Question

I hope you are well and healthy.

I was wondering: if a person that during his life was a thief, a murderer, etc. starts suffering from Alzhaimer’s or another degenerative disease of the brain at old age, how can he repent before God if he is of unsound mind and his brain is compromised?

Can the Lord grant him the grace of repentance at the last moment, even though he is incapable of understanding?

Best wishes,

Domenico.

 Answer from the priest

Dear Domenico,

1. This is another reason why we should always be vigilant and not postpone the moment of our conversion.

There could be an accident or any other thing that could make us incapable of repenting.  And that would be tragic.

That’s why during Ash Wednesday the Church prays by saying: “Let us amend for the better in those things in which we have sinned through ignorance: lest suddenly overtaken by the day of death, we seek space for penance, and are not able to find it”.

2. But even before the Liturgy of the Church, it’s God Himself who reminds us of this awful possibility.

“Delay not your conversion to the Lord, put it not off from day to day; For suddenly his wrath flames forth; at the time of vengeance, you will be destroyed” (Sir 5:8-9); “Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matt 25:13).

3. There is a particular passage of the Gospel which may suggest the incapability of repenting.

It’s where Jesus says: “Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.

You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come” (Luke 12:39-40).

4. The thief who wants to break into the house is the devil, according to St. Gregory the Great.

St. Gregory writes: “It is because of the ignorance of the father of a family that the thief pierces the house: indeed, when our soul sleeps instead of watching over itself, death, rising unexpectedly, breaks our house of flesh;  If she watched, she could resist the thief, for, taking precautions with a view to the coming of the Judge who secretly removes souls, she would go to meet him by doing penance, so as not to perish unrepentantly. If Our Lord has wished that our last hour be unknown to us, it is so that we may consider it as always imminent, and that, in the impossibility of foreseeing it, we cease to be prepared for it” (Homily 13 to the Gospel of Luke).

5. Sure, omnipotence and divine mercy have no limits to win a sinner’s heart, even if he has lost his mind.

Anyway, since the Lord said: “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come” (Luke 12:40), we must abide by Jesus’s words, which are truer than any other word.

With the hope of finding ourselves ready, in an attitude of permanent repentance, I entrust you to the Lord and I bless you.

Father Angelo

Translated by Francesca

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