Los Angeles Fire Department Captain Frank Lima said it defies logic that the stained glass in the church portraying the Stations of Cross have remained unscathed.
(LifeSiteNews) — A tabernacle containing the Holy Eucharist and stained glass Stations of the Cross have been found fully intact in a Los Angeles Catholic church otherwise demolished by the Pacific Palisades blaze.
“It goes against logic,” Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) Captain Frank Lima told Los Angeles Magazine, remarking how the stained glass Stations of the Cross panels portraying the passion and death of Jesus Christ remained untouched.
“The glass should have broken out really quick in these kind of conditions, with full roof collapse, and very heavily charred bricks,” said Lima, as he gestured to what remained of the church around him. The windows of the church had disintegrated, the pews were burnt to ash, and only the steel frame of the roof remained.
“Every Station of the Cross is immaculate. It’s unbelievable,” remarked Lima.
READ: Pray to St. Junipero Serra to help those suffering from the Los Angeles wildfires
“This is a true miracle here,” responded the unidentified woman who filmed the scene.
A solid brass tabernacle containing the Eucharist, which Catholics believe to be the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, was also recovered unscathed in the church by LAFD Capt. Bryan Nassour and his crew.
Nassour told Angelus, the LA Archdiocese news outlet, how he decided to check for valuables one morning at Corpus Christi, to hopefully return something meaningful to the parish and prevent their theft by looters.
Amid the debris and ashes, Nassour found the only objects left intact to be the granite altar, with the “tabernacle atop it and a cross above.”
The Blessed Sacrament was found “intact,” OSV News reported.
While brass withstands high heat, Nassour suspects its preservation is due to more than natural causes.
“Talk to any firefighter. In any religious building what usually survives is the cross and certain specific items that are highly religious, unless they’ve been specifically set on fire,” he said.
On restoring the tabernacle to the Corpus Christi parish, Nassour said, “My brother lost his home. I have close friends who lost everything but the shirts on their backs, and they belong to that church too. So, if I could save just one thing, let it be this, so they have something to believe in.”
