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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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