The Traveling Eucharistic Miracles Exhibit

As part of its efforts to promote devotion to the Holy Eucharist and the ongoing National Eucharistic Revival, the Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey has developed a traveling Eucharistic Miracles Exhibit. 

The Eucharistic Miracles Exhibit is a circular display with seven sections that guide the viewer through eighteen centuries of eucharistic miracles beginning in the 3rd Century A.D. and culminating in 2013. The Exhibit shows Eucharistic Miracles that have occurred around the world, including in Argentina, Germany, Austria, Poland, Italy, Egypt and India.  The Exhibit is interactive; using a smartphone and QR codes, the viewer can delve deeper into the miracles.

The exhibit is being shown in parishes throughout the Diocese of Trenton and also in the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey.  In addition, the exhibit is scheduled to appear in parishes in the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey, the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania.  For a listing of the exhibit’s scheduled locations, see https://dioceseoftrenton.org/eucharistic-miracles-exhibit  .

The Eucharistic Miracles Exhibit is based upon a website developed by Blessed Carlo Acutis.  Carlo Acutis was an extraordinary young man with an extraordinary devotion to Jesus and the Eucharist.  He was born in London, England on 3 May 1991 to Italian parents.  His stay in England was brief as his parents soon after returned to Italy.  Even though his parents were not practicing Catholics, Carlo was exceptionally pious from an early age.  At age seven, he made his First Communion and thereafter began attending Daily Mass.  He was also exceptionally gifted with computer technology and was a self-taught computer programmer. He was particularly fascinated with Eucharistic Miracles and so he created a website detailing them.  (See http://www.miracolieucaristici.org/en/Liste/list.html  ). 

In the summer of 2006, Carlo was diagnosed with childhood leukemia.  He offered his sufferings for Jesus, the Church and Pope Benedict XVI. On 12 October 2006, he died from the disease at the age of fifteen. He was beatified at the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi on 10 October 2020. “Yesterday, in Assisi, Carlo Acutis, a 15-year-old youth enamoured of the Eucharist, was beatified,” said Pope Francis I during his Sunday Angelus at the Vatican. “He did not ease into comfortable immobilism, but understood the needs of his time, because he saw the face of Christ in the weakest. His witness indicates to today's young people that true happiness is found by putting God in first place and serving Him in our brothers and sisters, especially the least.”  

Recently, my wife Lisa and I took our children to experience the Eucharistic Miracles Exhibit when it was being hosted by a parish in our Diocese.   We came away from the exhibit with a deeper reverence for the Eucharist. We also were impressed by Blessed Carlo Acutis’s extraordinary devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist which prompted him to create his Eucharistic Miracles website.