Third Sunday of Lent Year C, 2025

Some time ago, someone I knew, tragically, passed away from a drug overdose. I'm going to call him “Al.” 

From my experience, Al was not religious. 


Well, one day, a couple years before he died, Al approached me and said he thought he saw Jesus. 


What happened was, Al was employed by a church. And, as Al was doing work in the church, he noticed a very disheveled looking man kneeling and praying in the front pew.


This confused Al because the doors to the church had been locked and secured for some time.


Inside the church were: Al, a cleaning person, and this very disheveled looking man. 


Al was then on his way out of the church to grab something and, on his return, he planned to ask the man to go on his way, since nobody was supposed to be in the church at the time. 


Al was comforted that there was a cleaning person there to keep an eye on the man. 


Upon Al’s return inside the church, the man was gone. So, he approached the cleaning person and asked where the guy went but the cleaning person had no idea who Al was talking about. This dumbfounded Al because the cleaning person was vacuuming very closely to the man; for Al, it was impossible for the cleaning person to fail to notice this man praying so conspicuously in the church. But the cleaning person insisted they saw no one and, upon reflecting on how the man looked, Al said the man resembled Jesus.


…Upon hearing this story from Al, I immediately thought to myself that Al might die soon. 


Now, I don't think just because we see Jesus means that we are going to die soon but it was my gut feeling. 


Anyway, fast-forward two years, and Al has passed away from a drug overdose.


Upon hearing this very sad news, I prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for Al's soul.


That night, I had a dream that Al died. I could see his body on a metal table, like in a morgue. Al’s body was lifeless but I could see his soul was alive in another place. And I could see that, appearing in front of Al, was a framed image of the Divine Mercy (This is the image). And I saw Al wrap his arms around it.


And, upon embracing the image, Al’s spirit returned to his body and he was revived. And, upon being revived, in the dream, Al told me that he was not headed to a good place until he embraced that image.


…And, as some of you may know, Jesus promised that every soul who venerates this image shall not suffer Hell.


…I know it’s a strange dream but, I think, the message is that this man was headed to Hell. But it was God’s mercy that saved him. Even when Al’s soul was on its way to somewhere else, according to my dream, God’s mercy was still available and it seems that Al accepted it, thanks be to God.


…I share this because I was listening to a podcast of a priest who was talking about repentance.


He said something like, “We can’t live our lives in such a way that we plan to repent at the very last second, like a death bed conversion, because that’s not how most of us die.” …The priest explained: “Most of us die as we live,” which means, the way we are living now is likely the spiritual state we will die in.


…In today’s Gospel, Jesus is making the same point, and He uses the example of people who tragically die, and says, “Just because a tragedy happens to somebody does not mean that they were greater sinners than other people.”

In other words, just because our sins might be more private than another person’s, does not make us less guilty: We are both in need of repentance and, Jesus says, if we don’t repent of even our private sins, we will die in the same way, that is, suddenly and without warning. 


…Having a death bed conversion is  possible and God's mercy is always available for those who are sorry but living our lives however we want until the very last second is not something Jesus desires for us.



Scripture readings for this day: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032325-YearC.cfm

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