We write the year of the Lord 1345. In Amsterdam, a sick man balances on the edge of life and death. Despite his deplorable state, he manages to write history. Amsterdam will never be the same again.
It is a cold winter night of March 15 to 16. In a house in Die Lane – the current Kalverstraat – the sick man is in bed. Afraid to die, he summons a clergyman. He is served at his beck and call; the pastor of the Sint-Nicolaaskerk – the current Oude Kerk – hastily rushed to grant him the Sacrament of the Sick. Later that night, the man vomits the wafer again. The vomit is collected in a bowl and thrown into the hearth fire which is stirred up for the night. When the sick man’s nurse wants to warm herself by the fire the next morning, she is shocked to find an intact, radiant white wafer between the flames. Undeterred, she reaches into the fire and without getting burned she takes the undigested and unburned ‘Body of Christ’ in her hand. She puts the Blessed Sacrament on a pillow and closes it in a linen chest. The alarmed pastor comes to take a closer look. He transfers the host into a host box and secretly takes the Blessed Sacrament to the Oude Kerk. The next morning, the host appears to have miraculously returned to Kalverstraat. The bewildered pastor takes the wafer away again. To no avail. Again and again the wafer is shining in the coffin. The message is understood the third time; God wants the miracle to be revealed. The host is appropriately collected in a procession from all the gathered clergy in Amsterdam and brought to the Oude Kerk with great honor and dignity. The Host finally finds peace.
A chapel was built on the spot where the miracle took place – the Holy Stede – where the miraculous Host was venerated from 1347 onwards. Amsterdam grows into a place of pilgrimage of a respectable size. And what happened to the sick man… history leaves that to our imagination.