Thursday, October 14, 2010

Miracle in Chile


Prose is not adequate to describe what has just happened in Chile. It requires poetry -- like the poerty of the Psalms.

Thirty-three miners, caught in a mine cave-in hundreds of meters below the surface of the earth on August 5, 69 days ago, began to be brought up to the surface today, one by one.

The first man was rescued just after midnight, in the first moments of October 13, and as this is being written, a little after midnight in Rome, 28 miners are safe and the 29th miner is about to be brought to the surface, so it appears all will be brought out within one day.

All Lost, All Found

At the beginning, it was thought they were all lost, as there was no contact with them at all. Not a sound. Silence.

Then, after 17 days, they were all found to be alive, and safe in an underground cave. But it was still thought that the rescue operation would take many months, until Christmastime, perhaps, and that the men, confined in such a small space, might all go mad before they could be freed.

And now, today, in a feat of engineering worthy of all praise, they have all been brought up safe and in their right minds.

And the entire world has been able to watch as this drama has unfolded.

A Papal Gift

But there is a little known aspect to this amazing story, and that is an aspect related to Pope Benedict, and to the rosary.

The rosary the prayer par excellence of Our Lady, because in its traditional form, it contains 150 Hail Marys in 15 joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries -- the same number as the Book of Psalms.

Benedict offered public prayers for the miners on several occasions, but he also decided to send each of the miners a special gift: a rosary he himself had blessed.

The rosaries were brought to the miners personally by Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz of Santiago, Chile.

It is said that, to survive, the miners organized their life in a disciplined way, even creating a little chapel in the corner of their cave. Praying the rosary, according to a report, became a part of the trapped miners' daily ritual
By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome

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