About 20/25 years ago, I read this story in The Times. It was the experience of a fairly successful female fiction writer based in the UK. She was returning home on Christmas eve having attended a social event in central London and walking to a taxi stand. She was a convent educated but long lapsed Catholic having abandoned the faith when she went to university. By this time she was in her mid-thirties. She was passing a Catholic Church and decided on an impulse to go in as she could see candle lights inside. There were people waiting for confession, lots of candles and a crib. She stopped in front of the crib feeling sorry for the deluded people about to confess but admitting to herself to being just a little envious of their faith. She stood up and went to leave, passing the confessionals as she went. As she passed one, someone emerged and she was grabbed by unseen hands, pushed into the confessional and forced to her knees. She found herself making a tearful confession and feeling truly repentant and suddenly in no doubt about God's existence. At the end of her confession, the priest said, 'Oh, I'm so glad you came, I was waiting for you'. She said, 'But I don't know you Father', and he said, 'No we haven't met but I asked the Baby Jesus before confessions started to send me a special penitent for Christmas'. 'You're my Christmas gift'.
I just wanted to 'bump' the above story for those who didn't read it last year and to repeat another. A young English priest not many years ago was praying before the Blessed Sacrament early Christmas morning in preparation for the Christmas day Masses. The church was locked and he was alone. He made his prayers, stood and turned and to his great surprise and fear, he saw that Church was full of what looked mostly like vagrants. They all seemed to look an unhealthy grey shade and were mostly dressed in rags, many with wild, unkempt hair. There was several hundred of them and were totally silent and were all staring at the tabernacle. The priest rushed to the main door to find it locked and then to the side door which was also locked. All the windows appeared to be secure and were too high anyway for any but a young and athletic person to have used them for entry. He fled to the presbytery and rang an old and holy priest that he knew and asked him what he thought might be happening. The old priest told him that these were suffering souls and they were staring at the Tabernacle because they had been often distracted and indifferent at Mass in life and were unkempt and dressed in rags because of their vanity. He told the younger priest not to be afraid but to offer Masses as soon as possible for the souls he had seen and to thank God on their behalf for being permitted to be in the presence of the the Lord at Christmas.
Wow! Thanks for sharing. I hope and pray my children are one day the recipients of such a prayerful priest and go to confession. Soon!
