Eucharistic Miracles
Here is an incident that has been reported in the newsletter named “Garabandal Journal” dated January/February 2007. It was the year 1995 in the month of October. Pope St John Paul II, on the evening of the last day of his visit to the United States, was scheduled to make a passing visit at St Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. The timetable of the day had been so tight and hectic that the plan was to simply greet the seminarians, as they stood outside the seminary, on the steps. But on reaching the seminary, the Saintly Pope expressed an unplanned desire: to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament in the Seminary Chapel. This act of the Pope took all by surprise! The security personnel quickly flew into action. A quick sweeping of the securities in the building was done with extra attention paid to the Chapel where the Holy Father would be praying – to see if anything untoward was there or if any human presence was there. For this purpose, highly trained dogs were engaged, which would detect any human presence. These dogs had been trained to locate living people especially in crushed buildings after earthquakes and other disasters. These clever and intelligent canines quickly made through their rounds in the various portions of the buildings – halls, offices, classrooms. Finally, they were sent to the Chapel. They went along the aisles and passed the pews and finally into the portion of the Chapel where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved. On reaching the tabernacle, the dogs sniffed and whined and growled loudly! They refused to leave that place! They seem convinced that they had discovered
Someone there and remained firmly in that place, refusing to leave!
The dogs were indeed right, isn’t it? Our Catholic Faith firmly tells us that in the Blessed Sacrament is the Living Person – Jesus Christ! Perhaps, the dogs, though lower in reason, were ‘miraculously’ blessed with the knowledge of their Creator and Maker Perhaps, just as human beings need not always have an external sensory experience to know the presence of another human being, these dogs also, at that moment, had a sort of an ‘intuitive’ feeling of the Presence.
In the light of this incident – whether we believe it to be true or not, whether we consider it to be authentic or not – it is good to examine and ask ourselves: What is the strength of our faith and the weight of our belief in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist?
Fr. Edwin
