The Guardian Angel: The Eucharistic Miracle of Calanda, Spain 1640
This one can wake up family and friends, I was presenting to a 7th and 8th grade class and when I told them about this Miracle, I noticed a young 8th grade boy who had previously looked comfortable as to be sleepy, suddenly sat up and said, "He got his leg back"! After that he then stayed very attentive for the rest of the presentation. Please share, it may be the one that awakens those you love. To Jesus through Mary, GregoryMary
Young Miguel-Juan Pellicer had his leg amputated due to an accident. Thanks to his great devotion, the young man nurtured himself through the most Holy Sacrament and the Virgin of Pilar.
A great miracle came upon him, which was immediately recognized and approved by the Archbishop of Zaragoza who presided over the canonical process. In his clear judgment he wrote that “Miguel-Juan Pellicer of Calanda was miraculously given back his right leg, which was amputated years prior and it was not a natural occurrence but a miraculous one”.
Miguel-Juan Pellicer was born in 1617 to a poor family of farmers in Calanda, a village about 100 kilometers from Zaragoza.
At 19 years of age, he decided to go to work for an uncle near Castellon de la Plata. One day, while working in the fields, he fell under a wagon full of grain and the wheels fractured his right leg.
Miguel-Juan was immediately taken to the local hospital in Valencia. Realizing that it would be impossible for the doctors to cure him, he decided to discharge himself and begin a 13-kilometer trip towards Zaragoza to ask the Madonna of Pilar for help.
He walked with crutches, leaning the knee of the fractured and now infected leg on a piece of wood. He reached Zaragoza in October 1637, waning and feverish.
He dragged himself to the Sanctuary of Pilar where he made his confession and received the Holy Eucharist. He was immediately sent to recover at Royal Hospital of Grace.
Given the status of his gangrene, the doctors established that the only way to save his life was to amputate his leg, so the limb was cut off with a saw and scalpel slightly below the knee and cauterized with red hot metal.
A young practitioner, Juan Lorenzo Garcia, took the amputated limb and buried it in the cemetery next to the hospital.
From that moment, Miguel-Juan was forced to beg for his livelihood near the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Pilar.
Every morning he went to Mass and prayed with fervor before the Holy Sacrament.
It was customary for him to rub his mutilated leg with oil from the tabernacle lamp.
After three years away from home, he decided to return to his family, who lovingly welcomed him back.
In March of 1640, after a vigil in honor of the Virgin, Miguel-Juan, feeling very tired, went to rest in his customary spot and as usual rubbed his leg with oil from the tabernacle lamp in the Sanctuary of the Madonna of Pilar.
When his mother went to check to see if her son was okay, she saw him sleeping, and discovered that from beneath the blanket stuck out not one, but two feet. Miguel-Juan had miraculously recovered his lost limb, which was buried three years prior by the practitioner Mr. Garcia.
According to the eyewitnesses present and the canonic process, “the leg was pale, smaller in size and muscular mass, but perfectly vital and allowed him to walk.”
Teresa Newman
Teresa Neumann’s life changed radically after her miraculous recovery from paralysis and total blindness at the age of 25. About a year later, she received the stigmata and began fasting, which lasted 36 years until her death. Her only nourishment was the Holy Eucharist and for this reason the Nazi authorities, during World War II, withdrew her food rationing card and gave her a double rationing of soap to wash her towels and clothing, because every Friday she would be drenched in Blood while she was in ecstasy, experiencing the Passion of Christ.
Hitler was very fearful of Teresa. eresa Neumann was born in Konnersreuth Germany, on April 8th, 1898 from an extremely poor Catholic family. Her greatest ambition was to become a missionary in Africa but that was not possible as she was a victim of an accident at the age of 20 when a horrible fire broke out in a nearby plant and Teresa went to help and in the process of passing buckets of water to stop the flames, she got a horrible lesion in her spinal cord that caused a paralysis in both her legs and complete blindness.
Teresa then passed her days in prayer, but one day her miraculous recovery occurred in the presence of Father Naber who wrote: “Teresa described a vision of a great light and an extraordinary, sweet voice that was asking her if she wished to be healed. Teresa gave the most surprising answer when she replied that to her it would not make any difference whether she would be healed, stay the way she was or even die, as long as it was the will of God.
The mysterious voice told her that ‘that very day she would receive a small joy; the healing of her infirmities, but that she would still have a lot of suffering to endure in her future.’” For a little while, Teresa lived in fairly good health, but in 1926 her most important mystical experiences started and lasted until the day she died. She received the stigmata, and she began a complete fasting, with the Eucharist as her only nourishment.
Father Naber, who administered Communion to Teresa every day, wrote: “In her, God’s promised word is accomplished: ‘My Flesh is real food and my Blood is a true drink’”. Teresa offered the Lord her physical suffering - due to the loss of blood caused by the stigmata - that started every Thursday during the day when Jesus’ Passion started, until Sunday, His Resurrection.
This suffering was offered, through her intercession, for sinners that asked for help. Every time she would be called to a person’s death bed, she would be witness to that soul’s judgment, as it is usual to happen right after death. Ecclesiastical authorities performed many examinations in regard to Teresa’s continuous fasting. Carl Strater, S.J., directed by the Bishop of Ratisbonne, studied and examined the life of the stigmatized Teresa and confirmed: “The significance of Teresa Neumann’s fasting is to show the people of the world the value of the Holy Eucharist, to make the world understand that Christ is actually present in the bread of the Eucharist and that through the Holy Eucharist, physical life can actually be preserved.”
Eucharistic Quote
"Let us go with confidence to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace,"
- (Heb. 4:16)
The earliest shadow of the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood was Abel, the younger son of Adam and Eve. Cain murdered the good shepherd Abel. The Lord told Cain, Gn 4:10 "The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground." The Book of Hebrews reminds us of, Heb 12:24 "[Christ's] sprinkled Blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel."
Melchizedek pre-figured Christ. When Abram returned from his victory over Chedorlaomer, Gn 14:18 "Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High …" to bless Abram, pre-figuring the bread and wine consecrated by a priest at Mass. The Book of Hebrews tells us, Heb 7:2 "[Melchizedek] is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem [shalom], that is, king of peace. He is without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest for ever."
Moses, the first Israelite priest, read the Torah to all of the six hundred thousand Israelite people assembled at the foot of Mt. Sinai, and threw the blood of sacrificed oxen on the people, saying Ex 24:8 "Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you." Jesus said at the Last Supper, Mt 26:28 "This is my blood of the covenant."
Ex 34:29 "When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain ... the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God ... he put a veil on his face." Jesus comes to us veiled, under the appearance of bread and wine. We could not stand the superbrilliant light of His full glory compared to our own souls darkened by sin.
The Bread of the Presence, in the ancient Tabernacle and later in the Temple, 1 Kgs 7:48 prefigured Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.
In the Tabernacle God commanded Moses, Ex 25:8 "Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst." In the sanctuary, in the ark of the covenant, God told Moses, Ex 25:22 "There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you..." God added, Ex 25:30 "You shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before me always." Jesus told us, Mt 28:20 "I am with you always."
The Jewish priests, before sacrificing the lamb, always asked, "Do you love this lamb?" If the family didn't love the lamb there would be no sacrifice. Jesus three times asked Peter, Jn 21:15 "Do you love Me?" Jesus allowed Peter to replace his triple denial with a triple affirmation that he did indeed love the Sacrificed Lamb.
The family would place the lamb into the hands of the priest. When we give something to God we place it in His hands. Jesus' last words on the Cross were, Lk 23:46 "Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit!"
