Miracles Wrought by the Rosary

'One day, through the Rosary and the Scapular, Our Lady will save the world.' - St Dominic

From Catholic Stand

By Edward Benet

The Rosary is a beautiful prayer that has brought countless spiritual blessings on humanity. If you find it difficult to concentrate on the mysteries, why not try this simple Scriptural key for unlocking the entire Rosary?

Our Lady made fifteen promises to Saint Dominic for those who recite the Rosary faithfully. These include the defeat of sin and heresy, the special protection of Our Lady during life, and the assurance of not dying without the sacraments of the Church. Given that so many people throughout history – including countless saints – have had a devotion to the Rosary, it is not surprising that there should be many testimonies to the blessings enjoyed by those who have been loyal to this form of prayer.

The Atomic Bomb at Hiroshima

The following true story is recounted by Fr Paul Ruge and paraphrased below. On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The bomb exploded half a mile from the Jesuit Church of Our Lady’s Assumption. More than 100,000 people were killed instantly and thousands more died later from the effects of radiation. However, the church building and eight Jesuit priests stationed there survived. On the morning of the bomb, Fr Hubert Schiffer had just finished Mass, went into the rectory, and sat down at the breakfast table. He had just begun to eat when there was a bright flash of light. Then, in the words of Father 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 around and round like a leaf in a gust of autumn wind.

The next thing he remembered, he opened his eyes and he was lying on the ground. He looked around and saw that the buildings in all directions were levelled to the ground. As far as he could tell, there was nothing physically wrong with him. Hundreds of thousands were killed or maimed by the explosion.

Prayer is more powerful than the atom bomb (Fr. Hubert Schiffer, Hiroshima survivor).

After the war, 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, Father Schiffer and the other priests had no radiation or ill-effects from the bomb. When asked to account for this incredible situation in which he and his companions were spared, he said:

We believe that we survived because we were living the message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home.

In Nagasaki, St. Maximilian Kolbe’s Franciscan Friary was also unharmed. The brothers there also prayed the daily Rosary and they too had no effects from the bomb. Father Hubert Schiffer died in 1982, 37 years after that fateful day. He gave his account of the atomic bomb at the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia in 1976. At the time, all eight members of the Jesuit community from Hiroshima were still alive.

The Salvation of Brazil from Communism

Since the apparitions at Fatima, which coincided with the Communist revolution in Russia, Our Lady has been particularly engaged in a spiritual battle with this evil ideology. beliefnet.com tells the following true story.

In the early 1960s, President Goulart was striving to spread Communism throughout Brazil. It seemed inevitable that he would succeed and the country would become another Cuba. A fifty-nine-year-old retired schoolteacher named Amelia Bastos gathered more than two dozen women acquaintances to form the “Campaign of Women for Democracy”, a group that soon expanded to hundreds of thousands of women throughout the country.

These women organised Rosary rallies. One Sao Paolo rally included more than 600,000 women carrying prayerbooks and rosaries as they marched with anti-communist banners, These rallies played a central role in eventually bringing the rule of President Goulart to an end. A Communist takeover of this Catholic country was prevented by peaceful means and by citizens placing themselves under the maternal care of Mary. In gratitude to the Lord, the women of Brazil held an enormous rally the day after they had succeeded in bringing communist rule to an end. The event, which was called the “March of Thanksgiving to God,” was participated in by more than one million people.

The Rosary: Protecting Life in Extreme Situations

There are many online testimonials recounting miraculous escapes from danger and death by virtue of fidelity to the Rosary. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Immaculée Ilibagiza and seven other women spent ninety-one days hidden in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor’s house. Immaculée believed that praying the Rosary spared her from being slaughtered during the genocide, in which her family and more than a million other innocent people were brutally murdered. As well as physical protection, she also recounts the amazing spiritual benefits brought to her by the prayer during this time.

Father Valentine Ezeagu was driving through Imo state in Nigeria on December 15, 2020, on the way to his father’s funeral when he was ambushed by four armed men. The priest was unexpectedly freed thirty-six hours later. Reporting his release to his religious superior, Father Ezeagu said the abductors had let him go after seeing him pray the Rosary. Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Father George Okorie, Superior General of the Congregation of the Sons of Mary, Mother of Mercy, said: “When I spoke to Father Valentine, he told me that seeing him praying the Rosary made his abductors confused… They started having a guilty conscience. It made them realize that, since he was wearing a cassock, they had not got the right person, so they gave him some food and released him.”

