A young married woman of Santarém, despairing of her husband's love, was promised by a local sorceress that if she brought a consecrated host the husband's affection would be restored. At Sunday Mass at the Church of St. Stephen, she received Communion, secretly removed the host from her mouth, and wrapped it in her veil to carry away.
Almost at once the host began to bleed through the veil. Terrified, she hid the relic in a wooden chest in her bedroom. That night the bedroom filled with light; the woman woke her husband and confessed. The parish priest was summoned; the bleeding host was carried in procession back to the Church of St. Stephen, which was renamed the Church of the Most Holy Miracle (Igreja do Santíssimo Milagre). The relic — flesh and dried blood adhering to a thin wafer — has been continuously venerated there since 1247.