The Guardian Angel: The Eucharistic Miracle of La Rochelle 1461
May each of you with your family be granted a blessed and joyous new year, with Mary putting her mantle of protection around each of you, and bring you ever nearer to her Son Jesus for eternity. To Jesus through Mary, GregoryMary Please share with those you love.
The Eucharistic miracle of La Rochelle concerns the instantaneous cure of a boy, paralyzed and mute since the age of seven, when he received Holy Communion at Mass on Easter Sunday in 1461. He was completely healed of his paralysis and was once again able to speak. The most authoritative document that visually describes this miracle is the painted-manuscript preserved still today in the Cathedral of La Rochelle. .
During Easter of 1461, Mrs. Jehan Leclerc brought her twelve year old son, Bertrand, to the Church of St. Bartholomew. Bertrand had been paralyzed and mute since the age of seven due to a terrible fall. When the time for Holy Communion arrived, he indicated to his mother that he also wanted to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. Initially the priest did not want to give the young man Communion, because the boy was not able to go to Confession given his muteness.
The young man, however, continued to beseech the priest for Communion and, in the end, the priest did permit him to receive the Blessed Sacrament. From the first moment that Bertrand received the Host, he began to feel shaken by a mysterious force. He was able to move and to speak. He was cured.
According to the hand-written document, immediately after the miraculous event Bertrand’s first words were, “Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini!” (“Our help is in the name of the Lord!”) The most authoritative document that visually describes this miracle is the painted manuscript preserved to this day in the Cathedral of La Rochelle .
Second
There are two drops of Blood from our Lord, Jesus Christ, collected on Calvary during the Passion, preserved in the church of Neuvy-Saint-Sépulcre in Indre. They were brought to France in 1257 by Cardinal Eudes returning from the Holy Land.
This relic of the coagulated Blood is known to be pure, because the Precious Blood was not mixed with water or earth. From the year 1257, the relic had been kept in this church which was built in the first half of the year 1000 and modeled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
In order to honor the holy relic of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, numerous indulgences have been granted. The Archbishop of Bruges, André Frémiot, founded the Confraternity of the Most Precious Blood in the year 1621.
Two years later, Pope Gregory XV granted new indulgences to the faithful devoted to the Sacred Blood. Each Monday of Easter and every first day of July, a Solemn Mass is celebrated and there are processions to adore and honor the Sacred Relic. There have been many graces attributed to invoking the Sacred Blood of Neuvy-Saint-Sépulcre.
Eucharistic Quotes
The following reflection was taken from the book The Holy Eucharist, by Jose Guadalupe Trevino:
"Did you ever consider well, dear Christian soul, that, when the Sacred Host is publicly exposed, Jesus is not on His Eucharistic throne to receive the adorations of the angels and to enjoy the company of the blessed? These He finds in heaven. But He is on His Eucharistic throne to receive your adorations, to listen to your confidences, and to console and alleviate your sorrows and trials.
Come, then, and adore that Holy Host. When Jesus is offended everywhere, when His royal dignity is mocked and His sovereignty denied, it behooves noble souls to come and acknowledge publicly that He is our beloved Sovereign and divine King, and that to Him all praise, honor, and glory are due.
Come and adore that Host of mercy and peace. Show Him your wounds, tell Him your faults, expose to Him your miseries. You do not insult Him who shed His blood for all the sins of the world, when you tell Him your sins to obtain forgiveness. Whatever their number and grievousness, in proportion to His infinite mercy they are less than a grain of sand lost in the immensity of an ocean.
Come close to that loving Host and pour out your heart's bitterness into His heart. Let your tears flow freely in His presence as if you were upon His breast. The sorrows of your exile, the faithlessness of your friends, the loneliness of your heart, and the disillusions of your life, all find an echo in that heart, which has known from experience what it means to suffer.
There you will find peace in your worries, light in your difficulties, and firmness in the execution of your good resolutions. There your thirst for affection will be satisfied. You will learn the science of hidden sacrifice, of constant abnegation, of tireless meekness, and of perfect joy.
Do not say that you have no time. Rather, acknowledge that you do not love Him enough. If you did, you would leave everything, in order to visit Him.
Do not say that you do not know what to tell Him. Rather, admit that you do not love Him. If you loved Him, your lips would speak out of His heart's abundance; and, if your lips stayed silent, it would be because hearts that understand each other need not words: silence is enough.
