A true conversion

A sister-nurse in a hospital stopped a priest walking through the corridors and asked him to visit an elderly man who was belligerent and anti-religious, as no one could talk to him. The priest went in to speak to him, but the elderly man cursed him and embarrassed himself refusing even to talk to the kind priest. He had no other choice than to walk out and leave the hospital. But the sister begged the priest again to try one more time. ‘I’m sorry, I tried but I can’t force him!’ the priest replied. Yet the sister insisted he should try one more time. Reluctantly, he did and the priest went in again and told him ‘Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to do confession or receive communion, but I just want to pray here by myself.’

The elderly patient had no remorse at all and told the priest ‘You’re just wasting your time.’ ‘That’s OK, I know that God is merciful and forgives everyone, even you.’ The man insisted ‘No, there’s no hope for me.....let me tell you what I did....25 years ago I worked on the railroad and my job was the put down the bar to stop cars from advancing when a train was coming. One day I was drunk and did not put the bar down. A car approached the tracks and proceeded just as a train was coming. The train crushed the car with two people inside and three young children, killing all of them. I destroyed a family that day because of my vices and drunkenness. God will never forgive me!’ The priest asked him where was he working when this happened. As soon as he told him the intersection where the train tragedy happened, the priest told him ‘25 years ago I lost both my parents and my three little sisters in that train wreck. I was not with them, because I was sick that day. Now you have to understand that God has forgiven you, and I forgive you too, even though I didn’t know you.’  The man cried and cried and asked to be forgiven in confession and received the Eucharist from that priest.

Now when the priest left that room, he searched for that sister who had encouraged him to persevere and visit that patient again. He felt it really strange when the other nurses told him that there was no sister around for days. So a few months later, the priest was saying Mass in a nun’s convent and on the wall he saw a painting of a nun, whom he recognized as the sister who had spoken to him that day in the hospital. The other nuns laughed at him when he told them the story. They told him ‘Father, that is St Faustina – she’s been dead almost 90 years. You could not have seen her in person.’  Truly God is merciful and He uses unpredictable situations to make miracles when we least expect them.