Miracle in Oak Cliff, TX?

[UnrepentantSinner]

http://dallasmorningviews.beloblog.com/?nl

Conservative Catholic Dallas Morning News editor Rod Dreher posted a blog entry (the link above might require subscription) where he mentions a possible manifestation of a "Eucharistic miracle." I haven't had time to dig around the 'Net for other references, but are any of you familiar with this supposed miracle and have investigated it?

Here's Rod's entry for those of you who don't want to register:

Do you know what a "Eucharistic miracle" is? It's a Catholic phenomenon in which consecrated communion wafers, which Catholics believe are mystically transformed into the body and blood of Jesus, are said actually to bleed, and in the rarest cases even turn to human flesh. The most famous such "miracle" occurred in Lanciano, Italy (http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html) -- and is said to have been scientifically tested in the 1970s. The blood is reportedly real human blood, and the flesh that from a human heart.

Well, the buzz is that we've got something like this now in Dallas, at St. James Catholic church in Oak Cliff{link snipped - Google for website). Got this e-mail this morning from a reader:

In Dallas at St. James church on March 19, 2006, another Eucharistic miracle was reported. About 1 month ago a boy who had received communion spit out the host on the floor of the bathroom. The priest followed him and picked it up off the floor. The priest placed it in a glass of water and left it there. He went to check on it and saw that it needed more water to help it dissolve because it had not dissolved after 30 days. When he put more water in the glass the host moved from the side of the glass to the middle and turned into the flesh and blood before his very eyes. I saw this myself this afternoon. The blood on the host was staying right in the middle and not blending into the water.

This news has been picked up and is all over the Internet now (you can see a different account, and a photo of the alleged miracle,here (http://spiritdaily.com/eucharistmiracledallas.htm)). The reader reported that at 11 a.m. today, representatives from the Catholic Diocese took possession of the alleged miracle. I've been trying to call the church to confirm it, but the phone is constantly busy. I'll wait to read about it in the paper.

I've often said that Catholicism presents perported evidence for the validity of Christian belief more than Pentecostalism with it's "miracle healings" (which disproportionatly involve deafness or one leg being shorter than the other) or evangelicalism which offers YEC and anecdotes. At least Catholicism offers things that can be tested to the point of saying - you know, supernatural intervention can be the only answer. Verifiable Marian Apparations/Miracles or things like the Oak Cliff Eucharist miracle are exactly the sort of thing I've been asking for.

AS an aside, I've been wondering for years why, given that we've known about vomiting for well, forever, and we've been able to pump stomachs for at least a century, why hasn't the consecrated Host, after being taken during Communion, been removed from a Communicant's gullet and tested to see if the contents are actually flesh and blood thereby validating the doctrine of Transubstantiation?

[ChristineR]

In theory once the Host has been consecrated (not eaten) it is flesh and blood. I'm sure Hosts have been tested and found to be crackers. The simplest possible test, that of looking at the Host, finds it to be a cracker.

I don't believe that even the most out there theories have the host turning into actual meat. I mean, it is meat, but it has all the properties of a cracker.

[pgwenthold]

Is Oak Cliff, TX, where Edie Brickell is from?

I always wondered about her song, "Oak Cliff Bra" on the Ghost of a Dog album.

[Babylon Sister]

The priest followed the boy to the bathroom?

I thought they were supposed to stop that behavior....

[Zep]

The boy spat out the host? I would have thought that fairly blasphemous for a start...

If that guy thinks the story has any validity, he's fooling only himself. This one belongs in the same category as the maniac bouncing a human head on the roof of a car - overactive and puerile imagination.

[ChristineR]

There are rules for vomited eucharist. Googling it, I found contradictory info, but basically you mop up the mess and dispose of it in the proper manner.

[Morwen]

Looks very fungus-like. No suprise there: half-digested carbs left in water for 30-plus days... Except for the vivid red color. But you should see some of the things that grew in my refrigerator.

[Dogdoctor]

Quick! Someone get a DNA sample so we know what Jesus DNA is.

[JamesDillon]

Quick! Someone get a DNA sample so we know what Jesus DNA is.

Brilliant idea. Does a cloned Jesus count as the Second Coming?

[the_bgma]

...there’s a huge difference between “evidence” from a “witness” to an event like a supposed spiritual healing or miracle, and actual evidence such as that from a scientific experiment. That difference is repeatability (or verifiability). ... If you really want to, you can study enough about whichever particular field, and go repeat any desired experiment yourself. Since this repeatability is tested and questioned by other scientists, we can take those pieces of evidence which have received heavy scrutiny as being factual. Newer pieces of evidence, with less skeptical inquiry into them, are usually viewed with a more critical eye, and others often request data to test the repeatability of the evidence. (Even such things as fossils are verifiable and have an element of repeatability, in that we can find other fossils that can confirm or disprove our theories about existing fossils.) But overall, the scientific process builds its theories and conclusions on repeatable, verifiable, observable data and events and experiments. If there is sufficient credible contradictory evidence, a theory must be discarded.

