Sorry to bother you Father Angelo,
I’m confused regarding some of the answers you provided regarding the Eucharist.
In some of your answers, I read the following:


– “the Lord offers his suffering, but no longer suffers.
Correctly, the Church says that the Mass is the same sacrifice enacted on the calvary, with the distinction that on the calvary it was in the bloody form (with the suffering), while on the altar is present in the bloodless form.”
– “The Lord makes present His pain and passion.
With the difference that on the cross, the passion was excruciating, while now it is blessed.”

My question is: how come that in the Eucharistic miracles the hearth of Jesus is in extreme pain and suffering?

Science has found out that in such miracles the cardiac muscle tissue is sore, traumatized and deeply in pain (definitely not in a state of “blessedness” or “relief”, if you get what I mean).
Based on this, what does it mean that Jesus no longer suffers in the Eucharist?
Maybe I can find the explanation in this excerpt from you: “In the glorious Christ, all the moments of his earthly life are contained in a single moment, that of eternity.
In the Eucharist, the glorious Christ makes us contemporaries of his passion and death.”
Still, I can’t understand how the extreme suffering (found in the Eucharistic miracles), of which the glorious Christ makes us contemporaries, can be defined as “blessed”… looks to me like an oxymoron.
Thank you as always, have a blessed day.

Priest’s answer

Dear,
1.I already had the chance in some of my answers to remind that when the Lord or the Blessed Virgin appear, they don’t leave heaven to come down to earth. They stay in heaven both in body and soul.

2. Despite that, in a miraculous way and through the angelic ministry they set up a body through which they are made manifest and visible.
In this miraculously formed body, which isn’t identical to the one in heaven, they show signs of suffering.
Like this, the Christ and the Madonna stay in heaven forever glorious and immune to suffering.
They show their will using these apparitions.
This suffering is a reflection of what they experienced on earth, and it is also a reflection of what the mystical body of Christ, which is the Church, is currently experiencing because of sin.

3.With regard to Eucharistic miracles, a page from the Summa Theologica in which St. Thomas asks himself the following question remains very enlightening: “Whether Christ’s body is truly there when flesh or a child appears miraculously in this sacrament?” (III, 76, 8).
Here is what it says: “Such apparition comes about in two ways, when occasionally in this sacrament flesh, or blood, or a child, is seen. Sometimes it happens on the part of the beholders, whose eyes are so affected as if they outwardly saw flesh, or blood, or a child, while no change takes place in the sacrament. And this seems to happen when to one person it is seen under the species of flesh or of a child, while to others it is seen as before under the species of bread; or when to the same individual it appears for an hour under the appearance of flesh or a child, and afterwards under the appearance of bread. Nor is there any deception there, as occurs in the feats of magicians, because such species is divinely formed in the eye in order to represent some truth, namely, for the purpose of showing that Christ’s body is truly under this sacrament…
But it sometimes happens that such apparition comes about not merely by a change wrought in the beholders, but by an appearance which really exists outwardly”.

4. He then adds: “Christ’s body under its proper species can be seen only in one place, wherein it is definitively contained. Hence since it is seen in its proper species, and is adored in heaven, it is not seen under its proper species in this sacrament. Secondly, because a glorified body, which appears at will, disappears when it wills after the apparition; thus it is related (Lk. 24:31) that our Lord “vanished out of sight” of the disciples. But that which appears under the likeness of flesh in this sacrament, continues for a long time; indeed, one reads of its being sometimes enclosed, and, by order of many bishops, preserved in a pyx, which it would be wicked to think of Christ under His proper semblance.
Consequently, it remains to be said, that, while the dimensions remain the same as before, there is a miraculous change wrought in the other accidents, such as shape, color, and the rest, so that flesh, or blood, or a child, is seen. And, as was said already, this is not deception, because it is done “to represent the truth,” namely, to show by this miraculous apparition that Christ’s body and blood are truly in this sacrament.”. 

5. Again: “During such apparitions Christ’s proper semblance is not seen, but a species miraculously formed either in the eyes of the beholders, or in the sacramental dimensions themselves” (Ib., ad 2).
It is in these semblance where the signs of suffering can miraculously manifest.

6. It therefore remains undisputed that Jesus makes himself present on the altar with the very same sacrifice he made on Calvary and which he eternally offers to the Father in heaven.
But just as Christ’s sacrifice is perpetuated in heaven in an unbloody manner, that is, without the shedding of blood, so too on the altar.

7. It is also clear that the signs of suffering shown in the eucharistic miracles are miraculously created by Our Lord’s will, so what we have tangible signs that this sacrifice is the very same that happened on the calvary.

I bless you, wish you well, and remember you in my prayers.

Father Angelo

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