Author and apologist Shaun McAfee joins the Catholic Morning Show to talk about his new TAN Books release, the Compendium of Eucharistic Miracles, a richly illustrated encyclopedia of documented signs confirming Christ's Real Presence. Shaun explains why Eucharistic miracles were central to his own conversion, how the Church treats them as private revelation rather than required belief, and why God gives physical signs to creatures who are body and soul. He also walks through the book's opening theological section, tracing Eucharistic typology from the manna in the desert to John 6 and the Church Fathers.
Shaun McAfee — Catholic author, apologist, and founder of EpicPew — joins Bo Bonner to discuss the Compendium of Eucharistic Miracles: An Encyclopedia of Miraculous Events Confirming the Real Presence (TAN Books), a hardcover volume collecting more than one hundred documented accounts alongside substantial Eucharistic theology.
Shaun explains that Eucharistic miracles were instrumental in his own conversion, and that he has heard the same from dozens of converts over the years — which is why he wanted a book that tells the stories compellingly, arms Catholics with reasons to frequent adoration and receive the Eucharist reverently, and argues for the Real Presence along the way. Bo presses the important distinction: no Catholic is required to believe any particular miracle, since these are private revelation rather than divine revelation. Shaun agrees, and points to Mark 16 and Christ's promise that his power would be known through signs — blood pouring from hosts, luminous phenomena, levitating ciboria and monstrances — while insisting that the miracles always point back past themselves. What makes the consecrated host the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ is not a laboratory result or a thousand witnesses, but Christ's own words in the upper room.
The two discuss why physical signs matter so much for creatures like us. Shaun draws the comparison to Saint Thomas Aquinas on the fitness of the Incarnation and the Passion: God did not need to save us this way, but chose what was most fitting and most expressive of his love. We are all, Shaun says, a little like Thomas in the upper room, needing to put our hands in the wounds — and God gives us these signs to recenter us.
On the book itself: roughly the first ninety pages are devoted entirely to the Eucharist, working through the typology from the manna in the desert and the high priest Melchizedek of Salem into John chapter six and on into the Church Fathers, establishing that belief in the Real Presence is the original and sustained teaching of Christians, before moving into the heresies, the saints, and the feasts. Bo notes that TAN has produced it as a book meant to be kept and handed down — sacred words paired with sacred art on nearly every page, from crucifixion scenes to the Council of Trent.
Get the book at TAN Books or wherever Catholic books are sold, and find more of Shaun's work at ShaunMcAfee.com.
Heard on the Catholic Morning Show, weekdays at 7 a.m. Central on Iowa Catholic Radio. More at IowaCatholicRadio.com.
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