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THOMASTON, CT (WFSB) - The Archdiocese of Hartford is looking into the possibility of an extremely rare miracle at Saint Thomas Church in Thomaston.

This is potentially something incredible, and people Channel 3 talked to in Thomaston are taking notice.

Father Joseph Crowley said there may have been an Eucharistic Miracle at the church earlier this month.

“What happened is our lord multiplied himself,” Crowley said.

Crowley said earlier this month, as an Eucharistic minister was handing out host, which is bread for communion, a miracle happened.

The number of hosts that minister had actually went up instead of down.

“We really do celebrate the life, death, resurrection of Jesus Christ and the alter, that the Eucharist really is the body soul and divinity of Jesus Christ and that all things are possible with God,” said Crowley.

When the minister suspected they were running out of hosts to pass out, Crowley said they glanced around to find more, but when that minister looked back down, more hosts had appeared.

By the time communion was over, Crowley said there seemed to be either as many or possibly even more hosts in the ciborium than there were when he had first handed it to the minister.

“It’s just so beautiful. God has been working so many miracles in our lives lately,” said Shaina Pia of Stratford.

Pia grew up in this church. When her mother-in-law told her what had happened, she piled her four kids into her car and drove up from Stratford to light candles and for those who need prayers and miracles.

“I think this is just a beautiful reminder from God during times that are challenging there’s always good in the world and that God is always present and with us,” Pia said.

“I feel like it gives people hope,” said Nestor Escalante.

When Escalante heard this happened minutes from his home in the small town of Thomaston, he was amazed.

“I believe in God and stuff like that and for something like this to happen so close to me, right there right in town, it’s pretty nice, might start going to the church,” said Escalante.

Eucharistic Miracles are extremely rare. In recorded history, there have only been about 100 total.

“This was one of those moments where God showed up in a very powerful, powerful way here. Pretty cool,” Crowley said.

“It doesn’t surprise me at all that god would come like he did in the manger of Bethlehem so long ago, come to a small little mighty humble town like this and make his presence real to all of us. He always does in Eucharist, but in this particular miracle especially,” said Pia.

The Archdiocese of Hartford said it’s looking into this possible miracle. Eyewitness News was told that could take about a week.

Possible Eucharistic miracle at St. Thomas Church

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The results of an investigation into the reports of a possible miracle at Thomaston’s St. Thomas Church have been sent to the Vatican.

On March 5, the Rev. Joseph Crowley, pastor of St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish, which includes St. Thomas, reported that during Holy Communion a lay person distributing hosts had found that the wafers had multiplied in the ciborium.

“God duplicated himself in the ciborium,” Crowley said after Communion. “God provides and it’s strange how God does that. And that happened.”

The Archdiocese of Hartford began an investigation into the report to determine whether a possible miracle had taken place.

Now, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has been notified and is conducting its own investigation.

David Elliott, spokesman for the archdiocese, issued a statement that “reports such as the alleged miracle in Thomaston require referral to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. The Archdiocese has proceeded accordingly, and will await a response in due time.”

Elliott said no other comment would be forthcoming from Archbishop Leonard Blair or the archdiocese. Crowley did not return a call seeking comment.

St. Thomas was the final parish served by the Rev. Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus. McGivney has been beatified and needs one more miracle to become a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. However, that miracle would have to be connected to someone praying to McGivney directly.

The dicastery is composed of two sections, one for discipline, which handles cases of sexual misconduct, and one for doctrine, which oversees “safeguarding faith and morals and protecting their integrity from errors,” according to the Vatican’s website.

A dicastery is a group of people assembled for worship or prayer.

Michael O’Neill, known as the Miracle Hunter, said while “I’d be highly surprised that they were able to have enough evidence to declare it a true eucharistic miracle,” if the archdiocese “truly had nothing to go on, they would in fact release a very generic statement.” He said it is unlikely that the livestreamed video of the Mass showed the increase in hosts, however.

O’Neill, author of “Science and the Miraculous: How the Church Investigates the Supernatural,” said the results of his investigation probably gave Blair good reason to forward the case to the Vatican.

“I’m guessing they have the testimony of numerous people who would have been able to say that they saw something or understood that this had to have been miraculous,” O’Neill said. “So I’m guessing they’re caught in the middle a little bit not having the hard evidence but having good testimony. So they’re looking for some guidance from the Vatican.”

In March, Blair told Fox 61, WTIC, that he had appointed a priest experienced in church law to investigate the incident. He told Fox 61 the outcome of the investigation would determine whether he needed to notify the Vatican.

