At the time of the explosion, Father Schiffer was in a Jesuit house only about 1-1.3 kilometers from the epicenter. The buildings in this zone were practically razed to the ground. People in the vicinity died immediately or in the following days from acute radiation sickness.
According to Schiffer, the explosion threw him back, and he suffered minor injuries from glass and debris—but he survived. And not only that. In the following years, he became the subject of repeated medical examinations. He testified that doctors examined him more than 200 times. They expected leukemia, cancer, organ failure. However, none of that happened.
He lived for decades after the explosion, traveled actively, lectured, and died in 1982—more than 37 years after Hiroshima. He recalled that doctors repeatedly asked him the same question: "Shouldn't you be dead by now?"
Skeptics and non-believers explained his survival in their own way. The location of the building, the orientation of the walls, and the uneven distribution of radiation were all factors. However, this theory has serious flaws, because other people were in similar conditions to Father Schiffer. But they did not get the chance to survive.
Father Schiffer and his fellow brothers offered a different explanation. They claimed that they had lived according to the Marian message of Fatima for a long time and prayed the rosary every day. They considered what happened to be God's protection, God's intervention.
The Church never officially declared this story a miracle, but it never issued a statement rejecting it either.
So how can we understand this story so that it does not remain just a curiosity that will slip our minds tomorrow?
The message for us believers is clear: Let us not be afraid! We are not helpless victims of insane rulers and their expired agreements. Every hair on our heads is counted. God knows us. He is on our side! Let us take up our rosaries and live through the next millennium!
This article was originally published on the DoKostola website.
