Blood & Bread: Lanciano’s Miracle by Jeff Callaway

Blood & Bread: Lanciano’s Miracle

by Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

Lanciano is a small stone town in Abruzzo. Its streets fold into the hills. Its church bells have rung for a millennium. Inside one church there sits a reliquary that has kept the world honest about the Eucharist. It contains a piece of flesh and five coagulated globules of blood. Those objects are not props. They are the relics of an event that began as a private Mass around the year 700 and became a public sign that has been watched, tested, and preserved for centuries. I write as one who believes. I also write as an investigator. Faith and reason must meet on the same ground when the stakes are the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

This is not a sermon alone. It is an examination. It is an appeal. It uses history, archival continuity, scientific studies, eyewitness tradition, and scripture. It includes the clinical work done in the 1970s and the steady clerical custody that kept the relics visible and unaltered. It lays out the narrative and the data. It insists on one conviction: the Lanciano phenomenon is a sign, given to a doubting monk, that the Body and Blood we receive in Mass are not mere symbols. “This is my body,” Jesus said. (Luke 22:19) At Lanciano the words were answered visibly.

The Narrative: What Happened

According to the tradition held by Lanciano and by the Church, the event took place in the 8th century, roughly around 700–750 AD. A Basilian monk, serving in a monastery that followed the Greek rite traditions of the time, celebrated Mass in a small church dedicated to Saints Legontian and Domitian. He struggled inwardly with doubt. At the words of consecration — when the priest pronounces, “This is my Body… This is my Blood” — the bread and wine were altered visibly. The host, in the celebrant’s hands, became flesh. The wine, poured into the chalice, became visible blood which coagulated into five separate globules. The monk, undone, cried out to the congregation. Tradition records his exclamation: “O fortunate witnesses to whom the Blessed God, to confound my unbelief, has deigned to reveal Himself in this Most Blessed Sacrament and render Himself visible to our eyes!” Townspeople rushed in. They prostrated themselves. Lanciano became a pilgrimage site.

Records vary about exact dates and details in the earliest centuries. The church on the site today — San Francesco — was built in 1258 over the earlier church where the event took place. That continuity matters. The relics passed to Basilians, then Benedictines, then Franciscans; they were kept in an ivory tabernacle for five centuries, later enclosed in silver boxes and wooden chests with multiple locks. The city itself participates in custody: keys were and are held under civic and ecclesiastical control. The relics spent centuries in guarded chapels, hidden during crises, yet they reemerged intact. In 1713 a Neapolitan-style silver reliquary with two crystal windows and a crystal chalice was commissioned to display the host-flesh and the five globules beneath it. That monstrance remains on the high altar at San Francesco. Pilgrims still climb the stairway opened in the mid-20th century to stand before it.

A few concrete physical details commonly recorded: the flesh displays cardiac muscle characteristics, appearing as a thin sheet with circular bundles toward the periphery and a thinning center where the original host lay. The blood coagulated into five globules of unequal size and shape; one early account says those five clots weighed together what each weighed separately — a detail that inspired wonder and curiosity. The color is described variously: the tissue is an earthy light brown or rose when backlit; the clots are ochre. The whole reliquary is studied and venerated right there in Lanciano. The city celebrates the miracle with pilgrimages and devotion; the sanctuary observes a feast connected to the miracle each year.

The Chain of Custody and Ecclesiastical Attestations

Lanciano’s relics are not an urban legend. They are objects preserved through documented custody. The first formal modern recognitions and verifications date from the 16th and 17th centuries onward, with several episcopal reviews and royal or civic involvements across the centuries. Monsignor Rodrigues, among others, examined the case in the 16th century. Later confirmations and ecclesiastical acts occurred in 1574, 1638, 1770, 1886, and beyond, each time treating the relics with canonical care. The city and the friary implemented multi-key locks and safekeeping measures, a civic token of public interest. Ivory tabernacles, silver boxes, and finally the 1713 silver monstrance all show layered preservation. Invasions and wars forced the relics to be hidden at moments of danger, yet each concealment ended in re-exposure — the object was never “lost” and was continuously venerated.

