Deepertruth: Eucharistic Miracle of Macerata, Italy, 1356

On April 25 1356, at Macerata, a priest whose name is not known was celebrating Mass in the chapel of the Church of St. Catherine, owned by the Benedictine monks. During the breaking of the Eucharistic Bread before Holy Communion, the priest began to doubt the Real Presence of Jesus in the consecrated Host.

Precisely at the moment in which he broke the Host, to his great surprise, he saw flow from the Host an abundance of Blood which stained part of the corporal, and the chalice placed on the altar. 

At Macerata in the church of the Cathedral of Holy Mary Assumed and St. Giuliano, under the altar of the Most Holy Sacrament, it is possible to venerate the relic of the “corporal marked by Blood.” Also preserved in this church is the parchment on which the miracle is described. 

Furthermore, the historian Ferdinando Ughelli cited this miracle in his work Sacred Italy of 1647 and describes how since the fourteenth century “the corporal has been carried in solemn procession through the city, enclosed in an urn of crystal and silver, with the concourse of all Piceno.” 

All of the documents likewise agree in the description of how the miraculous facts occurred. An anonymous priest, during the Mass, was struck with strong doubts about the reality of the transubstantiation, and when he broke the Great Host, he saw blood drop from the Host and fall onto the corporal and chalice. 

The priest immediately informed Bishop Nicholas of San Martino, who ordered that the relic of the Blood-stained cloth be carried into the cathedral and he instituted a regular canonical process.