81 years ago, on the Feast of the Annunciation, eight priests survived the atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima

The blinding explosion killed everyone within a one-mile radius of "ground zero" – it is estimated that 60,000 men, women, and children died.

That day a miracle occurred that few have heard of.

The only survivors within that one-mile radius were eight Jesuit priests.

These eight men, like the eight survivors of the Great Flood, moved away from the site of the atomic blast and lived to old age without any effects of radiation.

Father Jesuit Hubert Schiffer, one of the survivors, was thirty years old at the time of the explosion in Hiroshima in 1945.

Then, on the Feast of the Transfiguration, he was celebrating Holy Mass, and after it he sat down to breakfast when the windows were flooded with light from all sides.

Here is Father Schiffer's description of what happened: "A monstrous explosion filled the air with one mighty thunderclap. An invisible force lifted me from my chair, threw me into the air, shook me, battered me, and whirled me around."

He suffered a few minor injuries, but American military doctors confirmed that he and his seven companions sustained neither serious injuries nor radiation damage.

When asked why he and his fellow Jesuits remained untouched while everyone else within a one-mile radius perished, Father Schiffer replied:

"We survived because we lived the message of Fatima. In this house we lived it every day and prayed the Rosary."

This story reminds us of Noah's salvation in the ark, Daniel's salvation in the lions' den, and above all the preservation of Ananias, Azarias, and Misael in Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace.