Miracles of the Rosary

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
St. Francis Borgia - Confessor
J.M.J.

MIRACLES OF THE ROSARY

It was for the protection of her children that Mary, the Mother of
God, gave the world her Rosary, that priceless jewel of her most
tender love. She told St. Dominic, "Preach my Rosary and there will
be much fruit." For centuries the Rosary has proven to be a great and
marvelous power against evil and a true solace in times of stress.
Many popes have exhorted the faithful to take up their beads and pray
the Rosary.

Pope St. Pius V said that the spread of the Rosary would dispel the
darkness of heresy and the light of the Catholic Faith would shine
forth in all its splendor.

Pope Gregory XIII assured us that the Rosary was instituted to
implore the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and to appease
the anger of God.

Pope Pius IX said, "Have courage, my dear children! I exhort you to
fight against the persecution of the Church and against anarchy, not
with the sword, but with the Rosary, with prayer and good example."
He regarded the rosary as a conquering weapon.

Pope Leo XIII placed great confidence in the favors obtained through
devotion to the Rosary. In his encyclical, Supremi Apostolatus
Officio, he said, " . . . it has always been the habit of Catholics
in danger and in troublous times to fly for refuge to Mary, and to
seek for peace in her maternal goodness; showing that the Catholic
Church has always, and with justice, put all her hope and trust in
the Mother of God."

Pope Pius X said, "Of all prayers the Rosary is the most beautiful
and the richest in graces; of all it is the one which is most
pleasing to Mary, the Virgin Most Holy. Therefore love the Rosary and
recite it everyday with devotion."

In 1917 the Virgin Mother of God showed the modern world her power
and favor with God with the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. In the
months leading up to the miracle, Our Lady repeatedly urged Lucia,
Jacinta and Francisco, to pray the Rosary. They learned from her the
grave importance of the Rosary. She told them that God wanted the
world to establish devotion to her Immaculate Heart: "If you do what
I tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace. I
shall come to the world to ask that Russia be consecrated to my
Immaculate Heart, and I shall ask that on the First Saturday of every
month Communions of reparation be made in atonement for the sins of
the world."

Our Lady warned that there would be grave consequences if her
requests were not granted: "Russia will spread her errors throughout
the world, raising up wars and persecutions against the Church, many
will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various
nations will be annihilated." She told the children that if what she
asked was not done, the world would suffer. . . "The war is going to
end; but if people do not stop offending God, another and worse war
will break out in the reign of Pius XI." Her warning went unheeded.
The Second World War began in 1938 with the invasion of Austria
during the reign of Pius XI, just as she had predicted.

Despite the horrors which then rained upon the world, those who
sought to fulfill Our Lady's requests were covered spiritually and
even physically with the mantle of her protection. In days of
darkness and sorrow miracles bloomed and the power and excellence of
the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary was made known.

At 8:15 in the morning on Monday August 6, 1945, the first atomic
bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. The people of Hiroshima and the
world would never be the same. The intense heat and radiation spread
immediately and engulfed all those in its path. Over 80,000 people
were killed instantly. Thousands more would die later from radiation
poisoning. Men, women and children endured incomprehensible
suffering. The temperature at the center of the blast was said to be
as hot as the surface of the sun. The heat evaporated metal, melted
glass, and ignited clothing miles away. Eight square miles were
reduced to ash in resulting fires. Those whose flesh had not melted
away, faced horrible suffering in a variety of symptoms as the
radiation destroyed the cells in their bodies.

Hiroshima was obliterated in seconds, but beneath the mushroom cloud,
in the midst of horror, a miracle would rise from the ashes of
destruction and bear witness to the power of the Rosary and the truth
of the Promises of Our Lady of Fatima. Just blocks from the epicenter,
the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption was in ruins. However, the
rectory next door, which housed eight Jesuit priests, was still
standing. Four of the priests were in the rectory when the bomb
dropped. They were showered with glass and debris. Four other priests
were in the surrounding vicinity but, they too, survived the initial
blast.

After their rescue, army doctors explained to them that their bodies
would begin a fatal deterioration due to radiation exposure. The
doctors were all astounded when, after examining all eight of the
priests, there were no findings of elevated radiation. They exhibited
absolutely no ill-effects from the bomb! Over two hundred scientists
were said to have examined them and none of them could offer any
explanation for their survival. The priests had not only survived the
blast, they lived for decades in relatively good health.

Fr. Hubert Schiffer, who had just returned to the rectory after
saying Mass that morning, supplied the answer on television years
later. He said the reason they had survived the nuclear holocaust was
because, "In that house the rosary was prayed every day. In that
house, we were living the message of Fatima." Secular scientists were
all in agreement that the priests should have died but, they could not
agree on the reason for their miraculous survival. They walked by
sight and not by faith.

On August 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima, the U.S. dropped another one nearly 200 miles away, on
Nagasaki. That city had been the center of Japanese Catholicism ever
since St. Francis Xavier established its first mission church in
1549. For hundreds of years thereafter, Nagasaki streets ran red with
the blood of her martyrs.

At 11:02 A.M. on that fateful morning in 1945, there were so many
Catholics in line for confession, that two priests were hearing them
inside the Urakami Cathedral. All were killed, and the largest church
in the Orient was demolished. Of the more than 100,000 people who died
in Nagasaki, nearly 10,000 of them were Catholic. One might wonder why
they were not protected as the priests in Hiroshima. If we walk with
the faith of those many Catholic Japanese, we learn that they were
protected.

Dr. Takashi Nagai, lived in Nagasaki with his wife, Midori, and their
two children. Midori was a descendent of the early Catholic martyrs
and a devout Catholic. That morning Dr. Nagai had been at the
hospital where he worked. After the bomb was detonated he spent an
agonizing two days, helping the wounded before he could search for
and find his wife, (the children were not in Nagasaki that morning).

His home was a pile of ash and in those ashes he found the charred
remains of his beloved wife. He knelt and tenderly began to gather
what was left of her. In the bones of her right hand, the chain and
cross of her rosary had melted. Rather than spewing forth anger, Dr.
Nagai bowed his head in prayer, "My God, I thank you for permitting
her to die while she prayed. Mary, Mother of sorrows, thank you for
having been with her at the hour of her death. . . Jesus, You carried
the heavy cross until You were crucified upon it. Now, You come to
shed the light of peace on the mystery of suffering and death,
Midori's and mine. . ." Dr. Nagai later said that while his wife's
remains were resting in his arms, her voice seemed to murmur:
"forgive, forgive."

Dr. Nagai found strength in meditating on the mysteries of the
Rosary. He later wrote: "Men and women of the world, never again plan
war! . . . From this atomic waste the people of Nagasaki confront the
world and cry out: No more war! Let us follow the commandment of love
and work together. The people of Nagasaki prostrate themselves before
God and pray: Grant that Nagasaki may be the last atomic wilderness
in the history of the world."

In the miracle of survival that was granted to the priests of
Hiroshima and in the miracle of the faith that gave strength to Dr.
Nagai in Nagasaki we witness the firm reliance and confidence granted
to souls dedicated to the Rosary. In these miracles the Promises of
Our Lady of Fatima are truly confirmed . . .

". . . The weapon which our Father gave
Each hand shall fearless wield:
Who bear our Lady's Rosary
Need neither sword nor shield"
With dauntless faith the ranks they face
Of error and of sin,
And, armed with those blest beads alone,
The victory they will win. . ."*

*A.T. Drane, 1885. St. Dominic's Hymn Book, London: Bums & Oates. pg.
45.

Above article by Cathy Beil - Author of the Catholic novel "The
Samurai And The Tea"; available from http://www.angeluspress.org
.

Posted via email from deaconjohn's posterous