The first bishop of the Diocese of Gracias in Honduras, Walter Guillén Soto, has recognized a new eucharistic miracle that occurred a year ago in a rural parish in the small town of San Juan.
Gracias, in the department of Lempira, is a town and “municipio” of just over 57,000 inhabitants in western Honduras. Its foundation dates back to 1536, and its original name was “Gracias a Dios” (Thanks Be to God).
The chapel of the El Espinal, in San Juan, is where the eucharistic miracle declared by the prelate occurred: a blood stain on a corporal.
On the afternoon of June 9, 2022, when the Catholic Church was celebrating the liturgical feast of Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest (celebrated the Thursday after Pentecost), José Elmer Benítez Machado arrived before anyone else at the chapel of the El Espinal community to celebrate the Liturgy of the Word and distribute to the faithful the hosts previously consecrated by the priests of the diocese.
About 60 families live in El Espinal, spread throughout the mountainous region, dedicated mainly to agriculture and raising cattle, pigs, and poultry.
Barely 15 families attend the Liturgy of the Word every Thursday conducted by laypeople, since they don’t have a priest in town.
When it was time to distribute the Eucharist, Benítez opened the tabernacle and noticed that the corporal (sacred linen cloth), under and folded over the wooden ciborium and on a white satin cushion, showed large stains that seemed to be of human blood.
“I was amazed,” he told “EWTN Noticias,” the EWTN’s Spanish-language news program. “My first hope was: ‘It’s the blood of Christ.” However, in the confusion of the moment, and to complete his ministry, he continued with the celebration and distributed the Eucharist.
Pedrina García, who was in the chapel at the time, said she did not doubt that it was a miracle. “This is something that God has put there for us,” she said.
At the end of October 2022, the analysis began with the intervention of an external forensic expert and an expert in analytical toxicology.
Procedures revealed that the blood was human and was type AB with a positive Rh factor, the same as the eucharistic miracle of Lanciano, Italy, as well as that found on the Shroud of Turin, also in Italy.
Read More Here: A new eucharistic miracle in Latin America?
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