

Beneath the tabernacle is a glass case with the bones of one Blessed Simone Fidati, who was involved in this Eucharistic Miracle. 

Fr. Simone was an Augustinian priest during the middle Fourteenth Century. 

He was very well known throughout the Umbria, as a holy and wise man, despite the fact that he was very young.  Because of his great piety and wisdom, it was a normal occurrence for other priests to search him out to confess their sins. 

While Blessed Simone was stationed at the Augustinian monastery in Siena, a  priest came to him one day, to make this unusual confession.

Account of the Cascia Miracle of the Eucharist

He had lost his respect for the Eucharist. 

From that we would have to gather that he could not possibly have believed that Our Lord Jesus came to us in the Eucharist, or he could not have lost his respect. 

Apathy can be a powerful weapon for Satan. 

There was no excitement left in this priest’s life.  He went through the motions. 

He did what he had to, but had become more and more withdrawn from God and his congregation.  Perhaps he had begun to take Jesus in the Eucharist, and Jesus in his people for granted.

This priest was called on a Sick Call.  Rather than put the Eucharist in a pix, and carry it close to his heart, our priest took the Host, threw it irreverently between the pages of his Breviary, and went on the sick call. 

When he arrived at the home of the sick man, he prepared him to receive the Eucharist.

He opened the book to take out the Host to give the sick man Communion. 

On opening the book to where the Host had been, the priest was shocked to find in its place two round bloodstains on the pages facing each other. 

The priest left the house in a panic, and immediately sought out Blessed Simone, who was known for his sanctity.

Blessed Simone, listening to the priest’s account of his sin and the miracle, gave him absolution.

But he took the two bloodstained pages from him. 

One of them was put in a tabernacle in Perugia, and the other in an Augustinian monastery in Cascia. 

The Cascia Miracle of the Eucharist has been venerated over the years in the Augustinian Monastery of Cascia. 

It was verified by the local bishop.  It has been carried in solemn procession during the Feast of Corpus Christi. 

Special indulgences have been granted by the Pope for those who venerate the Eucharistic Miracle.

In 1930, a Eucharistic Congress was held at Norcia, close to Cascia. 

At that time, a beautiful Monstrance was made to hold the Eucharistic Miracle.  It was in honor of the 6th Centennial of the Miracle. 

When the new church in honor of St. Rita was built, adjacent to the Augustinian monastery, a special chapel was built for the Eucharistic Miracle. 

There is a singular phenomenon attributed to this Miracle.  Or could it be a miracle within a miracle? 

Over the years, people began to notice a change in the bloodstained page. 

A face began to take shape on the page.  It’s almost as if darker coloration gravitated to certain places on the page.  There are those who can look at the page and see THE FACE OF CHRIST. 

When the priest at the shrine opens up the tabernacle to show the faithful the Eucharistic Miracle, he puts on vestments, as if he were going to celebrate Mass.  As he brings the Monstrance to the Altar railing, he puts a flashlight in back of the page, so that the face shows through. 

It is a perfectly formed profile of a man with a beard and a mustache. 

Over the years, the Church has been criticized for too much ritual, hocus pocus, supernatural nonsense, even from within, and perhaps especially from within. In an effort to achieve acceptance from a non-supernatural world that would have us break our faith belief down to a human equation, many of our own have rejected the beautiful gifts we have been given in the form of divine intervention.  Christology, a modern theology, attempts to equate Jesus with man.  It focuses on His humanity, rather than His Divinity.

That in itself is beautiful.  It’s essential that we relate to Our Lord Jesus in His human form.  Where many of our clergy are having problems is that in their attempt to touch upon, and feel the Humanity of Jesus, they are forgetting about, or rejecting His Divine Nature, that of the 2nd Person of the Trinity, God-Man, but God first, and Man second. 

If we praise Him for loving us so much that He was willing to lower Himself to become one of us, we give Him glory.  But if we bring Him and all His works down to our human level, we’ve lost everything along the way.  We’ve lost our beautiful Tradition, our Faith in the promises of Jesus fulfilled, and yet to be fulfilled.  We’ve lost God.

Faith is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things we do not see: Hebrews 11. 

If I may add “And things that we do see, but don’t necessarily understand”