Thursday, November 4, 2010

Eucharistic Miracle of Bettbrun, Germany 1125

The building of the village of Bettbrunn and of the present-day Church of the Holy Savior owe their existence to a Eucharistic miracle that took place in 1125. In the place where the town and the church are located now, there was once only a small farm called Viehbrunn; next to it was a well that was used to give water to the livestock. The owner was a man who was deeply devoted to the Most Holy Sacrament. This man lived an hour and a half away from the parish church of Tholling and he was not always able to attend Mass. Because of his zeal, he decided to solve the problem of not always being able to attend church by secretly stealing a Sacred Host and taking the Blessed Sacrament home with him. The farmer took the stick that he always brought with him and made an opening on the top end of it, into which he placed the Sacred Host. Every day, when the livestock were resting, he stuck his stick into the ground and knelt before the Most Holy Sacrament for many hours. For several months, the man continued in this manner until one day, without thinking, he impulsively threw the stick with the Blessed Sacrament at a herd that had strayed too far.


The Host fell on the ground and the farmer, deeply saddened, bent down to pick up the Blessed Sacrament. Every attempt to lift the Host up proved to be futile and when he did not know what else to do he sent for the parish priest of Tholling. But the priest was also not able to pick up the Blessed Sacrament and finally they approached the Bishop Hartwich of Regensburg, who immediately went to the place of the miracle with all his clergymen. Only when he promised to build a chapel in that place did he succeed in picking up the Host from the ground. In 1125, the building of the chapel was completed and the precious relic was kept in this place until 1330 when a fire destroyed everything.


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