"A PEEP INTO HELL"
OR A GATE TO GLORIOUS PEACE?
By Rudy A. Arizala
06 August 2007
Those who were born after 06 August 1945, or those who were still babies would not remember what happened on said date which led to the end of WW II in the Pacific and the unconditional surrender of Japan to the Allied Forces. On said date the first atomic bomb called "Little Boy" was dropped on the City of Hiroshima followed by the dropping of another atomic bomb on Nagasaki killing thousands of innocent civilians, men, women and children, wiping almost entirely the two cities converting them into radioactive ashes..
It may be recalled that on 6 August 1945, an American B-29 baptized as "Enola Gay" dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima from an altitude of 27,900 feet. The bomb transformed itself into a mushroom cloud of fire estimated at 180 feet in diameter which rose to a full height of more than seven miles - virtually "a miniature sun." It was 8:15 in the morning at Hiroshima.. Seeing the spectacle below from the plane, one of its crewmember named Caron exclaimed: "A peep into Hell." While another crewmember called Lewis penned in his logbook: "My God, what have we done"?
Today, at the Memorial Cathedral which now stands on the heart of Hiroshima City inscribed on its gate the following words:
"This church was erected in memory of the victims of the first atomic bomb, dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August, 1945, and as an augury of peace for all nations symbolizing the true and only way that leads to peace with God and man: The way of truth, not of deception; of justice, not of violence; of love, not of hate.
"Therefore all who enter this church are earnestly requested to offer their prayers for the eternal repose of the departed and for peace among the peoples of the world."
As I look back, I wonder whether the atomic bomb called "Little Boy" born more than half a century ago have matured and languished in repentance and out of that repentance comes love, or have we , like the story in the Arabian Nights, unleashed from its bottle a black genie-- a grotesque deadly monster representing the "Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse."
"Love is the gate of peace," proclaimed the message on the bronze door of the Memorial Church at Hiroshima, and on its Tabernacle is inscribed: "Out of the ruins of man´s guilt springs the triumph of the risen Christ and His peace."
The choice is on us, created in the image of our Lord.
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