O Cebreiro

A Humble Shrine for a Holy Miracle

During our recent pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago, my husband and I were surprised and blessed to have the opportunity to visit the site of a little-known Eucharistic Miracle.

Atop a 1293-meter-high pass on a mountain ridge in the Galician region of Northern Spain, there is a tiny weather-beaten hamlet called O Cebreiro. The village is a collection of ancient stone buildings, including pre-Roman Celtic roundhouses, one of the French Camino’s oldest hospitals (lodging for pilgrims), and the ancient church, Santa Maria la Real.

Not long after the tomb of St. James the Greater (brother of John) was rediscovered in Compostela, pilgrims began trekking the Camino de Santiago to venerate his remains. There are several routes across Europe and Spain, but one of the most traveled then and now is the French Way, or the Camino Frances. The tiny church of Santa Maria la Real (St. Mary the Royal) was built in the year 813 AD, to serve pilgrims who climbed this pass on the Camino. In 1072, King Alfonso the VI of Leon & Castile elevated the church and adjacent monastery to the status of hospital and placed them in the care of Benedictine monks.

Fray Antonio de Yepes, a Spanish Benedictine monk who lived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, chronicled the events that are described below.

Briefly, the record shows that around the year 1300, during a brutal winter storm, a monk of Santa Maria parish was preparing to offer the Mass. His faith in the Holy Sacrifice had departed from him, and he no longer believed that the bread and wine would truly become the Body and Blood of Our Lord. His preparations were interrupted by the arrival of a local farmer, Juan Santin, from the nearby village of Barxamaior. Juan was devoted to the Holy Mass, and had traveled up the steep mountain through the blizzard to the church, arriving soaked through and terribly cold. The monk condescendingly thought “Who would come all this way in such weather just to gaze upon a bit of bread and wine?” The monk admonished the man for his foolhardy sacrifice, but the farmer made no reply. The monk went on to say Mass, though irreverently.

Fray Antonio de Yepes continues:

Then it was that the Lord, who works His wonders in the depths of the earth and in the hidden places of the world, so revealed His glory in that church that, transforming the host into flesh and the wine into blood, He opened the eyes of that miserable minister who had doubted and rewarded such great devotion as that good man had shown in coming to hear Mass with so many discomforts.

As the monk said the prayers of the consecration, the host in his hands became flesh, and drops of blood fell upon the corporal below. At the same time, the wine in the chalice became blood. The monk fell to his knees, stricken with remorse, and uttered the words of St. Thomas: my Lord and my God. Through this incredible miracle, the belief of the monk was restored, and the devotion and sacrifice of the farmer were rewarded.

Nearly 150 fifty years later, Kind Ferdinand and Queen Isabel made a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. They stayed the night at the monastery and learned of the miracle. The next day they moved to carry the blessed vessels with them to a place under royal protection, deeming the tiny church on the remote mountain pass an unsuitable location for such important relics. After traveling only a short distance, their horses halted, and refused to move forward. The entire entourage dismounted, overcome with fear and humility, and retreating on foot, returned the precious relics to their place of origin. The monarchs later donated the sealed reliquary which houses Jesus’ body and blood to this day.

Inside the Church of Santa Maria la Real, the holiness of this place is acknowledged only through the overwhelming number of red candles burning in front of the altar and along the interior walls. To some, this little stone church seems far too humble a home for the miraculous body and blood of our Lord. It seemed so to Queen Isabel and to me. Camino guide and author Curtis Williams answers this question eloquently:

If, like Queen Isabel, we find our faith straining to believe that Christ might manifest Himself so gloriously, in such a remote and insignificant hamlet tucked away in a corner of Europe, in response to the faith of a simple farmer, we only need to recall His first manifestation to the equally simple shepherds, in a similarly remote and hidden village tucked away in a corner of Judaea, in response to their hopes for the coming of the Messiah.