The second or third year of my ministry as a priest, while I was stationed at a West Side parish in Manhattan, I had a very unusual experience.
It was a day I was “on duty”—i.e., available, on call, for anyone who came to or phoned the rectory for anything at all. It also included visiting the Catholic patients in the nearby Women’s Hospital.
I had made visits to all the Catholic patients in the hospital in the late afternoon and planned to bring communion the next morning to those who requested it.
In the middle of that night, I was awakened by a phone call. The man phoning gave me the name of a patient at the hospital and told me that it was urgent that she see a priest immediately. Curiously, it was not a name on the Catholic patients list.
Sleepily I dressed and walked over to the hospital and up to the appropriate floor. In the middle of the night there aren’t a lot of people on duty. I didn’t run into any staff members, but I checked the list of ward bed assignments and located the person I came to see.
She turned out to be a young woman, looking rather wain and frail. She seemed pleased to see me and began to tell me that she very much wanted to become a Catholic.
She told me how she had visited a Catholic church in her neighborhood before she got sick, prayed before at an altar, and talked to the Lady. She wanted to know if she could be baptized here and now, especially since her health was precarious.
We had a long conversation. She clearly was very ill and also very hungry for baptism. I did my best to talk to her about fundamentals of faith and God’s provident, loving kindness. At the end, she professed her faith, and I did baptize her.
I promised I would return in the early morning with communion, blessed her, and wished her a good night.
The next morning, I made my rounds of communion visits, saving her for last. When I got to the ward where she had been, the bed was empty.
I asked the nurse on duty where the patient was, and she told me that she had died during the night. I was shocked.
I told the nurse what had happened during the night. She seemed puzzled. Finally, she said, “Father, you must be mistaken; you couldn’t have spoken to that woman. She had been in a coma for several days and never came out of it before she passed away.”
She also added that they knew little about her. She had no known relatives or friends to contact, and she had not had any visitors while in the hospital.
Frankly, the nurse seemed incredulous that I could have visited and spoken with the young woman during the night.
But, I knew she had prayed to the Lady, hungered for God, expressed her faith, and begged to be baptized. And, apparently was called by God immediately after.
Without relatives, friends, or contacts, who was it that called me to her side in the middle of night? Who would have known that she was dying? Who would have known that she wanted to be baptized? Who phoned me?
This was one of the most unusual spiritual experiences I ever had.
Biblical scholars usual explain that angels were messengers of God and sometimes almost direct manifestations of God.
I know it may sound strange, but the only way I can explain the call that woke me up and sent me to the hospital that night was that the call came from a messenger sent by God.
16 November 2021