Blair said in a statement to The Courant in March that, “As people of faith we know that miracles can and do happen, as they did during Christ’s earthly ministry. Miracles are divine signs calling us to faith or to deepen our faith.

“Roman Catholics experience a daily miracle because every time Mass is celebrated what was bread becomes the Body of Christ and what was wine becomes his Blood. Through the centuries this daily miracle has sometimes been confirmed by extraordinary signs from Heaven, but the Church is always careful to investigate reports of such signs with caution, lest credence is given to something that proves to be unfounded,” he said.

Blair also said then, “what has been reported to have occurred at our parish church in Thomaston, of which Blessed Michael McGivney was once Pastor, if verified, would constitute a sign or wonder that can only be attributed to divine power to strengthen our faith in the daily miracle of the Most Holy Eucharist. It would also be a source of blessing from Heaven for the effort that the U.S. Bishops are making to renew and deepen the faith and practice of our Catholic people with regard to this great Sacrament.”

O’Neill said the dicastery, previously known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, can take years to come to a decision but may only take months. He said the members of the dicastery, which includes cardinals and bishops, likely would not send out an investigative team but would look at the material Blair sends them.

If the dicastery determines that a miracle occurred in Thomaston, “The archdiocese will probably acknowledge that they’ve been in communication with this dicastery and will probably talk about the recommendations,” O’Neill said. “That’s most likely what will happen. It will not be that the pope gets up on Vatican Radio and makes a proclamation. That doesn’t happen.”

There have been four recent eucharistic miracles approved by the Vatican, O’Neill said: in Poland, Mexico and Argentina. The churches in those cases were permitted to erect a shrine, he said.

In Poland — Legnica in 2013 and iSokólka in 2008 — hosts, after accidentally falling to the floor, were determined to have traces of heart tissue in them. In 1996 in Buenos Aires, fragments of a host reportedly turned into blood. A similar event occurred in Tixtla, Mexico, in 2006, according to therealpresence.org.

“There are various types of eucharistic miracles, but the ones that are most remarkable, in my opinion, were on some rare occasions, the host is said to bleed human blood,” O’Neill said. “And according to Catholic belief, Catholics believe that at consecration, the bread and wine is not turned into a symbol of Jesus Christ but in the literal body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. It’s the most difficult of all Catholic beliefs for sure, but that is what the church actually teaches and what faithful Catholics believe.”

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the authoritative text on church teachings, a miracle is defined as “a sign or wonder such as a healing, or control of nature, which can only be attributed to divine power.”

Ed Stannard can be reached at [email protected].

WATERBURY, Conn. (WTNH) — A major water main break that affected Waterbury and surrounding towns on last week was officially repaired as of Tuesday morning.

According to Rob Langenauer, the superintendent of water for the City of Waterbury, the water main is back in service.

Last week, residents around the Waterbury region say discolored water ran from their faucets following a major water main break on Old Branch Road in Thomaston.

According to city officials, a 42″ pipe burst around 5 a.m., and an emergency contractor expedited the repair. Customers experienced discolored water until the repair is completed.

Langenauer said there is a lot of welding that needed to be done once the repair pipe kit is installed to provide pipe restraint.

The pressure within the pipe is approximately 150psi, so making sure the pipe is restrained and secured is “extremely important,” Langenauer said.

The break is in the heart of the system for the entire city and is essentially the “aorta” of the water system, he explained. Since many water lines needed to be rerouted, Langenauer said sediment was stirred up, causing the water to appear brown.

Langenauer said the water was safe to drink. However, he did not recommend running dishwashers or washing machines because the sediment can cause damage and discoloration.

“I just washed my rice and chicken, and I was worried that me and my family was going to get sick,” said Tenisha James, of Waterbury. “Like, do I have to throw this food away?”

James said she was cooking for her three children when she realized the water inside her Waterbury apartment was discolored.

“I first contacted my neighbor upstairs, and I said, ‘Hey, is your water brown,” James said. “She said, ‘Yeah, girl, it’s brown, too. What’s going on,’ and I said, ‘I have no idea.’

The 42″ diameter pipe that needs to be fixed had to be shipped from Illinois — as there is only one manufacturer that makes the type of pipe used in the system, Langenauer said. The pipe arrived last Wednesday morning.