Praying the Rosary led to a miraculous cure for  Fr. Patrick Peyton, the famous “Rosary Priest”. In 1938, after he had emigrated to the United States from Ireland, he became very ill and was diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis, an incurable condition at the time. His sister suggested that he turn to Our Lady. The future Father Peyton consecrated himself to Mary and began devoutly reciting the Rosary. To the astonishment of his doctors, he was completely and miraculously cured. In gratitude, he promised Mary that he would spend his life promoting the Rosary. On becoming a priest, he coined the phrase, “the family that prays together stays together,”. He was one of the pioneering television evangelists who used the medium to promote the Rosary. In 1992, he died peacefully with Rosary beads in his hands. His cause for canonisation is underway.

How the Rosary Saved an Entire Squadron in WWII

The following story from the second world war was recounted to Dominican priest Fr Gabriel Harty by a non-Catholic devotee of the Rosary from Canada.

‘It was May, 1940, and we joined the Air Force in late September. We were grouped into squadrons. About thirty to fifty men made up a squadron, along with the squadron leader who gave all the orders and kept us functioning in unity. They told us that we were going overseas and would be in action right away. We eagerly awaited our new squadron leader. As an officer he would, we believed, go straight to the officers’ quarters. However, this squadron leader, Stan Fulton, in full uniform, headed for our bunk house, where he settled in with the rest of us. He threw his bag on an upper bunk. Our squadron leader, an officer, sleeping here with us! We liked him at once and our liking and our admiration grew each day. That first night he knelt on the floor and prayed his Rosary in silence. Astounded, we were struck dumb. When he finished, he looked at us with his friendly smile and said, “I hope you guys don’t mind a fellow saying some prayers because where we’re going, we’re going to need them.” Next night, he repeated his prayer session. Although our group had been together for six months at least, I had never seen anyone kneel in prayer, and had no idea that any of our group was Catholic. The third night three of our companions joined Fulton in saying the Rosary. The rest of us did not understand, but we kept a respectful silence. We were weren’t slow however on the pick-up. Soon we were all answering the Hail Marys and Our Fathers. So, we ended each day in prayer. Shortly enough we were to begin a series of night raids from England over Germany. The evening before, Fulton gave each of us a Rosary. “We shall be in some tight situations, but if you agree to keep the Rosary with you and to say it, I promise you that Our Lady will bring you all back safe.” “Sure thing” we replied, little thinking we would be in action for four years, often in dreadful danger. At such times, Fulton’s voice would ring through each plane, “Hail Mary…”and we would devoutly respond! We must have said hundreds of Rosaries in the skies. Ours was the only squadron that had not lost a plane or a single life. We said nothing, but we treasured our secret weapon. We did survive, too. All returned to Canada in 1945, fully convinced that Our Lady had taken care of us. So I never forget to keep my Rosary with me and say it every day although I am not a Catholic. When I change my trousers, the first thing I transfer, even before my wallet, is my Rosary.

The Conversion of a Satanist

Ascension Press recounts the story of Bartolo Longo, a Satanist whose cause for canonisation is now well underway.  Bartolo was born in 1841 to a devout Catholic family. During this period, there was a strong nationalistic movement in Italy and much anti-clericalism. Many of his college professors were ex-priests who had a negative view of the Catholic Church.  Bartolo started to dabble in the occult, eventually embracing Satanism. He was consecrated a Satanic priest and promised his soul to a demon. To his family’s dismay, he preached against the Catholic faith and presided over blasphemous rituals.

His mental and physical health deteriorated and he sought help from a Dominican priest. Bartolo became a third-order Dominican, but he was still plagued with guilt about his past life, in particular the promise of his soul to a demon. He doubted that God would forgive him. These thoughts nearly drove him to suicide. But then he remembered a homily he had heard on the power of the Rosary. As he later wrote:

Falling to my knees, I exclaimed: ‘If your words are true that he who propagates your Rosary will be saved, I shall reach salvation because I shall not leave this earth without propagating your Rosary’.

Bartolo spent the rest of his life promoting this prayer and built the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, which is Italy’s premier Rosary shrine.

Many other stories of the power of the Rosary are easy to find online. One of the greatest is the Christian victory against all the odds at the epic sea battle of Lepanto in 1571, following Pope St Pius V’s Rosary crusade. The victory took place on October 7th, which is now celebrated as the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Edward Benet blogs at www.immaculatemother.org/blog