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What The MSM Won't Tell You About The Trapped Miners

Miners carrying the statue of St Lorenzo, the Patron Saint of miners
Just been reading about some of this in an editorial in the NZ Catholic newspaper and doing some googling about it on the net. Was there a spiritual aspect to the rescue of the trapped miners in Chile? It appears there were many.

  • A statue of St Lorenzo, the patron Saint of miners, was carried to the entrance of the mine shaft, and also placed in the presidential palace by President Sebastian Pinera.
  • The miners asked for a crucifix, statues of Mary and other saints to be sent down to them, where they created a shrine.
  • The Pope blessed 33 pairs of Rosary beads that were sent down to the miners. In return, they sent the Pope a flag.
Of course, there would have been many prayers offered by those family and friends of the trapped miners, including minor Mario Gomez, who was the last up and their foreman, who fell to his knees in a prayer of thanks as he came up.

Some snippets - 
The 33 miners trapped in the San Jose Mine in Atacama, Chile have requested that statues and religious pictures be sent down to them as they wait to be rescued, reports CNN.
Chilean officials say the rescue could take months but that they hope to reach the miners by Christmas. The copper mine collapsed on August 5, and the 33 miners have been trapped in a space nearly half a mile underground ever since.
A small passageway has already been put in place so messages and supplies can be sent to the trapped miners.
Although a crucifix has already been sent down, the miners are continuing to request more statues of Mary and the saints – as well as a Chilean flag to construct a make-shift chapel. “The miners want to set up a section of the chamber they are in as a shrine,” Chilean’s Minister of Health, Jaime Manalich told CNN.
This week, President Sebastian Pinera spoke with the miners by phone and then placed a statue of St. Lorenzo, the patron of miners, in the presidential palace together with 32 Chilean flags and one Bolivian flag to represent each of the miners trapped since August 5. LINK

and
One of the first things the miners’ relatives did at the pithead, while it still looked as though they must be all dead, was to set up a statue of St Lawrence, patron saint of miners (see above), who in statues of him in this role movingly wears a miner’s hat and carries a miner’s lamp. And the whole rescue mission was placed under his patronage: it was called simply Operation San Lorenzo. LINK
and
Cardinal Francisco Errázuriz celebrated Mass on Thursday near the Chilean mine where 33 men have spent almost a month trapped 700 meters (2,300 feet) below ground. The archbishop of Santiago, Chile, also brought a special gift for each of the miners: a rosary blessed and sent them by the Pope. The cardinal was able to speak with the miners, telling them that on Sunday, Benedict XVI remembered them during his address before the midday Angelus. The Holy Father assured his spiritual closeness to the miners and promised his prayers for their speedy rescue. The rosaries are another way to express his affection, the cardinal explained. "I was able to tell the miners on the telephone that I had come bringing them the 33 rosaries that the Pope had sent especially to them, that he himself blessed, so that he added this gesture to his words. [...] His words that were addressed to the whole world, so that everyone would accompany us and pray for the success of this rescue operation," Cardinal Errázuriz later reported. I also told them that "we were proud of them, of the spirit with which they face this enormous difficulty with much fortitude, with much discipline among themselves and much faith, and not only with hope but with joy," he added. LINK
I guess the liberal, left-wing media is not interested in promoting the spiritual aspect of their rescue. The rescue went extremely well, and I think the spiritual aspect; the prayers and intercession, cannot be brushed aside as of no importance, but which the secular media will and has. They have no faith, so aren't interested, and they certainly don't want to show Pope Benedict doing anything to help.

Thank God that the people of Chile believe though.

Comments

  1. I'm not sure of the significance, if any, of this post.

    It is a very basic fact of human psychology that people in danger will cling to anything that might give them hope. Prayer and local myths are some of the things people cling to.

    As the most recent census has Chileans at 70% RC, is it any wonder their chosen myth was to do with prayer and saints.

    But so what? It wasn't prayer that got them in to their predicament, nor was it prayer that got them out.

    It was poor management and bad luck that caused the mine collapse, it was hard work and human ingenuity that effected the rescue.

    If prayer is so effective, why didn't the whole country (or at least the 70% who are RC) simply pray and wait for god to do his work?

    Because deep inside everyone of use, we know that if we rely on god alone then we will be truly alone. It is only by co-operation that Man can achieve miracles.

    ---

    As posts go, this is as dumb as the letter to the Christchurch Press demanding we all praise god that no one died in the earthquake!

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  2. LRO, my whole question is - why did we hear nothing about this in the media? It seems to have been a big part of the miners lives down there and yet I never saw it mentioned once on TV or read about it anywhere. Why not? What are they afraid of? They seemed to mention everything else that was sent down to the miners.

    If the media think that prayer doesn't work and those things were only to comfort them, then why not mention them? Again, what are they afraid of?

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  3. Perhaps the MSM you read is not very MS - I certainly read stories of prayer and icons a long time before the rescue was completed.

    Is it newsworthy? Not really, as there is nothing remarkable about people raised in RC mumbo-jumbo to turn to that mumbo-jumbo in time of need.

    What would have been newsworthy would have been the hand of god opening the mine and lifting the miners out, rather than waiting for the ingenuity and hard work of Man.

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  4. LRO, if the hand of God had opened the mine and lifted the miners out, you still wouldn't have believed.

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  5. Not true at all, that would be incontrovertible evidence for god, something that is sadly lacking.

    And if it was Allah whose hand reached out, would YOU believe?

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  6. It is a very basic fact of human psychology that people in danger will cling to anything that might give them hope. Prayer and local myths are some of the things people cling to.

    Yet as the old saying goes "there are no atheists in foxholes" - atheists seem to be more that willing to abandon their myths when the going gets tough.

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  7. Yes, it is an old saying, and one I am yet to see proven. Of course, unproven aphorism and religion go hand in hand, don't they?

    And which atheist myths are you talking about? I am unaware of any, please enlighten me.

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  8. What would have been newsworthy would have been the hand of god opening the mine and lifting the miners out, rather than waiting for the ingenuity and hard work of Man.

    and then:

    Not true at all, that would be incontrovertible evidence for god, something that is sadly lacking.

    I suspect if there was a direct intervention, there would still be several hundred opinions of what that would mean within minutes.

    You might actually decide that it wasn't God, but an advanced alien race playing silly buggers.

    Some-one else might believe it was a carefully orchestrated scam involving mass hallucinations.

    Etc.

    ReplyDelete

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