Catholic Believe It Or Not!? Hiroshima – You Decide

At 2:45 a.m.on August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber took off from the island of Tinian to drop the first atomic bomb on Japan. At 8:15 a.m. the bomb exploded eight city blocks from the Jesuit Church of Our Lady’s Assumption in Hiroshima. However, the four Jesuit fathers stationed there survived: Fathers Hugo Lassalle, Kleinsorge, Cieslik and Schiffer. (Note – all other accounts state clearly that there were eight Jesuits stationed in this home not four – and it is well known that all eight survived – the author of this present article apparently only had the names of four of them, for instance Fr.Arrupe is left out of the list – and at this writing, I have not been able to find the names of the other three Jesuits. end of note.) According to the experts they “ought to be dead,” being within a one-mile radius of the explosion. Nine days later on August 15, Feast of Our Lady’s Assumption, U.S.forces were ordered to cease fire.

I met Fr.Schiffer (says Father Paul)in the late 70s at the Tri-City Airport in Saginaw, Michigan, as he was going to give a talk for the Blue Army Novena/Triduum. As I chauffeured him around he told me stories of his life, especially of the atomic explosion at Hiroshima. On the morning of August 6, 1945, he had just finished Mass, went into the rectory and sat down at the breakfast table, and had just sliced a grapefruit, and had just put his spoon into the grapefruit when there was a bright flash of light. His first thought was that it was an explosion in the harbor (this was a major port where the Japanese refueled their submarines.)

Then, in the words of Fr. Schiffer: “Suddenly, a terrific explosion filled the air with one bursting thunderstroke. 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.” The next thing he remembered, he opened his eyes and he was 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. Many thousands were killed or maimed by the explosion. After the conquest of the Americans, their army doctors and scientists explained to him that his body would begin to deteriorate because of the radiation. Many of the Japanese people had blisters and sores from the radiation. To the doctors amazement, Fr.Schiffer’s body contained no radiation or ill-effects from the bomb. Fr.Schiffer attributes this to devotion to the Blessed Mother, and his daily Fatima Rosary. He feels that he received a protective shield from the Blessed Mother which protected him from all radiation and ill-effects.

(This coincides with the bombing of Nagasaki where St. Maximilian Kolbe had established a Franciscan Friary which was also unharmed because of special protection from the Blessed Mother, as the Brothers too prayed the daily Rosary and also had no effects from the bomb.)

Fr. Paul Ruge, O.F.M.I.
http://www.christian-miracles.com