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NO MATTER THE MAYHEM, PRAYER AND THE GOSPEL AND FAITH CAN DRAW DOWN A BUFFER OF PROTECTION AROUND US

When God wants to intervene, He can put a "buffer" around us.

He can shield us from anything.

It doesn't matter what that "anything" is.

During the bombing of Hiroshima, a small group of Jesuits somehow survived in the no-survival zone near that ground zero, within four miles, without even radiation sickness.

Many don't know that terrorists linked to al Qaeda tried to kill John Paul II during a trip to the Philippines in 1995. Their plot was foiled when explosives mysteriously caught fire in an apartment, exposing the plot (and killing one would-be assassin).

Look at how Our Lady protected the Pope during that other attempt on his life. The bullet entered and moved through his body missing vital vessels and organs in a medically inexplicable way.

During 9/11, there was a man who fell more than twenty stories during the collapse of the north tower; as he prayed it was as if he were surfing down the debris on the back of what he said felt like the cushioning of an angel.

In Wisconsin, the worst wildfire in U.S. history (incinerating an area of 1.2 million acres) left a small plot of land set aside to honor an apparition of the Blessed Mother totally unscathed. It was an oasis of green in an ocean of ash! (Another item that survived: a wooden tabernacle down near a river where all else was blackened.)

In Florida, a female student survived a rampage by notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, who murdered other girls in her sorority house but stopped in his tracks upon entering her room. He later said a mysterious force stopped him. She was saying the Rosary.

During Hurricane Charley, a tabernacle somehow made it through fully intact in a Punta Gorda, Florida, church that otherwise was totally destroyed (by both wind and water; the tabernacle candle remained lit!).

In the Soviet Union, an imprisoned Catholic activist was saved by an appearance of the Blessed Mother, who warmed him in a freezing death cell. This too went beyond physical explanation (it was so cold the guards wore fur coats; he was turning stiff, stripped to his underwear).

How many times -- after a storm or fire -- is there a story about statues or a Bible surviving, amid the wreckage, poking from the debris?

And speaking of wreckage, many are those who have felt the presence of God and angels during what should have been fatal car accidents. There is even a case where a photograph showed what seemed like an angel in the twisted metal!

As the Blessed Mother once said: "If you want to be stronger against evil, have an active conscience. For that, pray very much in the morning and read a passage from the Gospel. Plant the Divine Word in your heart and live it during the day, in this special way, in trials and in the evening, you will be very strong."

And so we can have faith:

God knows no physical restrictions.

He moves as He wills.

When we're on the other side, we'll appreciate why He does what He does, and we'll realize that this life is the wisp of a dream.