The Guardian Angel: Eucharistic Miracle of Sokolka Poland Expanded

Whenever you are dealing with Eucharistic Miracles that a Holy God puts into our path out of love to help us in our walk, the word Awesome does not quite express the depth of what has been given to us.  The information contained in this Miracle has by the grace of God, been given to us to help bring others into conversion and an opportunity to receive the Supernatural Faith that pleases a Holy God and puts a person that says yes, in a position to see the Beatific Vision face to face.  Love and prayers in Christ, GregoryMary

  On October 12, 2008, at the church dedicated to Saint Anthony of Sokółka, the Holy Mass of 8:30 AM is celebrated by a young vicar, Filip Zdrodowski. During Communion, unknowingly the Host falls from the hands of one of the priests. A woman kneeling, ready to receive the Eucharist, makes him notice it. The priest remains paralyzed from fright and believing it was dirty, places it in the vasculum, a small silver vessel which contains the water utilized by priests to wash their fingers after distributing Communion. At the end of the Holy Mass, the sacristan, Sister Julia Dubowska, takes the vasculum with the Host and for increased safety pours it into another vessel which she then locks in the safe where the chalices were kept.

A week later, on Sunday, October 19, around 8:00 AM, the sister opens the safe and finds the Host almost dissolved but with some strange red clots in the center. She immediately calls the priests to show them what was discovered. The Host was mostly dissolved. Only a very small piece of the consecrated bread was left, tightly interconnected to the substance that appeared on its surface. Actually, part of the Host was joined to that “strange red clot”.

The pastor of Sokółka then contacted the Metropolitan Curia of Białystok. Archbishop Edward Ozorowski together with the Chancellor of the Curia, priests and professors examined the Host and, astounded, decide to wait for the development of the events and to see what would happen next.

On October 29 the vessel containing the Host is brought into the parish chapel and locked in the tabernacle; the next day, on order of the Archbishop, Father Gniedziejko delicately removes with a small spoon the partially dissolved Host with the blood colored substance on its interior and places it on a pure white corporal, with a red cross embroidered on its center.

The corporal is kept in the case used for keeping and carrying the Hosts, to be then locked again in the tabernacle. Over time the Host “fused” with the corporal and the red “clot” dried. Only then two scientists of global fame and specialists in pathological anatomy at the Medical University of Białystok were consulted. The Metropolitan Curia of Białystok has released this declaration concerning the Eucharistic Miracle that occurred at Sokółka:

 “1. On October 12, 2008, a consecrated Host fell out of the hands of a priest while he was distributing Holy Communion. He picked it up and placed it in a vessel filled with water, in the tabernacle. After Mass, the vessel containing the host was placed in a safe present in the sacristy. 

2. On October 19, 2008, after opening the safe one could clearly see a red stain on the Host that had fallen, which with the naked eye immediately gave the impression of being a bloodstain. 

3. On October 29, 2008, the vessel containing the Host was transferred to the tabernacle of the chapel of the rectory. The next day the Host was removed from the water contained in the vessel and placed on a corporal inside the tabernacle. 

4. On January 7, 2009, the sample of the Host was taken and examined independently by two professionals in histopathology at the University of Medicine of Białystok. They issued a common declaration which states: ‘The sample sent for evaluation looks like myocardial tissue. In our opinion, of all the tissues of living organisms this is the one that resembles it the most.’ 

5. The Commission has noted that the analyzed Host is the same one that has been moved from the sacristy to the tabernacle in the chapel of the rectory. Intervention by a third party has not been found. 

6. The case of Sokółka does not contradict the faith of the Church, but rather confirms it.”  

  At the beginning of January of 2009 the Curia of Białystok asked two eminent specialists in pathologoical anatomy of the Medical University of Białystok - Professor Maria Elżbieta Sobaniec-Łotowska and Professor Stanisław Sulkowski, to analyze the samples of the bloodstained Host. On Janaury 7 - Professor Sobaniec-Łotowska went to Sokółka and took from the corporal a minuscule sample of the mysterious substance present in the Host. 

The professors of the UMB University had underlined that, in the case of the examined Host, in the sample they have found numerous biomorphological indicators typical of cardiac muscle tissue such as, for example, the phenomenon of segmentation, namely damage to the fibers of the tissue of the cardiac muscle in the section where communicating junctions [structures characteristic of the cardiac muscle] are found, and the phenomenon of fragmentation. Such damages are visible in the form of numerous small lesions.

