For the Octave of Corpus Christi:
The Miracle of the Eucharist in Amsterdam (1345)
Thrown
into a fire, the Eucharist miraculously is not burned
In 1345, Amsterdam was a tiny fishing village consisting
of four streets and a few alleys lined up along the main canal. There were small
modest fishermen's huts, a church, and a monastery. The monastery was the
largest building in the city. The Eucharistic Miracle given to this tiny
village on March 13, 1345, was the beginning of the growth for which Amsterdam
is now famous. In fact, on the 600th anniversary of the miracle, March 13,
1945, the Dutch Catholics attributed all the growth and progress of their city
to the Eucharistic Miracle which we will now present.
The Eucharistic miracle occurred in a house on
Kalverstreet where a fisherman named Ysbrant Dommer on his deathbed called for
a priest to come to his home to give him the last rites of the Church and Holy
Communion. After having heard the man's confession, the priest blessed him with
the oils of Extreme Unction, and gave him Communion.
The priest had no sooner left than the sick man began
coughing violently. His wife ran over to him in an effort to help him, but the
husband, gagging and choking beyond control, vomited the contents of his
stomach, including the Host, still intact. The wife reacted instinctively. She
swept up the Host and threw It into the fireplace. She soon realized her grave
mistake, but the fire was raging, and she was not about to put her hands into
it for fear of burning herself. That night she slept fitfully, tossing and
turning. She was afraid she had committed a terrible sin and had nightmares
about the Sacred Host that she had thrown into the fire.
The following morning, as soon as she got out of bed, she
went over to the fireplace. The fire was not extinguished yet, and the coals
were still quite hot. She stoked the coals, looking for the Eucharist. To her
amazement she suddenly saw the Host sitting atop a burning ember. It was not
burned at all. It had not even turned color. The Host was fresh and brilliant,
lying among the coals. She immediately snatched the Host from the fire, and
carefully wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in a chest for
safekeeping.
She then called the priest who had been to her house the
previous night and told him the story. The priest then placed the Host into a
pyx and washed the cloth in which it had been wrapped. He then carried the Host
to the parish church of St. Nicholas. The priest thought it best not to tell
anyone about the incident, so as not to stir up gossip involving the woman or
her husband. He took the Host, wrapped in the cloth, and returned It to the
church, where he placed It in the tabernacle.
The following morning, the priest found the pyx empty to
his amazement, but the Host was soon discovered by the same woman when she
opened the chest to remove some linens. She was stunned and confused as she
knew the priest had taken It away the day before. Had she committed such a
terrible sin, that the Lord brought back the proof to punish her with the sight
of It? She ran to the Church, and explained what had happened to the priest.
Again the priest placed the Eucharist into a pyx and returned it to the church.
Then, after yet another disappearance and discovery, the priest contacted other
members of the clergy for consultation. All agreed that the occurrences were a
direct proof of God's intercession, and apparently a sign that the miracle
should be openly honored. Jesus wanted to use this miracle to awaken His
sleeping people. The Miraculous Host was a light which was to shine all over
Europe.
The priest told his fellow friars about the miracle, and
the story of which soon spread about the town and the surrounding countryside.
When the priest formed a procession to go to the fisherman's house for the Sacred
Host, a huge crowd followed him and his fellow priests. They carried the
Sacred Host back to the church of St. Nicholas affording Our Lord the honor He
deserved for giving such a rich gift to these humble people.
Another wonderful element to the story is that the
fisherman who had been dying, the one whom the priest brought the Eucharist on
that first night, didn't die. To the contrary, he recovered, thanks be to God.
However, when word of the miracle reached the ears of the townspeople, and
those from other villages, they all went to the fisherman's house to see where
the miracle had taken place. It soon became sort of a shrine, and soon
afterwards, a Chapel.
Official inquiries were made by the civil magistrate and
also the city council, and upon investigation all were satisfied with the
truthfulness of the witnesses. They affirmed the occurrence as fact and also
endorsed the miracle in official City documents. The Church authorities, too,
headed by the Bishop of Utrecht, held an extended inquiry before permitting the
clergy to spread information about the event.
In a Pastoral letter, the Bishop officially declared that
an authentic miracle had occurred in the little town of Amsterdam. In the same
pastoral letter, he authorized veneration of the Eucharistic Miracle of the
Host. The little house of the fisherman was soon converted into a Chapel,
called Nieuwe Zijds, or Holy Place and the Miraculous Host was placed upon the
main altar, for the adoration of the people. The fireplace of the fisherman's hut
was kept intact, and became a permanent part of the new shrine.
Miracle upon Miracle
The second miracle of 1452
A second miracle took place 100 years later. Amsterdam
had grown considerably in the century since the first miracle had taken place.
On May 24, 1452 the entire city of Amsterdam was engulfed in fire. Most of the
buildings were destroyed by the blaze. When the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament
(the former fisherman's hut) caught fire, some of the parishioners made an
attempt to save the Miraculous Host from destruction by the flames. They tried
to force open the tabernacle. The Host had been placed in a beautiful
monstrance, which was inside the tabernacle. The heat of the Church was
becoming unbearable. The workers worked feverishly, but to no avail. The heat
of the fire had made it impossible to get the door open. As the roof of the
Chapel began to cave in, the men ran out of the Church to safety, their mission
a failure.
The entire Church collapsed and burned to the ground,
including the tabernacle. Upon seeing this, there was a great sadness among the
faithful of the city, especially those who had tried in vain to rescue the
Eucharistic Miracle. The next day, they sifted through the ashes of the Church,
hoping against hope, that something remained of their precious Host. Their
grief turned to joy as soon they spotted the Monstrance, completely unscathed,
there among the ashes of the Church. Even the silk veil which covered the
Monstrance had been saved from the fire. So, once again the Lord saved the same
Host from fire in the same house in Amsterdam.
Soon afterwards, a new chapel was built, more elaborate
and more beautiful than the previous one. The fame of the Eucharistic Miracle
of Amsterdam, now recognized as a twofold miracle, spread beyond the
Netherlands to all of Europe. The Hapsburg Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire,
Maxmillian, went to Amsterdam in pilgrimage to the Eucharistic Miracle. He
prayed for a healing at the shrine, which was granted to him because of his
faith. He showed his thanksgiving by donating beautiful gifts to the Chapel of
the miracle. Amsterdam and the Eucharistic Miracle became a major place of
pilgrimages and processions.
See more at: Miracles of the Church
This week is one of the liturgical seasons where the discrepancies between the two forms of the Roman Rite are most evident; the Extraordinary Form retains the Octave of Pentecost, with its three Ember Days, while the Ordinary Form does not. The presence of such discrepancies is an absolutely anomalous situation in the history of the Roman Rite, and indeed of the whole of Catholic liturgy. This anomaly will be noticed more and more as the number of churches where both forms of the Rite are routinely celebrated grows; to invent an example, the clergy and faithful will more regularly see in the same parish a 9 a.m. Sunday Mass in green for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, and the 10:30 Mass in violet for Sexagesima. Such a thing was unknown before 1969, and was extremely rare before the 1988 motu proprio Ecclesia Dei.
