The reading
How it began
In November 1433 the Rhône rose over the chapel of the Grey Penitents in Avignon. The tabernacle was under water. When the brothers could enter again, the consecrated Hosts were unaffected, the account says, dry in a drowned church. They were reserved with honour. The confraternity’s cult of the Holy Sacrament in Avignon dates itself from that flood.
The day itself
A flood is a dated public event. Whether the Hosts were spared by a natural pocket of air or by something else is not a sentence this page will fake. The brothers treated them as a sign and the city let them. That is the file.
Reading
How to read Avignon
Water ruins bread. A Host that comes out of a flood still looking like bread is, for the Church, still the Sacrament. Avignon asked the city to look at that twice: once as a rescue, and once as a doctrine.
Church status
How this sign has been received
Long veneration
Cult of the Grey Penitents from 1433, received in Avignon.
Sources
- Confraternity of the Grey Penitents, Avignon
For the classroom
Avignon (1433, Avignon). Grade in this encyclopedia: Long veneration. The river flooded the Grey Penitents’ chapel and the Hosts in the tabernacle. After the water went down, the Hosts were found dry. The confraternity kept them.
