Bob, Penny Lord to focus on Eucharistic miracles

The hosts of a faith-based television show will be at St. Joseph Church in Ironton for a series of presentations beginning Sunday night.

Bob and Penny Lord, hosts of Journeys of Faith on EWTN Global Catholic Network, will host a presentation on Eucharistic miracles at 7 p.m. Sunday and Monday as part of Mission 2011. The couple will do the same presentation at 7 p.m. Tuesday following a dinner at the Knights of Columbus.

“Eucharistic miracles are the events beyond human and scientific explanation, that have happened at different times throughout history in the celebration of the Mass throughout the world,” Rev. David Huffman, the church’s priest, said. “In other words, the bread and the wine have actually turned into human tissue and human blood.”

The Lords wrote a book about these miracles after meeting Father Antonio Giannini, one of the foremost authorities in the world on the topic, during a pilgrimage to the Shrines of Italy.

“So Bob and Penny are coming from St. Louis and they’ll bring pictures and displays and explain these things that many of them happened many hundreds of years ago in Italy and France and other places in Europe,” Huffman said.

According to the Catholic tradition, Jesus is present with the church in the practice of the Eucharist, or Mass. Eucharist means thanksgiving, Huffman explained. Each time the church takes Mass, it is thanking Jesus for his death on the cross, which conquered sin, Huffman said.

“It’s something that people don’t think about and people can say the word but to actually get down to the depth of what it means, that’s what this is all about,” Huffman said. “I hope that people (who come to the presentation) will have a deeper love and appreciation for their Sunday worship through the celebration of the Mass and the gift that Jesus himself has given us of Holy Communion.

“Many things in our lives can become routine and sometimes we have to kind of be jolted into the depths of what the reality is. And most importantly many people have never heard of this because much of it took place at such a distance from us.”