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 bread, before
Communion, the priest began to doubt the Real
Presence of Jesus in the consecrated Host. Precisely
in the moment in which he broke the Host, to his
great surprise, he saw flow from the Host an abundance
of Blood which marked part of the cloth and the
chalice place 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 14th 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, which ordered that the
relic of bloodstained cloth be carried into the
cathedral and instituted a regular canonical process.
In 1493 one of the first confraternities in honor
of the Most Blessed Sacrament was instituted at
Macerata (1494) and it was here that the pious
practice of Forty Hours was established in 1556.
Every year, on the occasion of Corpus Christi,
the corporal of the miracle is carried in procession
behind the Most Blessed Sacrament.

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