For years I had a client who smoked like a chimney. Of course, she got lung cancer. Bad, inoperable lung cancer. I visited her in the hospital and later at the hospice both to do law work for her to prepare her Estate for her death, and also to simply visit her.
Because I am a Catholic, I also try to prepare the soul to see God and be judged by God. So, because the next-of-kin was a brother who hated her and for whom she had great hatred, I said, "You are about to see God. There is one thing, above all other things, which God demands -- you can't go to Him having hatred for anyone. If you can't do that one simple thing, you lose. You're damned. You'll burn.
"So, I urge you to write a letter to him, not forgiving him, but humbly begging him for his forgiveness!" She did so. It was a well-done humble act.
Then I called a Catholic priest, who heard her final confession and gave her last rites.
On May 1, 2008, the hospice taking care of her until she died called and said, "She's dying!"
I rushed over to the hospice and ran to her bedside, only to discover that I had missed the moment of dying by seconds.
Because there were no doctors in attendance and no other visitors -- her friends were freeloaders who had no use for her dead -- the nursing staff asked me to declare her time of death. I checked her pulse on her carotid artery and on her wrist, and noted that she showed no signs of life at all, and declared her dead that day at 11:00 a.m., and that is what was entered on her death certificate -- a sacred enterprise for an old friend.
And what happened with the hate-filled brother?
It is a classic story of evil possessing a soul. I forwarded her letter confessing her fault and begging him for forgiveness to his lawyer, who forwarded it to him.
He responded, in effect, by "pissing on her grave"! He had legal control over the family grave plot. He made sure that she was not buried next to the mother she loved, and that her grave stone was left blank. True story!
If I were God, standing there -- and believe me, God was standing there -- I would have smiled at her brother, and said to him, "All she did is come to you on her knees, confess to you, and beg forgiveness, and you responded by, in a way, abusing her corpse. You may as well have pissed on her grave, as far as I am concerned. Please explain to me why I should not damn you to Hell fire."
At a few points in the Bible, God says some downright shocking things. The fiercest expession in this direction is Proverbs 1:26: "I, in my turn, will laugh at your doom; I will mock you when terror [at your damnation] overtakes you!"
Whew! It is for situations like I just described that God, in His perfect justice, reserves such language!
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