Modern-day Eucharistic miracles help those who have “lost God” find hope (and evidence) that Jesus is the Eucharist
By Catholic San Francisco
Dr. Scott French, who has managed emergency departments in multiple states throughout his career, believes the current exponential rise in anxiety, depression, loneliness and suicides among youth and young adults is a symptom of the emergence of an anti-Christian culture that proclaims humanity doesn’t need God.
“I saw that there was a severe behavioral health problem in our youth,” he said. “Emergency medicine physicians are like a canary in the coal mine. I wanted to know what was behind the devastation of our youth.”
Spiritual battle over truth
“This crisis of meaning and purpose for our youth seems like it happened overnight, but the false narrative has been building for a long time,” he told Catholic San Francisco.
Between 2007 and 2017, a scientific study demonstrated that there was a 55% increase in youth suicide attempts, he said, something “you’ll never hear on the news.”
“People have lost the truth that they are beloved children of God,” said French, “and that life doesn’t come from the material world. Current cultural narratives claim that science has proven there is no God; yet the truth is precisely the opposite. We’re now living in an age where we have to reclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.”
Young people want “proof”
Young people are leaving the Catholic Church at alarming rates, according to one Pew Research Center survey. Millennials are abandoning religious affiliation (becoming agnostic or atheistic) at a much higher rate than previous generations. The survey reported 63% of millennials said they left religion because of a “lack of evidence.”
A 2023 study published by Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate and commissioned by the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life found that a large percentage of Catholics don’t believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, which the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes as the “source and summit” of the faith.
French is on a spirit-led mission to share the scientific evidence of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
“To a world that has come to believe over time that ‘man is God,’ we need to enlighten people, and the youth in particular, to see that their dignity is grounded in being made in the image and likeness of God,” said French. “And that God wants to dwell in our bodies as He once dwelt in the temple in Jerusalem. Our true home is not on this earth, but in heaven.”
An emergency medicine physician and former Stanford professor may seem to be an unlikely messenger. But French is a member of the advisory board of Jesuit Father Robert J. Spitzer’s Magis Center, whose mission is to turn the rising tide › of unbelief in our culture through contemporary, rational and science-based evidence. Father Spitzer is the author of many books, including the newly published “Science at the Doorstep to God.” He is a regular on EWTN, hosting “Father Spitzer’s Universe,” which demonstrates how science points to a loving creator God of both the material and supernatural world.
Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone invited French to speak about “21st-Century Eucharistic Miracles” at the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s Eucharistic Congress held this past June at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption. In his presentation, French linked similarities between 21st-century Eucharistic miracles, biblical passages and the Shroud of Turin, which he viewed in 2015.
21st-Century Eucharistic Miracles
In one sense, a Eucharistic miracle occurs at every Catholic Mass when the substance of bread and wine is changed into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, said Father Spitzer. However, 21st-century Eucharistic miracles provide us with validated scientific evidence that it truly is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus. These more recent Eucharistic miracles demonstrate that the consecrated hosts not only miraculously “bleed” human type AB blood but are living cardiac muscle tissue possessing living white blood cells. White blood cells do not exist outside the body for more than 30 minutes! In his presentation, French shares the following insights on four modern-day Eucharistic miracles showcasing how these remarkable characteristics are revealed by scientists and physicians:
• 1996 in Buenos Aires, Argentina: This was the first 21st-century Eucharistic miracle that was extensively studied by multiple physicians and scientists, including Dr. Frederick Zugibe, a renowned cardiologist and forensic pathologist at Columbia University in New York. His findings were published in 2005. When interviewed about his findings, Zugibe stated his amazement about the sample he had just examined in his forensic lab:
“When I was later told that the heart tissue was kept in tap water for about a month and transferred to sterile, distilled water for three years, I indicated that it would be impossible to see white blood cells or macrophages in the sample. Moreover, it would be impossible to identify the tissue per se, as there would be no morphological characteristics.”
• 2006 in Tixtla, Mexico: A consecrated host began to effuse a reddish substance during a Mass. Dr. Castanon Gomez, clinical psychologist from Bolivia who specializes in brain biochemistry, led a team of eight scientists from four continents in an in-depth investigation. The former atheist-scientist-turned-Catholic reported the following:
“Real blood with cells originating from live tissue is being exuded from the consecrated host. The source of that blood is live cardiac tissue in the center of the host. The blood is being exuded from the inside-out (with the liquid blood being inside and flowing toward the exterior where it is coagulated).”
• 2008 in Sokolka, Poland: A priest accidentally dropped a host while distributing Holy Communion, and it was placed into a container of water. A week later, the host had a red stain on it. Two separate medical schools in Poland examined the consecrated host and found:
“The substance of the host and the substance of the heart tissue are so closely intermingled as to be virtually inseparable and unproducible by current technologies. The tissue part of the Sokolka host is cardiac tissue. The cardiac tissue is that of a dying man—the tissue is still alive.”
• 2013 in Legnica, Poland: On Christmas Day, a consecrated host fell on the floor and was put into a container of water to dissolve. As in all the previous 21st-century Eucharistic miracles, the consecrated host did not dissolve and instead, the substance changed to type AB blood in living heart tissue that was under severe stress, as indicated by the living white blood cells in the heart tissue, surviving for months outside of a human body.
“It is a blessing to be alive at this time,” said French. “The Holy Spirit has given us 21st-century Eucharistic miracles, the Shroud of Turin and near-death experiences that provide scientific evidence for us to ‘see’ that God is the author of life, and our true home is in heaven with the Trinity. These Eucharistic miracles also are evidence of Jesus’ passion, death, resurrection and ascension, which is the defeat of sin and death. Every time we celebrate Mass, heaven is celebrating with us at the altar, and we get a foretaste of heaven.”
The bishops of the United States have called for a three-year grassroots revival of devotion and belief in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. This revival launched nationally on the feast of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) June 19, 2022. The National Eucharistic Revival is a movement that renews the Church by enkindling a living relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist. When Archbishop Cordileone launched the Eucharistic Revival in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, he said, “The Church draws her life from the Eucharistic sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We cannot separate the Eucharist from sacrifice – just as we cannot separate sacrifice from the holy Mass. A revival of the Eucharist, then, is nothing less than a revival of that which is the very life of the Church, which is found in her greatest prayer: the holy sacrifice of the Mass. In rediscovering the vital role of the Eucharist, we are at the same time rediscovering the place of the holy Mass in the life of the people of God.” ■
Dr. Scott French has dedicated 2023 and 2024 to making presentations on 21st-century Eucharistic miracles at parishes and schools within the Archdiocese. To bring this compelling presentation to your parish, contact Nicolle Dougherty at [email protected].
Visit www.magiscenter.com to learn more about 21st Century Eucharistic miracles.