News Item: : St. John the Evangelist - Eucharistic Miracles - Francis - Fr. Godfrey Aloysius Carney
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
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Tuesday 11 September 2018 - 15:12:52

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Adoremus in Aeternum: Eucharistic Adoration at the High Altar of St. John's, Fountains Road, Kirkdale in Liverpool.

St. John the Evangelist

Another beautiful church with deep significance for many Catholics in the Liverpool area is St. John the Evangelist on Fountains Road, Kirkdale. Here it was that the late, great, Fr. Godfrey Aloysius Carney ministered to souls for many years.

Exhibition of Eucharistic Miracles

St. John's, Fountains Road, was also one of the venues for the International Exhibition of Eucharistic Miracles, which was hosted there during the Adoremus Eucharistic Congress last weekend.

The International Exhibition is a marvellous collection of photographs and factual data, which has been compiled into a series of accessible display presentations, in order to spread awareness of some of the awe-inspiring Eucharistic Miracles, by which Our Blessed Lord has, at key times, tangibly demonstrated the absolute truth of His Real Presence - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity - in the Most Holy Eucharist of the Catholic Church.

The exhibition is particularly special, because it was created by Carlo Acutis, the Servant of God. He was a young lad from Milan, who was blessed with a remarkable gift for understanding and working with computers. Carlo also did volunteer work for children and the elderly.

At the depths of his heart, Carlo had received the graces of a deep Catholic faith, love for Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Mass and Our Lady. As such, he prayed the Rosary daily and loved to remain in prayer before the Tabernacle. He famously said: ''Our aim has to be the infinite and not the finite. The infinite is our homeland. We have always been expected in Heaven.''

It was his love for Our Blessed Lord, and for souls, which inspired Carlo to use his computer skills to develop website materials to promote the Eucharistic Miracles through an online exhibition. Data and imagery from that exhibition is also displayed on the posters and stands of the mobile international exhibition.

Young Carlo died in 2006 from fulminant leukaemia. He was just 15 years of age. He amazed others by his ability to offer up his sufferings for the Church and for the Pope.

Buenos Aires

When viewing the Exhibition of Eucharistic Miracles, I was struck by the fact that, being listed in an A-Z format, Argentina was the very first on the list.

More specifically, the tremendous Eucharistic Miracle at the parish of St. Mary in Buenos Aires; a parish which was at that time under the jurisdiction of none other than, then, Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio. 
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On 15th August, 1996, a communicant, who was receiving the Sacred Host in the hand, inadvertently dropped the Host. To add to these distressing facts, this person left the Host, as though it were now ''dirty''. Another person informed the priest and the Sacred Host was placed in a vessel of water, to allow It to dissolve.

On 26th August, the Host was found not to have dissolved at all. Instead, It was showing red stains. These increased by the day. The priests of the parish went to see Archbishop Bergoglio. Apparently, it was decided to wait before proceeding with investigations.

In 1999, Archbishop Bergoglio was made aware that Professor Castanon was performing scientific investigations for free and he was permitted to take up the case.

Whilst interviewing the priests, the professor became aware of another Eucharistic miracle at the same parish in 1992. In that case, the Sacred Host had also been left in water without dissolving. A lady chemist from the parish had been allowed to carry out tests and she had been surprised to find that the Host was presenting white blood cells - leukocyte formula - which were active.

Professor Castanon, having received authorisation from the CDF, took samples from these two Hosts to the Forensic Analytical forensics laboratory in San Francisco.

On 28th January, 2000, the scientists there found traces of human blood, containing human genetic code. In March of that year, Prof. Robert Lawrence, a famous legal histopathologist and top expert on tissues, found human skin and white blood cells in the samples from the Hosts.

In 2001, Professor Castanon took the samples to Professor Linoli, who identified the white blood cells and suggested that the samples most probably corresponded to heart tissue. The results of these tests were similar to those performed on the famous Miracle of Lanciano - which, of course, dates to the 8th-Century.

In 2002, Professor John Walker at Australia's University of Sydney, confirmed that the samples contained muscle cells and intact white blood cells.

At this point in the accounts, Professor Castanon impresses the fact that white blood cells outside the body typically disintegrate after 15-minutes. However, the samples were, at that time, displaying white blood cells after more than 6 years.

In September, 2003, Professor Lawrence confirmed that, in light of the new investigations, it could be concluded that the sample could correspond to that of an inflamed heart. This meant that the person who had died would have first suffered a great deal.

On 2 March, 2004, the two professors went with the samples to Professor Zugibe of New York, at Columbia University. He was the greatest expert in cardiac pathologies and forensic medicine of the heart. He was not told that the sample was from a Sacred Host.

After his own researches on the samples, Professor Zugibe concluded that the sample came from the myocardium, indeed the left ventricle, of a patient who had suffered much before death. Moreover, the patient had laboured and suffered much, because every aspiration was painful. The patient had probably also suffered a blow at the level of the chest.

Even more incredibly - and it makes me weep as I type this today - Professor Zugibe stated that the patient's heart showed dynamic activity at the moment the sample was brought to him.

Professor Zugibe explained that this was because: ''The intact white blood cells are transported only by the blood and thus if white blood cells are here, it is because at the moment you bought me the sample it was pulsating.''

When Professor Zugibe was told that the sample had been brought not from a human patient, but from a Sacred Host, he was greatly moved.