Do not look for other excuses. Try it, and find out by your own experience. Do not wait until tomorrow. Today, go and spend a few moments with Jesus, whether He is within the tabernacle or exposed in the monstrance. Let your weary and wounded heart be penetrated by the peaceful atmosphere of the sanctuary and your soul be bathed in the light streaming forth from the Eucharistic Sun. And, tomorrow, I am sure, you will return."
The following reflection is from the writings of Dorothy Day:
"And if you and I love our faulty fellow-human beings, how much more must God love us all? If we as human parents, can forgive our children any neglect, any crime, and work and pray patiently to make them better, how much more does God love us?
You may say perhaps: "How do we know He does, if there is a He!" And I can only answer that we know it because He is here present with us today in the Blessed Sacrament on the altar, that He never has left us, and that by daily going to Him for the gift of Himself as daily bread, I am convinced of that love. I have the Faith that feeding at that table has nourished my soul so that there is life in it, and a lively realization that there is such a thing as the love of Christ for us.
It took me a long time as a convert to realize the presence of Christ as Man in the Sacrament. He is the same Jesus Who walked on earth, Who slept in the boat as the tempest arose, Who hungered in the desert, Who prayed in the garden, Who conversed with the woman by the well, Who rested at the house of Martha and Mary, Who wandered through the cornfields, picking the ears of corn to eat.
Jesus is there as Man. He is there, Flesh and Blood, Soul and Divinity. He is our leader Who is always with us. Do you wonder that Catholics are exultant in this knowledge, that their Leader is with them? "I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.""
"That same Jesus is with us in our churches who at His birth was laid on straw and adored by the Magi, who fled into Egypt, who was sought for by the Blessed Virgin and found in the Temple, who changed water into wine, who restored sight to the blind, made deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. Beloved Christian, you esteem Simeon happy in having been permitted to take the Infant Jesus in his arms; and were you to receive a grace like him, no doubt you would exclaim: 'Now dost Thou dismiss Thy servant in peace: because my eyes have seen Thy salvation.'
"You consider Zacheus happy because Our Lord vouchsafed to enter his house and eat with him; you deem St. John happy because he rested on the breast of our Saviour at the Last Supper; and, above all, you regard St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary so very happy because they nourished and supported Our Dear Lord. But are you not as happy as they? Are you not even happier? You do not hold Our Lord in your arms as Simeon did, but you receive Him into your heart in Holy Communion; you do not rest on the bosom of St. John, but the Saviour rests in your heart after Holy Communion; you do not nurse and support Our Lord like St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin, but you have a still greater happiness, for the Saviour Himself nourishes you and gives Himself to you as your food. O Love! O Love! O who can understand the love of God for men!"
- from The Blessed Eucharist, by Fr. Michael Muller, C.S.S.R.
"This [Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration] truly is a work of grace. By means of perpetual Adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, families, parishes and neighborhoods will grow in love of God and one another and will help to bring peace on earth," Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
"The Eucharistic Sacrament, venerable brothers, is the sign and the cause of the unity of the Mystical Body, and it inspires an active 'ecclesial' spirit in those who venerate it with greater fervor. Therefore, never cease to persuade those committed to your care that they should learn to make their own the cause of the Church, in approaching the eucharistic mystery to pray to God without interruption to offer themselves to God as a pleasing sacrifice for the peace and unity of the Church, so that all the children of the Church be united and think the same, that there be no divisions among them, but rather unity of mind and purpose, as the Apostle [St. Paul] insists,"
- from the encyclical letter Mysterium Fidei, the Mystery of Faith, by Pope Paul VI
One day a rather worldly friend asked him [St. Francis of Assisi]: "Father what do you do during those long hours before the Blessed Sacrament?" "My son in return I ask you what does the poor man do at the rich man's door, the sick man in presence of his physician, the thirsty man at a limpid stream? What they do, I do before the Eucharistic God. I pray. I adore. I love,"
- from Nesta de Robeck's The Life of St. Francis of Assisi
"God is everywhere, in the very air I breathe, yes everywhere, but in His Sacrament of the Altar He is as present actually and really as my soul within my body; in His Sacrifice daily offered as really as once offered on the Cross,"
- St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
"By a beautiful paradox of Divine love, God makes His Cross the very means of our salvation and our life. We have slain Him; we have nailed Him there and crucified Him; but the Love in His eternal heart could not be extinguished. He willed to give us the very life we slew; to give us the very Food we destroyed; to nourish us with the very Bread we buried, and the very Blood we poured forth. He made our very crime into a happy fault; He turned a Crucifixion into a Redemption; a Consecration into a Communion; a death into Life Everlasting,"
- from Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen's This is the Mass
