Years ago, like back in the 90s, I saw a home video taken by some guy from Podunk, America who had been dragged by his wife to make a pilgrimage to Betania, Venezuela. He was clearly my kinda guy: there because he wanted to keep peace with the Missus, not because he really thought there was an apparition of Mary happening there.
In token of his rather casual relationship with his faith, he brought a video camera (tape, not digital: this was long before sophisticated computer manipulation of images by even fabulously rich movie studios was normative, much less by ordinary schlubs). He proceeded to tape the Mass that was being celebrated on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8, 1991).
The priest celebrating the Mass consecrated the Host and set it down on the paten and then proceeded to consecrate the Cup.
When he returned to the Host, he was stunned to find a red dot on it and even more stunned to find that as he picked it up, the dot began to run and drip off the Host on to the paten. Amazed, he stopped the Mass and called whoever wished to look to come up and see it for themselves. Among the crowd was the guy with his video camera who got very good closeup footage of the Eucharist continuing to drip blood (for so it was found to be upon lab analysis: AB+).
The Church, upon investigation, has approved the apparition at Betania as authentic and regard it as having a “supernatural character”.
Unsurprisingly, I agree. That doesn’t mean I have to have a devotion to Our Lady of Betania. But it does mean that it opposes neither faith nor reason to regard the Eucharistic Miracle at Betania as an aid to faith and a powerful reminder of what is always happening in every Eucharistic consecration in every apostolic Church in the whole wide world. That’s the purpose of private revelation: to point us back to the public revelation.
I think of that as I ponder this incident in Matthew’s gospel:
And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather; for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed. (Mt 16:1–4)
This is often read by skeptics as Jesus refusing to do a miracle because he could do no miracles. But this is take this passage radically out of context. Matthew is a skilled and subtle literary craftsman and he puts his materials together with unusual care. His whole gospel, for instance, is carefully divisible into five books (with the infancy and passion narratives as bookends) for a reason: Torah is made of five books and he means for us to see Jesus as the New Moses giving us a new covenant.
The passage above does not stand in isolation. It follows hard on the heels of the second of the two Eucharistic Miracle narratives Matthew records: the feeding of the four thousand. Notably, all the gospels record at least one story of the Miraculous Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes and one of them–John–explicitly spells out what the synoptics leave us to work out for ourselves: that this miracle is a foreshadow of the even greater miracle of the Eucharist.
The Pharisees and Sadducees (normally mutual enemies) come to Jesus immediately following the second miracle performed in broad daylight before thousands of eyewitnesses. Incredibly, they are demanding a sign. Jesus is not refusing them their sign. He is saying “I’ve already given it–twice! And you refuse to see it.” That is his point about not reading the signs of the times. His further point is that because they refuse to see, they will help bring about the last and greatest of his signs in their hostility to him: his resurrection after his judicial murder at their hands.
That is why, immediately following this exchange, Jesus brings his disciples back to the Eucharistic signs they saw with their own two eyes and warns them to avoid the way of the Pharisees and Sadducees:
When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “We brought no bread.” But Jesus, aware of this, said, “O men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? How is it that you fail to perceive that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (Mt 16:5–12)
And it is why he naturally segues from that to the first of several prophecies of the death and resurrection that the Eucharist will memorialize. His point is not to give into hardness of heart that blinds them to what they have seen with their own two eyes, but to trust him and receive in faith this sacrament of his risen body so that they can likewise share in his death and resurrection:
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Mt 16:13–25)
Like most Christians, I struggle with doubt sometimes. But my mind goes back to the truth of Christ’s Body and Blood offered to me and for me in every Eucharist I have ever received. I also have seen with my own two eyes not just this Eucharistic Miracle that, with many others, testifies to the truth Jesus has spoken. I have seen many other signs of his fidelity to us: signs that give me hope and help me to have faith that he is in control no matter how bad things get. I am grateful to him for that gift.
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