“Since the pipe is very large it will take 2 to 4 hours to fill and vent the air within the pipe,” Langenauer said. “Removal of air is critical to when filling the main so it takes much care and caution so we want to get that done right. Weather has been a little tough with rain and then some thunderstorms later so we may be filling the main up early Saturday so we can do it right first time.”

Jimmy Bothroyd owns the property next to the break on Old Branch Road. He said water gushed over the bank and down the hill, washing out his company’s storage lot.

“I had all my water trailers there,” Bothroyd said. “The dirt, gravel was up on the bumpers.”

Langenauer said officials are still investigating the cause of the water main break but believe it was a power surge causing a generator to kick in.

Another official on scene told News 8 the pipe was from the 1970s and appeared to be fine, but rocks and other materials surrounding it may have shifted during the storm earlier this month.

A reported occurrence under investigation by the Archdiocese of Hartford as a possible miracle at a Roman Catholic church in Thomaston has similarities to Jesus’ miracle of multiplying the loaves and fishes, which itself resonates with the Last Supper, according to the chaplain of Albertus Magnus College.

But while the reported increase in Communion hosts occurred at St. Thomas Church, where the Rev. Michael McGivney served, the possibility that it would be the miracle that will raise him to sainthood is not highly likely, the Rev. Jordan Lenaghan, a Dominican friar, said Tuesday.

On March 5, after Communion had been distributed, the Rev. Joseph Crowley, pastor of St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish, which includes St. Thomas, announced that, during the Mass, “one of our eucharistic ministers was running out of hosts and yet they didn’t, and suddenly there’s more hosts in the ciborium.

“God duplicated himself in the ciborium,” Crowley said, as shown on a video of that portion of the Mass. “God provides and it’s strange how God does that. And that happened.”

He called the possible miracle “very powerful, very awesome, very real, very shocking. But also that happens. … It’s pretty cool.”

The event is being investigated by the Archdiocese of Hartford. David Elliott, spokesman for the archdiocese, said the investigation would take a week or two.

Archbishop Leonard Blair issued a statement Tuesday saying, “As people of faith we know that miracles can and do happen, as they did during Christ’s earthly ministry. Miracles are divine signs calling us to faith or to deepen our faith.

“Roman Catholics experience a daily miracle because every time Mass is celebrated what was bread becomes the Body of Christ and what was wine becomes his Blood. Through the centuries this daily miracle has sometimes been confirmed by extraordinary signs from Heaven, but the Church is always careful to investigate reports of such signs with caution, lest credence is given to something that proves to be unfounded.

“What has been reported to have occurred at our parish church in Thomaston, of which Blessed Michael McGivney was once Pastor, if verified, would constitute a sign or wonder that can only be attributed to divine power to strengthen our faith in the daily miracle of the Most Holy Eucharist. It would also be a source of blessing from Heaven for the effort that the U.S. Bishops are making to renew and deepen the faith and practice of our Catholic people with regard to this great Sacrament.”

Blair said further comment would be premature while the investigation continues.

In his homily Sunday, also recorded on video, Crowley said one of the eucharistic ministers “got a little nervous” because there weren’t enough hosts for the number of people in line.

“And as time went on, the hosts were being distributed. And then all of a sudden, the individual looked down, and all of a sudden there’s more hosts in the ciboria and kept giving the hosts out. There’s even more hosts in the ciboria, kept giving hosts out, and there’s even more hosts in the ciboria. So by the time everyone received Communion and I came back up to the altar, there was the same amount if not more hosts that I gave the individual in the ciboria.”

Crowley said, also during the homily, neither he nor the eucharistic minister had been praying for such a miracle. But he said it was something to think about.

“I think our Lord gave us one of the best moments of reflection for this Lent about himself, about the Eucharist,” he said, during the homily. “This isn’t like a play. It’s a liturgy. It’s the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that takes place right here on the altar every day.”

He said “the real miracle” is that, through the liturgy of the Eucharist, “our Lord then becomes the flesh and blood hidden under the mere presence of bread and wine.”

Lenaghan said even if it were determined that the multiplication of hosts was a miracle, it wouldn’t necessarily elevate McGivney, who has been beatified after one miracle was attributed to him, to sainthood.

“For a miracle to be attributed to someone who is in the process of canonization, that person has to be intentionally and solely asked in prayer for a miracle,” Lenaghan said. It doesn’t appear that that occurred.

“As far as I understand it, that would be the first place that I think they would go to investigate,” he said. “That said, it happened in the church where he was from and so one can’t discount that kind of intervention either.”

