Blessed Carlo Acutis had conceived and created a beautiful traveling exhibition on Eucharistic Miracles. This exhibition continues to tour 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.
A woman of a non-Christian religion, who did not believe in the truth of the Catholic dogma of Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist, managed to steal a consecrated host during the celebration of Holy Mass with the help of a Christian friend. Almost challenging God, the woman then placed the consecrated host in a pan of oil over
the fire. Suddenly, a large quantity of blood dripped from the host and spread across the floor until it flowed out through the doorway of the house.
In Trani, in Puglia, the relic of this Eucharistic miracle, which took place around the year 1000, is still preserved today in the cathedral dedicated to Maria Santissima Assunta. Many documents recount the miracle, including several Eucharistic monograms reproduced along the city’s ancient streets. Friar Bartolomeo Campi provides an accurate account of how the events unfolded in his work L’innamorato di Gesù Cristo (1625): “Pretending to be a Christian, the woman received Communion with the others… And taking the host, she removed it from her mouth and placed it in her handkerchief.
When she returned home, wanting to find out whether it was bread or not, she put the blessed host in a pan full of oil to fry it… On contact with the boiling oil, the host miraculously became bloody flesh, and the bleeding, so to speak, did not stop immediately; on the contrary, so much blood spilled out of the pan that it ran and flooded that accursed and abominable house everywhere. Frightened and terrified, the woman began to scream… and the neighbors immediately rushed over to see what had caused such great weeping…».
The Archbishop was immediately informed of what had happened and ordered that the host be reverently returned to the church. The Cistercian abbot Ferdinando Ughelli (1670), in his famous encyclopedic work Italia sacra, also wrote in a note to the seventh volume: «In Trani, a sacred host is venerated, fried out of contempt for our faith…, in which, once the unleavened bread was revealed, the true flesh and true blood of Christ appeared, and blood fell all the way to the ground». An indirect confirmation of the miracle can also be found in a statement by Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, who exclaimed: «Trani is fortunate, because twice the blood of Christ has soaked its soil».
The reference was directly to the Eucharistic miracle we have discussed and to the miracle of the Crucifix of Colonna, from whose scarred nose a copious stream of blood flowed. In 1706, the woman’s house was transformed into a chapel thanks to the generous donation of the nobleman Ottaviano Campitelli. The relic of the host was placed in 1616 inside an ancient silver reliquary donated by Fabrizio de Cunio. Numerous examinations and verifications of this holy relic were carried out in different periods; the most recent dates back to 1924, on the occasion of the interdiocesan Eucharistic Congress, by Monsignor Giuseppe Maria Leo.
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