The Archdiocese of Hartford in Connecticut is investigating a possible miracle after a priest reported that communion hosts inexplicably multiplied during Mass.
Father Joseph Crowley, who leads the congregation of St. Thomas Catholic Church in Thomaston, announced at the conclusion of Mass on March 5 that a parishioner chosen to help with the communion that day had witnessed a possible miracle, news station WFSB reported.
“One of our eucharistic ministers was running out of hosts and suddenly there were more hosts in the ciborium,” a visibly emotional Crowley told the audience in a video recorded at the church that same day. “God just duplicated himself in the ciborium.”
Ciborium refers to a metal vessel with a lid designed to hold communion hosts, or wafers, which symbolize the body of Christ and are distributed to Catholics during Mass.
The clergyman described the suspected miracle as “very powerful, very awesome, very real, very shocking.”
“It’s really, really cool when God does these things, and it’s really, really cool when we realize what he’s done,” Crowley added, addressing the faithful.
The cleric later said that by the time communion was over, there appeared to be either just as many, or possibly even more, hosts inside the ciborium than there had been at the beginning of the service.
These so-called Eucharist Miracles are exceedingly rare. In known history, only 152 of them have been recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, including four since the beginning of the 21st century, according to the Catholic News Agency.
The latest occurrence in Connecticut is now being studied by the Archdiocese of Hartford, and the investigation could take up o two weeks, a spokesperson confirmed.
Archbishop Leonard Blair issued a statement to the Hartford Courant Tuesday, saying that if the report of the miracle in Thomaston is verified, it “would constitute a sign or wonder that can only be attributed to divine power to strengthen our faith in the daily miracle of the Most Holy Eucharist.”
St. Thomas Church is associated with Blessed Michael McGivney, who served as a parish priest there in the late 19th century and founded the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal order.
McGivney was beatified by Pope Francis in 2020 in recognition of a miracle that was attributed to him involving a baby that was healed inside his mother’s womb. A second miracle ascribed to McGivney, who died in 1890, will be required for him to be canonized as a saint.