Professor Castanon concludes that the myocardium is the muscle that gives life to the whole heart and to our body. He wrote: ''Rightly a theologian made me note that the fact that it was really the myocardium, was not casual but contained a real symbolism. The Lord in this miracle wanted to show us His myocardium, which is the muscle that gives life to the whole heart, just as the Eucharist does with the Church. And why the left ventricle? Because from it comes the purified blood and Jesus is the One Who purifies His Church from her sins... ''Doctor'' - Professor Zugibe said to me again - ''at the moment in which you brought me this sample, this heart was alive!''

Finally, Professor Castanon wrote that Professor Zugibe's report was sent out on 26th March, 2005. This was five and a half years after the commencement of the studies on the samples. The conclusions were: ''They are tissues of the heart, undergoing degenerative changes of the myocardium and these changes are due to the fact that the cells are inflamed and it is the left ventricle of the heart.''

Professor Castanon brought those results to, then, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio on 17th March, 2006.

A Message for Our Times - And for Francis?

Dear readers, I cannot write of these things without two things: the movement of my heart expressed in many tears to think of Our Blessed Lord's sufferings and the unfathomable gift of His Love and Real Presence in the Most Holy Eucharist; and the notable fact that this incredible miracle occurred in the diocese which was at that time being run by Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio.

It seems to me that this was given as an extraordinary grace, even an extraordinary warning, because of the extraordinary dangers which were coming on the Church.

Could it perhaps have been a superabundant outpouring of love and truth to confound Christ's enemies?

The more I think of these things, the more this seems to me to be the case.

And if so, how has Francis responded? Why has he not expedited this case from the heart of Rome? Why, instead does he not kneel before the Blessed Sacrament? Why were the synods of 2014-2015, and the confusion over Amoris Laetitia, permitted to cause such confusion regarding sacrilegious communions?

At the same time, I also see, all around me in the Church and on-line, so many good souls becoming desperate and focusing so much on the evil that they are in danger of being pulled into it; and even to exacerbate the damage being done to the Church in a fury which, without the guidance of deep prayer, penance and submission to an orthodox spiritual director, can at times confuse passion for zeal.

This is a temptation for all of us.

I pray that, instead of being pulled into the darkness, that those who read this, as well as ourselves, will be able to find refreshed hope through the wonderful Eucharistic Miracle of Buenos Aires.

And also by the other great examples gathered together by Carlo Acutis, the Servant of God, in his International Exhibition of Eucharistic Miracles.

Fr. Goldfrey Aloysius Carney - Priest of God

I cannot conclude today, without a mention of a great and holy priest who so influenced my life in the 1990's that he became a kind of subconscious gold standard of priesthood for me.

I speak, of course, of the late, great, Fr. Godfrey Aloysius Carney, former parish priest at the aforementioned St. John's Church on Fountains Road; the venue for last weekend's display of Carlo Acuti's International Exhibition of the Eucharistic Miracles.
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One only has to consider his photograph to discern that Fr. Carney was indeed a holy man of God.

It was 10 years ago last week since Fr. Carney's funeral took place at St. John's. When he died, he was 98 years of age, and had served as a Catholic priest for an incredible 74 years!

I met Fr. Carney in the mid-1990's, through attendance at the Fatima First Saturday devotions which he used to help to host.

Fr. Carney was faithful, orthodox, humble and deeply prayerful. He was also blessed with a great sense of humour, and that kind of old time Catholic mirth which one still sometimes encounters in true Catholics; who know to take life seriously, but not too seriously.

That being said, Fr. Carney, who offered the Traditional Latin Mass, had an acute sense of awareness of the spiritual battle of these times.

He also used to teach that, as a Catholic, Tradition was everything that you had and needed. One could not really be a Catholic, unless one were Traditional.

During his First Saturday sermons in the mid-1990's, Fr. Carney's words impressed on me the importance of holiness and integrity in one's walk with Christ. His words challenged me to take seriously the need for purity of heart and to discard so much of the rubbish which passes for media entertainment and popular culture in our deplorable age.

He was also very clear about the offensiveness of some such things to our Heavenly Father. When the Liverpool-based television soap-opera Brookside featured a storyline about incest, Fr. Carney railed against it and suggested that it was perhaps only down to the few faithful ladies, who prayed so devoutly during those First Saturdays, that God had not poured down His chastisements on the world for such sins.

In a much more calm and reassuring voice, he then said to those ladies: ''God bless you... You are like the 10 good people of Nineveh.''

In 2004, just days before we were going to America for two years for further studies at Steubenville, Angie and I had a quiet few moments with the great man, during the evening of celebrations for his 70th anniversary of priestly ordination.

By God's grace, I'll never forget how he said that he had felt the Holy Ghost working through him at his ordination in 1934; and how he had felt that power working through his hands every single day that he had offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass since then.

I must say that, whenever his Mass was attended, one was profoundly aware of this power and mystery; such was the nature of his reverence, devotion, manner and speech.

I remember Fr. Carney as a true shepherd, lovingly tending his flock amidst dangers, leading them to the wellsprings of salvation and warding off the wolves when they ventured too close.

Something of the measure of his impact in Liverpool could be discerned by the fact that St. John's church on Fountains Road was packed to standing room at his funeral 10 years ago.

Dear readers, in the midst of the horrors of these times for the Church, let us not lose sight of the kind of graces shared here today.

Philippians 4:8: For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, any praise of discipline, think on these things.

Keep the Faith!

St. John the Evangelist - Pray for us!

Carlo Acutis, the Servant of God - pray for us!



This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.1778 )