What is Fatima?This video trailer is from the documentary, Finding Fatima,
and opens on Hiroshima,
August 6, 1945. The video gives an account of the miraculous survival of Father Hubert Schiffer and other Jesuit missionaries from the atomic explosion on Hiroshima, Japan.
Released in 2011 by Major Oak Entertainment,
Finding Fatima is a
90 minute film produced by Joel Fletcher and directed by Ian and Dominic Higgens.
The film production focuses on the 1917 apparitions of
Our Lady of Fatima to three shepherd children in Portugal with details about the Miracle
of the Sun which was witnessed by approximately 70,000 people.
The following excerpt is from HolySouls.com:
There was a home eight blocks
(about 1 kilometer) from where the A-Bomb went off in Hiroshima, Japan. This home had a church attached to
it
which was completely destroyed,
but the home survived, and so did the eight German Jesuit missionaries
who prayed the rosary in that house faithfully every day. These men were missionaries to the Japanese people, they were non-military, but because Germany and Japan were allies
during WWII they were permitted
to live and minister within Japan
during the war. Not only did they all survive
with (at most) relatively minor injuries,
but they all lived well past
that awful day with no radiation sickness, no loss of hearing, or any other visible long term defects or maladies.
Naturally, they were interviewed numerous times (Fr. Schiffer, a survivor, said over 200 times) by scientists and health care people
about their remarkable experience
and they say "We believe that we survived because we were living the message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the rosary daily in that home."
Of course the secular scientists are speechless and incredulous at this explanation - and they are sure there
is some "real" explanation - but at the
same time over 55 years later the scientists are still absolutely
bamboozled when it comes to finding
a plausible scenario to explain the missionary's unique escape from the hellish power of that bomb.
(For additional testimony from Dr. Stephen A. Rinehart and Dr. Richard
F. Hubbell regarding the Rosary Miracle
at Hiroshima, please visit the Holy
Souls
website.)
Commentary by Loci B. Lenar
During my February 2010 visit to the Blue Army Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Washington, New Jersey, I had an opportunity to speak with Fr. Paul Ruge (above photograph)
regarding various spiritual matters. Father Ruge is a spiritual advisor and chaplain at the World Apostolate of Fatima, USA. Father Ruge
confirmed the subsequent story of his communication with Father Hubert Schiffer regarding the atomic explosion and events that followed on Hiroshima.
FR. HUBERT SCHIFFER OF HIROSHIMA
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.)