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Question

Dear Father Angelo,
I opened your website and went on reading your responses to a wide array of questions, and I found a lot of consolation from them even though they were not directed to me. For this reason I am about now to open up my heart to your discernment.
I lost my father to a lung tumor about ten months ago.
Being a physician myself, I was the first to make the diagnosis, which was later confirmed by the instrumental tests which also revealed the severity of the condition (inoperability, terminal stage of the illness…).  From the very beginning I shared with my dad both the pain and the truth (within the limits of his acceptance, never telling him that his pain would grow worse, I never told him for instance that there was nothing the official medicine could do, and that he had two or three months to live; I tried to keep his hope alive, and we said to each other that we would face together whatever would come our way).
Let me first say that because of my job I live in another town, and that my dad moved in with me at the time of the diagnosis, so he could continue with the diagnostic process and the treatment, which, sadly,  was only palliative.  I had the privilege to assist my dad through his weakness and frailty, with all the highs and lows that came from an extremely stressful situation.
With the palliative treatment, associated with prayers and more natural supportive care (diet, medical herb extracts), “miraculously” the illness that had seemed to be unstoppable was eventually controlled and a chemotherapy session could be executed that improved somewhat his respiratory problems, and we managed to go on for nine months in fairly acceptable living conditions.
During these months my dad drew closer to prayer, an often silent prayer because, being a man from the south, it was difficult for him to vocalize his thanksgiving to Our Lady with the rosary,  but I noticed that when it was time to say the rosary with us (me and my mother, who never stopped praying), even if he was lying in bed in the grips of the constant pain that began to torture him, he asked to be helped to the armchair and attended the rosary and the blessing given by the priest on TV, and then he went back to bed.  Eventually it became necessary to admit my dad into the hospital, the same one where I work, and in the last days of his earthly life, that unfortunately ended in the hospital, I know that he spoke with the priest there.  He talked with him about what weighed on his heart the most, and he looked more serene, and often sent for him.
My dad died of a cause not directly related to his illness, because of a fall followed by a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
The last day of his life, while I was dozing on and off, a voice woke me up telling me to run to the hospital because “that fall was not a trivial one, it was not the usual fall…” I heard this very clearly and rushed to the hospital long before the start of my shift. I could only see my father for a moment, he did not respond to me as usual; I had to diagnose a sudden cerebral condition, and I realized that we were close to his passing.
I can’t describe the excruciating pain for the sudden separation that was to happen a few hours later; I watched over my father for about six hours, that’s how long his coma lasted, I couldn’t talk to him but I caressed his hands and face all the time, while I tried to impress in my memory his scent and his warmth, with tears running down my face, feeling my heart tear open; at three I heard the bell toll, and I remembered Jesus’s promise and started praying the chaplet of the divine mercy so that my father could be received in the arms of the merciful Jesus, and I immediately felt peace… the pain was still there but more “suave”, less like a boulder.
I apologize for dwelling too much on this, but after some time I started having doubts that my father may not have had time to prepare for a good christian death with all the sacraments, I don’t know if he was able to confess and receive Jesus, and I wonder if it is OK to think that the fact that he accepted his pain with dignity (my father never swore at God for what happened to him, and even began developing an attachment to our mother Mary to whom he prayed to alleviate his pain) may have been instrumental in saving my dad’s soul…
I always pray for him and ask to hear that he is fine and may come to see God’s face. What do you think, father Angelo? Did God’s Mercy save my dad?
Thank-you.


Priest’s answer

Dear friend,

1. There is every reason to hope that your father was saved. He welcomed the priest and our Lord said “Whoever receives you, receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me” (Mt 10,40)..

2. He drew closer to prayer. And by drawing closer to prayer he grew closer to God.

3. He showed an attachment to our mother Mary, asking her to alleviate his pain.
Who knows how many times he said “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death”. Would our Lady, whose love for us exceeds that of all mothers in this world, not listen to him?

4. You recited the chaplet of the Divine Mercy at three, trusting in Jesus’s promise.
Jesus’s promise is flattering: “It pleases Me to grant everything they ask of Me by saying the chaplet” (Diary 1541) “. Moreover: “Whoever will recite it will receive great mercy at the hour of death… Even if there were a sinner most hardened, if he were to recite this chaplet only once, he would receive grace from My infinite mercy” (Diary 687).

5. “At the hour of their death, I defend as My own glory every soul that will say this chaplet; or when others say it for a dying person, the indulgence is the same. When  this chaplet is said by the bedside of a dying person, God’s anger is placated, unfathomable mercy envelops the soul, and the very depths of My tender mercy are moved for the sake of the sorrowful Passion of My Son” (Diary 811).
When hardened sinners say it, I will fill their souls with peace, and the hour of their death will be a happy one… Write that when they say this chaplet in the presence of the dying, I will stand between My Father and the dying person, not as the just Judge but as the merciful Savior” (Diary 1541)

6. True, this is a private revelation.  But it describes nicely how divine mercy works with all of us up until the very end of our life.  We should therefore trust that the Lord granted your father the grace of repentance even if he did not receive the Sacraments.
Wasn’t the fact that he sent for the priest repeatedly a tacit plea to receive the goods that priests carry with them, particularly the remission of sins in confession?

7. Having said all this however, do not relent with your suffrages.
I like to cite the Catechism of the Catholic Church:”Communion with the dead.
«In full consciousness of this communion of the whole Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, the Church in its pilgrim members, from the very earliest days of the Christian religion, has honored with great respect the memory of the dead; and ‘because it is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins’ (2 Mac 12,45) she offers her suffrages for them» (Lumen Gentium, 50). Our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective” (CCC 958).

I gladly join with you in this prayer of intercession: to help your father, and to be helped by him.

I remind you to the Lord and I bless you.
Father Angelo

20 January 2017 | A priest answers – Liturgy and pastoral – Pastoral section