A Miracle??!!!

Fr. Echert was my teacher in college.  He and I went on pilgrimage to Israel together in 1995.  Fr. Grabner and I were in seminary together...I will be keeping tabs on this one!!!!


Fr. Echert






Editor: St. Augustine's is a parish which has the Immemorial Mass of All Ages in South Saint Paul. Father Echert has long been a priest friendly to tradition of impeccable reputation and great learning, having graduated from the infamous, but very challenging, Biblicum in Rome. He's also a Chaplain in the Air Force where he's served on a number of occasions, ministering to military personnel. What's being gotten at is that he's a very credible and serious man.  The following was received by talibanshayne this morning:

Above is a photo taken by Fr. Echert, pastor of Saint Augustine in South St. Paul, MN, of a consecrated host.

The host had been accidentally dropped on the ground last week during the distribution of Holy Communion at a daily Mass.

It was subsequently placed in water to dissolve so that it could be poured down the sacrarium.

Fr. Grabner, the parochial vicar, went to check on the host a few days later, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, and found that not only had it not dissolved, but that it had turned red.

Is there a natural explanation? You decide.

The Chancery has been notified.

One proposed explanation is Serratia Marcescens.  Here's a citation from Wikipedia:

Because of its red pigmentation, caused by expression of the pigment prodigiosin,^[13] and its ability to grow on bread, S. marcescens has been evoked as a naturalistic explanation of medieval accounts of the "miraculous" appearance of blood on the Eucharist that led to Pope Urban IV instituting the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264. This followed celebration of a mass at Bolsena in 1263, led by a Bohemian priest who had doubts concerning transubstantiation, or the turning of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ during the Mass. During the Mass, the Eucharist appeared to bleed and each time the priest wiped away the blood, more would appear. While it is possible that Serratia could generate a single appearance of red pigment, it is unclear how it could have generated more pigment after each wiping, leaving this proposed explanation open to doubt. This event is celebrated in a fresco in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican City, painted by Raphael.^[14]

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