That continuity is important for an investigator. We are not dealing with a relic that vanished for centuries and resurfaced under suspicious circumstances. The relics were present, guarded, and subjected to official ecclesiastical protocols. The public nature of custody means the object was available for scrutiny when science arrived.

The Science: Linoli, Bertelli, and the 1970s Examinations

Scientific investigation was requested and permitted. In November 1970 ecclesiastical authorities allowed the opening of the reliquary and extraction of fragments for analysis. The team included Professor Odoardo Linoli, a pathologist from Arezzo, and Professor Ruggero Bertelli of the University of Siena. The seals were broken under supervision on 18 November 1970. The tests were histological, biochemical, immunological, and microscopic.

Findings reported by Linoli and colleagues are arresting. The flesh was identified as real human tissue. More precisely, histology showed striated muscular fibers consistent with myocardium, with structures recognizable as cardiac muscle, endocardium, and even nerve fibers associated with heart tissue. The blood was authenticated as human blood. Chemical analyses indicated proteins and mineral composition in the proportions expected in fresh human blood. Most striking for many readers outside the faith was the determination of blood group: AB. The flesh tissue and the blood clots matched as AB, implying a common source. No common preservatives, embalming agents, or mummification chemicals were detected in the samples. The preservation over more than a thousand years without chemical treatment was judged by the investigators extraordinary and unexplained by conventional means.

The details matter. Linoli reported that the tissue had the properties of cardiac muscle and that the globules' protein composition matched that of recent blood. The investigators documented the specimen’s dimensions, the central perforation where the original host rested, and the five distinct clots. They also reported absence of artificial preservation. These are not claims made in a devotional vacuum. They are scientific observations, subject to the limits of the 1970s methodology.

Skeptics will ask about controls, peer review, and publication. That is fair. Linoli published in Italian journals and reports that circulated among religious and scientific readers. The scientific community outside the Church did not mount a sustained high-profile challenge. To many believers, the very fact investigators were permitted, and that their work found human myocardium and AB blood, is weighty. The 1981 follow-up work reconfirmed many of the earlier findings. Whether you accept every technical nuance of the 1970s analyses, the core result is not that the relics are “like” human tissue and blood. The core result is that they are human tissue and human blood, heart tissue by histology, AB blood type by immunologic testing.

Theology and Scripture: Why This Sign Matters

Christ said, “This is my body” (Luke 22:19). He reiterated the demand for faith in John 6:53–56 when he said that unless you eat his flesh and drink his blood you have no life in you. From the earliest centuries the Church has read these words in a sacramental register. The doctrine of transubstantiation was articulated in scholastic theology but rooted in apostolic teaching and early liturgical practice. When a sign occurs that appears to confirm that presence in material terms, Catholics do not treat it as doctrine’s source. Rather, they see it as a sign that confirms and nourishes a faith already drawn from the Gospel and the apostolic tradition.

Lanciano’s sign is exactly that kind of confirmation. It is a physical event given to a doubter. It is a public reminder that God often meets doubt with mercy and proof. When the host became flesh and the wine blood, it addressed the monk’s unbelief and addressed the community’s need for sure signs. The witness then and the witness now points to John’s terrifying yet consoling theology: Jesus gives us himself. The sacrament is not a metaphor. The Eucharist is real food and real blood to the human soul. Biblical language of eating and drinking is not allusive in John chapters; it is intended to force a response. Lanciano makes the response bodily as well as spiritual.

Scripture also frames sacrifice and presence in the language of covenant and blood. Hebrews recounts Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice. Paul commands the faithful to examine themselves before receiving the Eucharist (1 Corinthians 11:27–29). The Lanciano relics invite such examination and repentance. They invite reverence. They invite a rethinking of a liturgical practice too often reduced to symbolism.

