Blessed Carlo Acutis had conceived and created a beautiful traveling exhibition on Eucharistic Miracles. This exhibition continues to travel throughout Italy and the world; all the Eucharistic miracles featured in the exhibition have been collected in the book Eucharistic Miracles in the World, from which this text is taken.
This Eucharistic miracle took place in Ferrara, in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Vado, on Easter Sunday (March 28, 1171). Father Pietro da Verona, prior of the basilica, was celebrating the Mass of the Resurrection. When he reached the breaking of the consecrated bread and broke the host, he saw a stream of blood spurt from it, its droplets staining the small vault above the altar where Mass was being celebrated. The bloodstained small vault was later enclosed in a small shrine built in 1594, which can still be seen today in the monumental Basilica of Santa Maria in Vado.
On March 28, 1171, Father Pietro da Verona, prior of the Portuensian Regular Canons, was celebrating Easter Mass, assisted by three fellow brothers (Bono, Leonardo, and Aimone). At the moment when the consecrated host was broken, a stream of blood burst from it and fell in large drops onto the small vault above the altar. The accounts tell of “the celebrant’s sacred terror and the immense astonishment of the people crowding the little church.”
Many witnesses claimed to have seen the host take on a blood-red color and to have discerned the figure of a child within it.
The bishop Amatus of Ferrara and Archbishop Gherard of Ravenna were immediately informed of what had happened, and they witnessed with their own eyes the persistent blood of the miracle, that is, “the blood that was vividly red on the small vault of the altar.” The church immediately became a pilgrimage destination and was subsequently renovated and enlarged by order of Duke Ercole I d’Este, beginning in 1495.
There are numerous testimonies recounting the miracle; among them, the most important is the bull of Pope Eugene IV (March 30, 1442), in which the Pope mentions the prodigy, referring to the testimonies of the faithful and ancient historical sources. The manuscript of Gerald of Wales is the oldest document (1197) to mention the prodigy and is preserved in the Lambertian Library in Canterbury.
It was discovered by the historian Antonio Samaritani, who published his study in 1985 in a work entitled Gemma Ecclesiastica. Another document, dating from March 6, 1404, is Cardinal Migliorati’s bull, which grants indulgences to “those who visit the church and pay homage to the miraculous blood.” To this day, on the 28th of each month, Eucharistic adoration is held in the basilica, currently served by the Missionaries of the Most Precious Blood of Saint Gaspar del Bufalo, in memory of the miracle, and every year, in preparation for the feast of Corpus Christi, the solemn Forty Hours devotion is celebrated. In 1971, the eighth centenary of the miracle was celebrated.
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