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HIDDEN IN 'CHASTISEMENT' WAS LESSON ON GOD'S PROTECTION NO MATTER WHAT
SWIRLS AROUND US
A number of times it has been indicated that
when we are devout, faithful, and forsake the snares of worldliness -- when we
seek the Blessed Mother -- we're afforded a special bubble of protection.
That protection is particularly potent -- as we
shall see in a moment -- when we're
dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament. For it is the Force of God. It is administered by
angels.
Earlier this week
we discussed the incredible firestorm
propelled by hurricane-force winds in Peshtigo, Wisconsin in October of 1871 (about which
the Virgin had warned during a Church-approved apparition to a young woman
near Champion). This fantastically intense and historic fire (which torched 1.2 million
acres and was so hot it burned logs floating on a river, calcinated bodies,
and turned sand to glass ) surrounded a shrine dedicated to the apparition but
never entered it. Anyone who has read about that fire (and the
simultaneous one to the south in Chicago, the same day, the same hour) knows it
was a miracle the shrine (and seer, who was praying inside) survived the
conflagration.
As it turns out,
it was not alone as a "miracle of protection." There is also what was recorded by a priest, Father
Peter Pernin, who had survived by seeking refuge in the Peshtigo River as
massive fire "tornadoes" swept across the region. We'll
let Father Pernin recount it himself (from his booklet, The Great Peshtigo Fire:
An Eyewitness Account).
"I left them at their mournful task [of
tending to corpses], and returned to the site where our church had so lately
stood," he wrote of ministering to the dead and desolation immediately after
the holocaust. "There also all was in ashes, nothing remaining save the church bell.
The latter had been thrown a distance of fifty feet; one half was now lying
there intact, while the other part had melted and spread over the sand in
silvery leaves. The voice of this bell had been the last sound heard in the
midst of the hurricane. Its lugubrious note yet seems at times to strike on
my ear, reminding me of the horrors of which it was a forerunner.
"The graveyard lay close to the church,
and I entered and waited there; for I expected momentarily the arrival of a
funeral. It was that of a young man who had died the evening previous, in
consequence of the terrible burns he had received. I left the graveyard with
a heavy heart, and turned my steps in the direction of the river, which I
had to cross in order to seek for my tabernacle with whose ultimate fate I
was unacquainted. A bright ray of consolation awaited me and seldom was
consolation more needed.
"I crossed the river on the half-charred beams
of the bridge which had been joined together so as to offer a means of
passage, though a very perilous one, to those who chose to trust themselves
to it. I had barely reached the other side when one of my parishioners
hastened to meet me, joyfully exclaiming: 'Father, do you know what has happened to
your tabernacle?'
"'No, what is it?'
"'Come quickly then, and see.
Oh! Father, it is a great miracle!'
"I hurried with him to that part of the river
into which I had pushed as far as possible my wagon containing the
tabernacle. This wagon had been blown over on its side by the storm;
whilst the tabernacle itself had been caught up by the wind and cast on one
of the logs floating on the water. Everything in the immediate vicinity
of this spot had been blackened or charred by the flames; logs, trunks,
boxes, nothing had escaped, yet, strange to say, there rose the tabernacle,
intact in its snowy whiteness, presenting a wonderful contrast to the grimy
blackness of the surrounding objects.
"I
left it in the spot where it had thus been thrown by the tempest for two
days, so as to give all an opportunity of seeing it. Numbers came, though of
course in that time of horror and desolation there were many too deeply
engrossed with their own private grief to pay attention to aught else. The
Catholics generally regarded the fact as a miracle, and it was spoken of
near and far, attracting great attention.
"Alas! Nothing is more
evanescent than the salutary impressions produced on the mind of man
by Divine blessings or punishments. Time and the preoccupations of life
efface even the very remembrance of them. How few there are among the rare
survivors of the fire that swept Peshtigo from the face of the earth who
still see the power of God in the calamity that then overwhelmed them as
well as in the preservation of the tabernacle, events which at the time of
their occurrence made so deep an impression on their minds.
"When the duties which had detained me three
days amid these mournful scenes were completed, I took the tabernacle from
the place which it had occupied of late and sent it on to Marinette where I
intended soon saying Mass. When the right time arrived, I forcibly opened
the tiny door. There -- circumstance as wonderful as the preservation of the
tabernacle in the midst of the conflagration -- I found the consecrated Host
intact in the monstrance while the violent concussions the ciborium must
have undergone had not caused it even to open.
"Water had not penetrated within, and the
flames had respected the interior as well as exterior, even to the silky
tissue lining the sides.
"All was in a state of perfect preservation!
"These sacred objects, though possessing in
reality but little intrinsic value, are nevertheless priceless in my eyes. I
prize them as most precious relics, and never look at or touch them without
feeling penetrated with sentiments of love and veneration such as no other
holy vessels, however rich and beautiful, could awake within me. In the
little chapel at Marinette, which replaces the church burned there more than
two years ago, the same tabernacle is on the altar and contains the same
monstrance and ciborium which were so wonderfully preserved from the flames,
and, daily, during the holy sacrifice, I use them with a species of
religious triumph as trophies of God's exceeding mercy snatched so
marvelously from destruction."
[Today, the tabernacle may be seen at the
Peshtigo Fire Museum, the original site of Father Pernin's St. Mary's Catholic
Church. The museum is open from Memorial day to October 8th. Also note that a
charred bible found after the holocaust was opened to Psalm 106-107, about
sinful Israel and its chastisement; just before
that is Psalm 105: "He spoke, and there came swarms of flies;
gnats, throughout all their borders. For rain He gave them hail, with flashing
fires throughout their land." After the Peshtigo fire had come a plague of army
worms. There is also Psalm 102: "LORD, hear my prayer; let my cry come to you. 3 Do not
hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Turn your ear to me; when I
call, answer me quickly. For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn away
as in a furnace."]
[resources:
Our Lady of Good Help video and
Michael Brown pilgrimage to
Medjugorje]
[After note from Father Pernin: "I must beg my readers to return
with me for a little while to the banks of Peshtigo River -- but not to
linger there long. Before removing the tabernacle I was busily occupied
three days and two nights, now in seeking for the dead, then in taking up
from the water various objects which I had thrown by armfuls, at the moment
of leaving my house, into the wagon and which had been overturned with it
into the river. The most precious of all these was the chalice, which I was
fortunate enough to find, together with the paten. My search was greatly
facilitated by the opening of the dam and letting out of the waters which
were here fifteen or twenty feet in depth. This step was necessary for the
finding of the corpses of those persons who, either seized by cramps, or
drawn in by the current, had been drowned during the night of the
hurricane."]
(10/4/2012)
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