Yet, just eight blocks from ground zero (to be exact 1 kilometer or 6/10 of a mile) there was a two story house left standing intact with no damage to it, not even the windows were broken. When inquiry was made as to what was different about the building it was discovered that there was a community of eight Jesuit priests living there who said the Rosary each day.
Fr. Hubert Schiffer who headed the community was virtually untouched by the nuclear blast with no radiation found in his body, and he publicly testified to this miracle at the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia in 1976. In an interview with Fr. Paul Ruge he describes the horrific nightmare of August 6, 1945:
"Suddenly, a terrific explosion filled the air with one bursting thunder stroke. An invisible force lifted me from the chair, hurled me through the air, shook me, battered me, whirled me 'round and round' like a leaf in a gust of autumn wind."
Fr. Ruge relates that the next thing he remembered was that he opened his eyes and found himself laying on the ground. He looked around and there was NOTHING in any direction: the railroad station and buildings in all directions were leveled to the ground. The only physical harm to himself was that he could feel a few pieces of glass in the back of his neck. As far as he could tell, there was nothing else physically wrong with himself.
Shortly thereafter Fr. Schiffer was told by medical authorities that he would eventually die of cancer because of all the radiation exposure, yet he lived another 30 years in full health with no cancer or effects from the radiation. The same is said of the other seven survivors of the priestly community. Aside from some slight surface abrasions or scratches they all lived out their days in full health with no cancer or side effects from radiation.
According to Dr. Stephen Rinehart, a nuclear physicist with the U.S. Department of Defense who had studied this phenomenon intently, they should have been dead in a flash. In his commentary on the Hiroshima blast he states:
"Their residence should still have been utterly destroyed (temp; 2000 F and air blast pressures; 100 psi). In contrast, unreinforced masonry or brick walls (representative of commercial construction) are destroyed at 3 psi, which will also cause car damage and burst windows. At 10 psi, a human will experience severe lung and heart damage, burst eardrums and at 20 psi your limbs can be blown off. Your head will be blown off by 40 psi and no residential or unreinforced commercial construction would be left standing. At 80 psi even reinforced concrete is heavily damaged and no human would be alive because your skull would be crushed. All the cotton clothes would be on fire at 350 F (probably at 275 F) and your lungs would be inoperative within a minute breathing air (even for a few seconds) at these temperatures.
"There are no physical laws to explain why the Jesuits were untouched in the Hiroshima air blast. There is no other actual or test data where a structure such as this was not totally destroyed at this standoff distance by an atomic weapon. All who were at this range from the epicenter should have received enough radiation to be dead within at most a matter of minutes if nothing else happened to them. There is no known way to design a uranium-235 atomic bomb, which could leave such a large discrete area intact while destroying everything around it immediately outside the fireball...
"From a scientific viewpoint, what happened to those Jesuits at Hiroshima still defies all human logic from the laws of physics as understood today (or at any time in the future). It must be concluded that some other (external) force was present whose power and/or capability to transform energy and matter as it relates to humans is beyond current comprehension."
THE ROSARY MIRACLE that occurred at Hiroshima is well known and well documented and has been published in various journals since the war, and can be read today on several websites. Yet, to date no one has ever been able to offer a scientific explanation for this phenomenon. The best they can do is hold their peace and remain bamboozled.
There is one exception though. There are those of rational thought (e.g. Dr. Rinehart) who recognize the hand of God in this. This miracle was intended as a lesson for the world, especially the people of the last times who would be subject to increasing calamities and the effects of war, nuclear accidents, etc.
"We believe that we survived because we were living the Message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home." - the Jesuit priests
The Rosary then assumes more importance today than in any time of history since we are living in the age of Antichrist when the Blessed Virgin is lifting up her heel in a final, dramatic move to obliterate the forces of evil from our world. (Genesis 3:15) Those who arm themselves with the Rosary share in this victory over evil and come under Mary's special protection.
The Rosary goes back to the very first centuries when the early Christians recited the 150 consecutive Hail Marys to the Blessed Virgin, though it was done without the beads that we use today. This devotion was known in the early Church as the 150 psalms to Jesus and Mary, prefigured by the 150 Psalms of the Old Testament.
In 1214 the Blessed Virgin actually appeared to St. Dominic in his chapel and handed him the beads of the Rosary with the commission that he spread this age old devotion throughout the world. Through the power of the Rosary he went about preaching and converting thousands everywhere, as he cast out devils, cured the sick, and even raised the dead to life on three occasions. And to think that we have these pearls of grace at our disposal today. With the Rosary we hold the power of God in our hands.
The Rosary can be said by anyone, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, so when the days get rough and the calamities increase we should remember that we always have recourse to the Rosary. It doesn't necessarily mean we'll get the same miracle as those eight priests at Hiroshima (but it doesn't mean we won't either), but what it does mean is that we'll be under the special protection of Heaven which is something we will all need in the coming days.
