In the year 1597, a thief stole consecrated Hosts along with some precious objects from a church not far from Alcalá, Spain. A few days later, the thief returned full of profound remorse and went to confess his sins at the church of the Jesuits.
The priest who heard his confession had him return the Hosts however, for the sake of prudence, asked him to foster the Eucharist in a silver box, without consuming it. After eleven years the Hosts were still perfectly intact and after careful analysis, both medical and theological, the act was declared miraculous.
In 1597, a penitent bandit brought himself to confession at the Jesuit church of Alcalá.
He was said to have been part of a band of Moorish gypsies who, after being dispersed from the nearby mountains, had sacked numerous churches and stole monstances and other sacred objects in different countries, committing many sacrilegious acts.
The penitent brought with him some consecrated Hosts that he delivered to the confessor with many fears. The confessor very moved and went immediately to his superior and inform him.
Initially it was agreed to consume the Hosts during a Mass, but later, fearing they could be poisoned as had recently been done to some priests in Murcia and Segovia, it was decided to keep the Hosts in a box made of silver and to allow them to decompose naturally.
Eleven years later the twenty-four Hosts were found still intact. The mystic Father Luis de la Palma, in his capacity as Provincial, ordered that the Hosts be placed in a wine cellar along with some unconsecrated hosts.
A few months later, the unconsecrated hosts had decomposed from the humidity, while the consecrated Hosts remained intact. Six years later Father Palma decided to make public the Miracle of the Hosts that were still intact.
New academic and medical tests from the room of His Majesty, Garcia Carrera, as well as numerous illustrious theologians came to identify this as a true Miracle.
In 1619 ecclesiastical authorities officially authorized the veracity of the Miracle. The Holy Hosts were publicly adored before King Phillip III, who in 1620 presided over a solemn procession in which the whole royal family participated.
When Charles III expelled the Jesuits from Spain, the Sacred Hosts were moved to the magistrial church. In 1936, when the communists revolutionists burned the church, the priests carefully hid the miraculous Hosts prior to being murdered. However, still today it has not been found where the Hosts were hidden.
There have been many surveys in the church and in the crypt, but to no avail. Nobody until today had published any news of the twenty-four Sacred Hosts. "God has made a new miracle!" exclaimed the wise biographer of the city, Don Anselmo Raymundo Tornero, who has transmitted this story to us meticulously in his work.