Why Lanciano Matters in the Modern World

We live in an age suspicious of claims that mingle faith and fact. We are told to split the sacred from the empirical. Yet Lanciano insists on a meeting place. The relics have been available for direct inspection by priests, scientists, pilgrims, and skeptics. Civic officials and the friary historically shared custody. The relics survived exposure, attempted concealment, and centuries of neglect, yet remained remarkably preserved. The corollary is this: the sign was not engineered to fool later generations. It was not a medieval pious fraud crafted to manipulate the faithful. It emerged in a small church and persisted under close civic and canonical control. This continuity is not conclusive proof by itself. But combined with histology and the medical profile reported by Linoli and colleagues, it becomes a weighty case.

The blood type AB is another point of interest. It is not common in Italy; its distribution varies by region. That both the tissue and the blood register as AB is suggestive to those who make comparisons with other relics (for example, the Shroud of Turin is also recorded as showing AB in some analyses). For many believers the concordance of blood types in Eucharistic miracles adds a pattern. For investigators, patterns demand careful sampling and replication. Lanciano gives both pattern and a sample that needs continued scholarly attention.

Theologically, Lanciano matters because it responds to a particular modern wound: the desacralized body. We live in a world that sanitizes flesh and makes blood metaphor alone. Lanciano returns blood and flesh to sacred duties: to become our food, the means of new life. It is the heart of Christ given back to the world.

Addressing Objections

Skepticism is a civic virtue. Genuine inquiry must be welcomed. Objections commonly raised include: the possibility of human tampering, medieval fraud, misinterpretation of histology, contamination, or flawed testing procedures. Each is worth addressing.

Tampering and fraud. The relics’ chain of custody and civic keys make a late forgery difficult. The relics were in continuous possession of the friary and the community. They were hidden and then exposed multiple times. To suggest a modern fabrication would require collusion across centuries. Not impossible, but improbable.

Misidentification. Could the tissue be non-cardiac? The investigators reported myocardial structure. Modern independent histologists should continue testing using current methods. The Church does not keep science out of the conversation. It opens the box, lets science speak, and then listens as the faithful interpret.

Testing standards. The 1970s tests were authoritative in their time. Science advances. That is why Lanciano should be re-examined using contemporary protocols. The Church permits such reexamination under controlled conditions. But absence of modern retesting does not invalidate the earlier results. It is simply an opportunity for more study.

Natural explanations. Some hypothesize an extraordinary natural process could have produced the tissues. That possibility requires articulation of a mechanism. How would wheat bread become myocardium and wine become stable human blood? No known natural process achieves that transformation in controlled conditions. The phenomenon, therefore, remains exceptional.

How Lanciano Informs Devotion and Public Life

For the believer, Lanciano is more than a museum piece. It is an evangelical tool. It calls people back to the altar. It has been used by pastors and preachers to underscore the Eucharist’s reality. People report conversions and deepened devotion after visiting. It has been the locus of public adoration. Pilgrimages continue. The city has framed the relics as both religious treasure and civic patrimony.

For evangelists litigating with modernity, Lanciano is an argument that faith can be anchored in sign and reason. For the poet it is a metaphor of redemption rendered in flesh. For the physician it is an enigma that invites study. For the skeptic it is a provocation to test honestly.

Conclusion: The Heart Speaks

The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano sits at the intersection of history, science, and faith. A doubting monk experienced a revelation of presence. A town safeguarded the relics through centuries. Scientific inquiry in the 20th century found human myocardium and AB blood in the samples. Church custodianship and civic involvement provided continuity. Scripture supplies the theological grammar to receive the sign. The result is not a tidy proof in the way a laboratory theorem is proved, but it is a concatenation of facts, witnesses, and tests that together form a public and persuasive sign.

Luke’s words remain: “This is my body.” John’s words remain: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Lanciano is a reply in flesh and blood. It asks for reverence, scrutiny, prayer, and above all a conversion of the heart. It is not meant to coerce belief. It is meant to invite it.

Make of this what your conscience demands. If you come as a doubter, come prepared to be surprised. If you come as a believer, come prepared to see the heart of Christ made visible. If you come as an investigator, come prepared to pursue more testing, more peer review, and more honest public inquiry. But come. The relics still sit under crystal. The five clots remain. The piece of flesh still looks like heart muscle. The town still rings its bells. And the Mass continues, every day, where bread and wine become — by the Lord’s word — more than signs. They become presence.

~ by Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

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