McGivney, who founded the Knights of Columbus, served as pastor of St. Thomas from 1884 until his death in 1890. He was beatified Oct. 31, 2020.

Lenaghan said while he wasn’t aware of a similar miracle involving Communion hosts, he had heard of a multiplication of food being given to the poor.

And while he isn’t sure he’s witnessed a miracle himself, Lenaghan said “the foundation of Christian faith is the belief in the miracle of the empty tomb, but it requires that radical leaning into faith to understand what the empty tomb means … the resurrection of Jesus.”

“That a broken, battered body was placed in the tomb, and then on the third day the body wasn’t there,” he said. “And that announcement of the experience of those of the apostles with the resurrected Christ, that announcement and belief in what that announcement says, is the anchor for Christian faith throughout history and throughout the world.

Lenaghan said what ties in the multiplication of the hosts to the Last Supper is the parable of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus uses the same verbs — “take, bless, break, give” — as he does at the Last Supper, which is commemorated on Holy Thursday, April 6 this year.

“Luke is very interesting because Luke has the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, which kind of foreshadows the Eucharist. Then he has the institution of the Eucharist, the Last Supper,” Lenaghan said.

Luke goes even further in the story of the road to Emmaus, in which the apostles don’t recognize Jesus until he breaks bread with them. “So it’s like it’s foreshadowed, it’s instituted and then it’s been celebrated,” he said.

At the Last Supper, commonly believed to be a Passover Seder, Jesus predicts he will be betrayed, which happens that night. He is crucified the next day, and his resurrection occurs on Easter, the third day.

Ed Stannard can be reached at [email protected].

Boston, Mass., May 4, 2023 / 16:00 pm

The Archdiocese of Hartford is appealing to the Vatican for guidance on how to proceed with its investigation of a possible eucharistic miracle at St. Thomas Catholic Church in Thomaston, Connecticut.

The referral is the first public update by the archdiocese since it was first reported in late March that Jesus, truly present in the holy Eucharist, appeared to multiply himself in the ciborium, typically a gold chalice that holds the eucharistic body of Christ.

“Reports such as the alleged miracle in Thomaston require referral to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. The archdiocese has proceeded accordingly and will await a response in due time,” David Elliott, a spokesman for the archdiocese, told CNA Thursday.

It’s unclear how long the dicastery could take to respond to the archdiocese’s request, Elliott told CNA.

Since news of the possible eucharistic miracle spread, a number of pilgrims have flocked to the church where Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, was once the pastor.

On March 5 at the the conclusion of Mass, Father Joseph Crowley announced that a eucharistic minister witnessed something unexplainable as he was distributing Communion.

“One of our eucharistic ministers was running out of hosts and suddenly there were more hosts in the ciborium. God just duplicated himself in the ciborium,” an emotional Crowley told the faithful.

“It’s really, really cool when God does these things, and it’s really, really cool when we realize what he’s done, and it just happened today,” the priest said.

“Very powerful, very awesome, very real, very shocking. But also, it happens, and today it happened,” he said.

“They were running out of hosts and all of a sudden more hosts were there. So today not only did we have the miracle of the Eucharist, we also had a bigger miracle. It’s pretty cool,” the priest said.

Watch Crowley describe the possible miracle in the video below:

On March 28, the Archdiocese of Hartford put out a statement saying: “As people of faith we know that miracles can and do happen, as they did during Christ’s earthly ministry. Miracles are divine signs calling us to faith or to deepen our faith.”

“Roman Catholics experience a daily miracle because every time Mass is celebrated what was bread becomes the Body of Christ and what was wine becomes his Blood,” the statement said.

“Through the centuries this daily miracle has sometimes been confirmed by extraordinary signs from Heaven, but the Church is always careful to investigate reports of such signs with caution, lest credence is given to something that proves to be unfounded,” the statement continued.

“What has been reported to have occurred at our parish church in Thomaston, of which Blessed Michael McGivney was once pastor, if verified, would constitute a sign or wonder that can only be attributed to divine power to strengthen our faith in the daily miracle of the Most Holy Eucharist. It would also be a source of blessing from Heaven for the effort that the U.S. bishops are making to renew and deepen the faith and practice of our Catholic people with regard to this great Sacrament,” the statement said.

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Joseph Bukuras is a journalist at the Catholic News Agency. Joe has prior experience working in state and federal government, in non-profits, and Catholic education. He has contributed to an array of publications and his reporting has been cited by leading news sources, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the Catholic University of America. He is based out of the Boston area.

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