Eucharistic miracle in Alberta, Canada

On July 18, 1946, Father Gino C. Violini stood before a small wooden

church in a little town nestled in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies in
Southern Alberta. St. Joseph's was a forlorn, nearly-abandoned little
mission church.

A small group of people gathered around this man dressed in

mourning. They said they didn't need a priest; Cowley didn't need a priest,
and if it ever came to pass that they needed one, they would inform Bishop
Carroll of the fact. Furthermore, they didn't want to see him reading his
breviary, and he could get rid of that cassock.

He celebrated his first Mass at St. Joseph's the following Sunday. There

were nine people in the pews. Well, he had to start somewhere, and he
delivered the best sermon ever, in his opinion, to those nine people. The
following Sunday, there were only four who had come to adore their God.

The next two years were not crowned with success. The collection was

laughable. He could afford a loaf of bread which he'd cut into seven parts,
one part for each day of the week, and feasted on dandelion salad. Winter
is an especially cruel season in Cowley, and he'd find his blankets snow
covered when he awoke in the morning, as the rectory walls were split
open from the many seasons that had dried and shrunk the logs apart. His
first Christmas collection was a dollar and thirteen cents. The church was no warmer than the rectory, so
the water would freeze in the cruets, even though he placed them on a little coal stove.

Father had had it. One day he sat down and wrote a sixteen-page letter, addressed to Bishop Francis P.

Carroll, the gist of which was — this town is a write-off, and I want to stamp the dust of it off my feet. The
Bishop rejected each and all of his requests for a transfer, and told him to stay put. He had full confidence
in Father Violini, and he expected him to bring about a full Catholic revival in this parish, which had been so
long neglected. After the latest of these rebuffs, Father was ready to pray for a noble death. But he was in
for a great revelation.

On the feast of Corpus Christi, he awoke early and headed for the church for morning prayers. As he

walked to the church, he noticed the front door hanging off its hinges. He hurried in and gazed at a scene of
great destruction. The walls were in shambles, the statues destroyed and then he noticed the tabernacle
had been split open and the consecrated Hosts were scattered down the main aisle. One by one, he
gathered them up, counting each one. They were all there except the large Benediction Host which he could
find nowhere.

It was raining, The gray sky reflected his anguish. He notified Father Harrington of the Crowsnest

deanery who quickly organized a search party of some two-thousand people. They searched Bellevue and
Hillcrest, Blairemore and Coleman; some came from as far as Michel and Natal in British Columbia, yet
none of the people of Cowley would help. The search party combed miles of Highway 3. The Royal Canadian
Mounted Police picked up two suspects at Cowley, and questioned them at Blairemore. They had stolen a
pickup truck, and abandoned it down the highway when the police had discovered them.

Father Gino recognized them as transients from Lethbridge who had been seated next to him at a

baseball game a couple days before, and who were looking to find work in the coal mines at Crowsnest
Pass. He listened to the questioning by Sergeant Parsons: “Remember, it may not mean much to you or to
me, but you fellows stole his Jesus.” Father explained the meaning of the Blessed Sacrament to them, and
how precious it is to Catholics. He then offered to drop all the charges if they would tell him where they had
discarded the Host.

Touched by his explanation, they began to show remorse and offered to help find It. One admitted to

having discarded it through the truck window just before the police took them into custody. He didn't know
what it was, but he knew it was incriminating evidence. The rain had hardly stopped when they all piled into
the police cruiser, the two suspects still handcuffed. Father calculated that if the Host had been dropped as
these two men had said, the search parties would surely have found it if the rain had not dissolved it. It
was about six o'clock that evening when they arrived at the spot. The sky was clearing; there was a bit of
blue in the West.

As they rounded a corner east of Bellevue, they all saw the Host suspended in midair beside the

highway. Beautiful rays of coloured light shone from it. Even before the car had stopped, Father

leaped from the car and ran towards this astonishing sight. Sergeant Parsons was right behind him.
Father fell to his knees in adoration, overcome with joy and wonder. Sergeant Parsons did likewise,
and landed in a pool of mud.

Father stood up and reached for the Host. It looked as white and fresh as the day he had

consecrated it. As he touched it, they heard: “Father Gino, please take me back to Cowley.”

Here was Christ on the road, asking to be returned to a desecrated church; to a parish that Father had

long wanted to leave. As they returned to Cowley, Sergeant Parson's eyes constantly left the road to gaze
at the wonder Father held there, beside him. The Bishop arrived the next day. He told Father Gino that he
would be the one to rededicate the church. The Bishop prayed with him in the devastated sanctuary. As he
finished, he turned to Father Gino to say: “Great changes will soon take place in this parish.”

Sergeant Parsons came to ask for instruction a few days later. His wife and children soon joined him,

and later two of his constables from Pincher Creek. As time went on, more and more Catholics began to
return to their church. The parish mission was so popular that the beer hall shut down when it was in
progress. The patrons, many of whom were not Catholic, would carry the bar stools to the church to listen
to Father's sermons. They even had to take out the pot-bellied stove to make room for everyone.

The little church, so long abandoned, was now full to overflowing every Sunday.

Paul Fournier

Who can doubt the Real Presence?

On the evening of the last day of his

October 1995 visit to the United States, Pope
John Paul II was scheduled to greet the
seminarians at St. Mary's Seminary in
Baltimore. It had been a very full day,
beginning with Mass at the Oriole Park in
Camden Yards, followed by a parade through
the downtown streets, a visit to the Basilica of
The Assumption, the first cathedral in the
country, lunch at a local soup kitchen, run by
the Catholic Charities, a prayer service at the
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in the north
Baltimore area, and finally a quick stop at St.
Mary's Seminary.

The schedule was tight so the plan was to

simply greet the seminarians while they stood
outside on the steps. But Pope John Paul II
made his way through their ranks and into the
building. His plan was first to make a visit to
the Blessed Sacrament. When his wishes were
made known, security personnel quickly flew
into action ahead of the Pope. Their activities
included a sweep of the building, paying closest attention to the chapel where
Pope John Paul II would be praying. For this purpose, highly trained dogs were
used to detect any persons who might be present.

The dogs are trained to locate living people in collapsed buildings after

earthquakes and other disasters. These intelligent and eager canines went
through their rounds in the halls, offices and classrooms quickly, and were then
sent into the chapel. They went up and down the aisles and past the pews, and
finally into the side chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. Upon
reaching the tabernacle, the dogs sniffed and whined and pointed, refusing to
leave; they were convinced that they discovered SOMEONE there and firmly
remained, their attention riveted to the tabernacle, until called out by the
handlers. We Catholics know they were right; they found a REAL LIVING PERSON
in the tabernacle!

This article was published in the August-September, 2004 issue of “Michael”.

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