These alterations can be observed only in fibers that were not necrotic, that is alive, and show signs of the fast spasms of the cardiac muscle typical of the extreme phase preceding death. Another important evidence of the fact that the material analyzed corresponded to human cardiac muscle tissue was the central position of the cellular nucleus in the observed fibers, a typical characteristic of cardiac muscle fibers...

The two scientists of Białystok declared… “Some signs that can correspond to nodes of the contractions have been observed on the section of several fibers. Instead, during the analysis with the electronic microscope, the outlines of the communicating junctions and the thin filaments of the myofibrils were visible”. Moreover, the cardiac tissue was joined to the consecrated Host in an inseparable manner. In the report of the examination performed by Professor Sobaniec-Łotowska and Professor Sulkowski, we find written: “The material resulted was sufficient for the examination; it indicates that it is cardiac muscle tissue, or at least the most similar to it among all the living tissues of an organism”.

 “And, something very important, the material analyzed is composed in all respects of cardiac muscular tissue”.

This affirmation is reported in the “Communication of the Metropolitan Curia of Białystok” of October 14, 2009, concerning the Eucharistic phenomena at Sokółka. The professors discovered also other unexplainable elements. “The Host remained in water for a long time and it remained in the corporal for an even longer period of time.

The tissue that appeared on the Host would therefore have had to undergo the process of autolysis, namely the process of self-destruction by the action of the intracellular enzymes; in the material analyzed there were not however observed traces of these alterations!”, the two luminaries declared.

 Another very interesting event observed consists in that the substance found on the corporal, although slightly changed after being removed from the water (it had simply dried) a couple of years ago, it did not change its appearance despite having been neither stabilized nor preserved at a particular temperature. “This signifies that if the miracle were due to a bacterium, the material would have disintegrated, crumbled and would have changed appearance. Any microbial culture, even placed on the cleanest possible material, after a single week appears completely different” added Professor Sulkowski.   

  “At first I was convinced that it was a blood clot” - said Professor Sobaniec-Łotowska. But the truth was much more surprising! The two scientists of Białystok, who for their own independent investigations, made use of the most modern optical microscopes and the transmission electronic microscope, have reached the same conclusion (Professor Sulkowski, did not know that the sample which he was examining came from a Host): the sample examined was neither a clot, nor blood ... it was a human cardiac muscle tissue still alive. And, something even more incredible, it was a cardiac muscle with typical indications of the final phase that precedes death. 

And yet, several people, who not only have never analyzed the material but they had neither seen it with their own eyes, have affirmed that the red color of the Host is due to prodigiosin, a red pigment produced by the bacterium Serratia marcescens. “Obviously, this is absurd” affirmed the specialists of Białystok, also because the material observed corresponds to cardiac muscle and not to a bacterium. The scientists of Białystok have analyzed the sample taken in purely scientific terms and not fideistic. Several accusations were even more absurd, like the one put forth by the group of so-called “rationalists” according to whom the tissue analyzed pertained to a murdered man. 

The professors reacted with a statement in which they expressed “a profound indignation for the fact that the public opinion was led in error by false pseudoscientific hypotheses on the analyzed phenomenon, above all on the part of people who ignore the particulars relative to the analysis, who have neither access to the material analyzed, nor to the documentation collected, and who often do not even know the analytical techniques applied”. 

The drafting of the protocol on the part of the two scientists of Białystok required two weeks. When the Curia of Białystok became aware of the incredible results of the analyses, it formed a special Ecclesiastical Commission convened by the Archbishop on March 30, 2009. His task consisted in examining the miracle from the theological point of view and in listening to all who had seen the Host or who had been witnesses of those extraordinary events. 

The commission also had the task of dispelling any doubt of deception and of ascertaining that no one had furtively substituted the Host in the tabernacle, The representatives of the commission - the distinguished professors of the Seminary of Białystok - interrogated all the witnesses, verifying the sincerity of their testimonies. The work undertaken by the Ecclesiastical Commission has produced the following statement: “The Host from which the sample was taken for the examination is the same one that has been transferred from the sacristy to the tabernacle of the chapel in the rectory. The intervention of strangers was not observed”. 

This was moreover categorically excluded also by the two scientists of Białystok. It was not possible that someone had placed a fragment of a human body in the tabernacle. What made one think so?

The fragments which composed the Host were tightly interconnected to the fibers of the human tissue; they penetrated each other, as if a fragment of “bread” had suddenly transformed itself in “body”. It is not possible to manipulate an event of this type. No one, absolutely no one, would have been able to do it.

“Even the scientists of NASA, who have at their disposal the most modern analytical techniques, would not be able to artificially recreate such a thing”, affirmed Professor Sobaniec-Łotowska, adding that this fact has been for her of particular importance.