During Easter of 1290 a non-believer who harbored animosity toward the Faith and did not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was able to gain possession of a consecrated Host with the intent to desecrate it.
He stabbed the Host and threw it into boiling water. The Host came out of the water by itself right in front of the man who was distressed by this and so put the Host in the basin of a pious woman.
The woman immediately brought the Host to her pastor.
There are numerous documents that testify to the events of this miracle.
The Italian historian Giovanni Villani in Book VII, Chapter 136, of his celebrated History of Florence reports all the principal facts of the miracle. A deep study of the sources was done by Mrs.
Goerres-Rendu in a work entitled : A Paris, Rue des Jardins published in 1954 with a preface by Bishop Tounè who was the Auxiliary Bishop of Paris.
The study after a detailed list of the documents, placed them under rigorous examination and declared with confidence the authenticity of the facts.
The best known version of the story is found in the History of the Church of Dies written by the French archbishop Archbishop Runge, who tells of the Eucharistic Miracle of Paris in the pages dedicated to the episcopate of Simon Matifas of Busay who held the See of St.
Denis
from 1290 to 1304: Easter Sunday, April 2, 1290, a man named Jonathan, who hated the Catholic Faith and did not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the unconsecrated Host, was able to gain possession of a consecrated Host.
The man stabbed the Host with a knife and the Host began to bleed. The blood filled the container in which he had placed the Host.
Panic-stricken, the man decided to throw the Host into the fire, but the Host came out of the fire by itself.
Desperate, he threw the Host into boiling water and the Host freed itself from the water hovering in mid-air and then taking the form of a crucifix.
Finally, he deposited the Host in the bowl of a parishioner of Saint-Jean-en-Grève who brought it to her parish priest. Over the centuries, the Host remained in a small reliquary in the church of Saint-Jean.
During the French Revolution it was lost without a trace."
Here are some of other equally significant facts: The ecclesiastical authorities, the people and the king decided to transform the home of the one who desecrated the Host into a chapel where the Sacred Host would be kept: the canonization of the house of Jonathan, called "The House of Miracles," by King Phillip the Fair which was registered in a bull of note from 1291: the transformation of his house into an oratory after the Bull that was obtained from Pope Boniface VIII; the name of the "Rue du Dieu benoît" ["The Street of God-boiled given by the people of Paris to the "Rue des Jardins": the Eucharistic celebration in the Chapel des Billettes of the Department of the Reparation on the second Sundays of Advent and Lent.
Desperate, he threw the Host into boiling water and the Host freed itself from the water hovering in mid-air and then taking the form of a crucifix.
Ancient carving which represents the event of the miracle.