(The Book of Science)

******************************************
The Bible of the Good and Moral Atheist (http://www.freewebs.com/thebgma/index.htm)

[meg]

Why on earth would anyone pick up someone else's spit-up and put it into a glass of water for observation?

[Rolfe]

Mmmm, you could probably do some sensitive metabolic cage testing to determine whether the communicant had digested carbohydrate or protein....

Rolfe.

[Sasha]

Why on earth would anyone pick up someone else's spit-up and put it into a glass of water for observation?

I'm with you. And what if the kid had a different kind of spasm and shot it out his (ahem)........er,,,,,,nether throat?

[UnrepentantSinner]

Sorry for not getting back to this thread sooner, but the germaine reply is to Morwen below.

Is Oak Cliff, TX, where Edie Brickell is from?

I always wondered about her song, "Oak Cliff Bra" on the Ghost of a Dog album.

Possibly. North Oak Cliff is sorta the old "Dallas" with country clubs and mixed racial and social populations, while South Oak Cliff has been the "ghetto" for as long as I've been familiar with it. Any Edie Brickell song referencing Oak Cliff is a Dallas reference though regardless of what part of the city she is from.

Looks very fungus-like. No suprise there: half-digested carbs left in water for 30-plus days... Except for the vivid red color. But you should see some of the things that grew in my refrigerator.

Bacterial cultures come in a wide array of colors. When I've gone a bit longer than I should cleaning my shower I have wound up with orange colored colonies growing near my drain (and I hate to admit this, but letting the crud build up for a week or two makes the application of Tilex death all the more satisfying). When I still lived at home with my parents, while the main bathroom was kept spotless, the seperate shower in the Master bath tended to be neglected. The gunk in there was not quite blood red but was red.

I don't have the link handy, but it turned out the growth from the wafer was determined to be bacteria. I have to give the Catholic Church credit where credit is due. While the faithful line up to see Mary's in windows and expectorate turned into a relic, at least the heirarchy does put some claims of miracles to the test.

Mmmm, you could probably do some sensitive metabolic cage testing to determine whether the communicant had digested carbohydrate or protein....

The miraculous nature of a bacteria infested piece of Consecrated host, this is one of the biggest problems I have with the Catholic doctine of transsubstantiation. Protestantism has abandoned anything but a symbolic change while Orthodoxy avers that the change is in "essence" not in substance, but 21st Century Catholics, who embrace an old Earth, evolution, heliocentrism, and mental illness being caused by chemical imbalances in the brain not demons (for the most part) still think that bread and wine literally become Jesus' body and blood after consecration and consumption.

I guess as long as Hindus still think the Himilayas are Shiva's hair and Muslims still think martyrdom brings 72 virgins the belief in transsubstantiation is rather innocuous, but that doesn't make it any less disappointing.

[pgwenthold]

Possibly. North Oak Cliff is sorta the old "Dallas" with country clubs and mixed racial and social populations, while South Oak Cliff has been the "ghetto" for as long as I've been familiar with it. Any Edie Brickell song referencing Oak Cliff is a Dallas reference though regardless of what part of the city she is from.

Ahh, that kind of makes sense.

The song is basically being lazy and watching the world. There's a baby missing a shoe and a squirrel that almost gets hit by a station wagon.

Could be eithe North or South Oak Cliff, from what you say.

I always get the picture of sitting on the front porch in early evening, with a boulevard of trees in front of the house. Edie can be very vivid in that way (I don't know what she was actually seeing). Not sure of the significance of the bra, though.

[Hardenbergh]

There are rules for vomited eucharist. Googling it, I found contradictory info, but basically you mop up the mess and dispose of it in the proper manner.

I'm still trying to figure why he put in a glass.

[ChristineR]

Hmm, maybe this (http://www.dailycatholic.org/defectib.htm)is what he was doing? I don't really understand the instructions, but I guess I get the idea.

36. If something poisonous falls into the chalice after the Consecration, or something that would cause vomiting, the consecrated wine is to be poured into another chalice, with water added until the chalice is full, so that the species of wine will be dissolved; and this water is to be poured out into the sacrarium. Other wine, together with water, is to be brought and consecrated.

37. If anything poisonous touches the consecrated host, the priest is to consecrate another and consume it in the way that has been explained, while the first host is to be put into a chalice full of water and disposed of as was explained regarding the Blood in paragraph 36 above.

[ChristineR]

Here's some more useful info from a Catholic site:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1600927/posts

I guess the idea is that under certain circumstances you should dissolve the host in water before you throw it out.

[Mephisto]

The priest followed the boy to the bathroom?

I thought they were supposed to stop that behavior....

. . . yeah, and then the altar boy spit some meat out? Well, I guess if he had a host in his mouth to begin with, he DID have to kneel in front of the priest with his mouth open. ;)

Welcome to the forum. :)

[Mephisto]

I'm still trying to figure why he put in a glass.

I'm wondering if he used gloves to pick it up! You can't be too careful with AIDs and all. ;)

[UnrepentantSinner]

Here's some more useful info from a Catholic site:

Freep is a Catholic site?