Sorceress Apologizes to the Pope

Short Summary: A young woman who stole a Eucharist for a love potion found it transformed into bleeding flesh, leading to her and the sorceress's sincere confession and the Host's long-term preservation.

Details

Location: Alatri, Italy

Year: 1228

Prayer: nan

Verse: nan

Full Story

A young lady was attracted to a handsome man who had many admirers. In her attempts to win him over, a sorceress offered to make her a love potion, if provided with a consecrated Eucharist to use as an ingredient. “After all”, the woman declared, “what medicine could be more potent than one made with the divine body of the King of Hearts?” Following the instructions, the young woman stole a Eucharist during Mass, and hid it at home. However, she immediately became riddled with guilt and began to have images of damnation in her mind. After three days of going back and forth, she was still undecided whether or not to proceed with the plan. Finally, she removed the Host from its hiding place, and shockingly found it had become bleeding flesh, no longer bread. She showed the flesh to her family, who subsequently spread news throughout the city. Crowds gathered as the local priest reverently removed the Eucharist from the woman’s home in a procession. Both the young women and the sorceress confessed their involvement, in a spirit of true sorrow and regret. Because of the sacrilege, Pope Gregory IX was brought into the investigation, in which he requested the local Bishop only provide a light penance to the offenders, given their sincerity of repentance. The church approved the authenticity of the Host on several occasions over the centuries. In 1960, the Bishop described it as “the miracle of the incarnate host”. It remains incorrupt and without decay to this day, nearly 800 years later. The Host is on display in a chapel in the Cathedral of Alatri. It is formally exhibited to the public twice a year, on the first Sunday after Easter and the first Sunday after Pentecost.

Related Miracles