Eucharistic Miracle of Buenos Aires of 1996.
It was a regular Sunday Mass, August 18, 1996. A woman noticed a Host that had somehow been partially hidden at the base of a candlestick standing before a crucifix at the side of the church. It appeared to have been put there by someone intending to desecrate it. The Host was dirty and dusty so it was submerged in water for dissolution (as described in last week’s article).
In 1999, Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires (now Pope Francis) gave authorization for an investigation. The May 2000 report states the material was examined under a stereo microscope where whitish fibrous material along with a brown-reddish substance adhering to it. DNA profiling was attempted, but not successful. No attempt was made to determine blood group (type). This examining doctor had been researching mystical phenomena for years, and had associates and funding from Australia, so they funded further investigations. For the rest of the examinations, the professionals were kept blind from the source of the material, not informed of its origin.
A California pathological examination found the material was not easily identifiable but appeared to be infiltrated by a large number of white blood cells, as would happen with inflammation. He specified that these while blood cells were active and living at the time the sample was taken in 1999. Yes, LIVING! Recall that for three years (1996-1999) the matter had been in a closed bottle of distilled water (without nutrients). When informed of the distilled water, the doctor stated that the cells should have dissolved within a few minutes, or an hour at most, so how they could still be living in 1999 was simply inexplicable.
The tissue remained difficult to identify. Four more examinations (Australia, Italy) were done but without a clear conclusion. An expert medical examiner and cardiologist from New York was brought in. He provided the conclusive answer. He stated on camera, “This is heart muscle tissue, coming from the left ventricle, near a valvular area.” “This cardiac muscle is inflamed; it had lost its striations and is infiltrated by leukocytes.” (The loss of muscle striations is what had made it so hard to determine the tissue.) Leukocytes are not normally in the heart, but they do rush towards any site of trauma or a wound, but they can only be found if an organism is still living. The examiner stated, “This was a live sample at the time it was taken!”
The interviewer then asked the medical examiner, “How long would these leukocytes survive for, if the tissue were set in water?” Reply: “They would dissolve within a few minutes and no longer exist.” When then informed the material was kept for a month in tap water and three years in distilled water, he replied, “Absolutely incredible! Inexplicable by science!” The examiner’s 2005 final report concluded the material was compatible with a recent myocardial infarction (heart attack), the heart being under strain for a few days.
In Buenos Aires, five times in a row from 1992-1996, a consecrated Host dissolving in water turned into blood and, in 1996, a fragment of a live suffering heart, the cardiac strain having gone on for a few days.
Two days before He died, Jesus said, “Now is my heart troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” (Jn 12:27.) This 1996 Eucharistic Host, sitting in water, by faith being the Body and Blood of Christ, took on the physical appearance of a live suffering Heart with a few days’ strain.
Dibby Allan Green