Father
O'Malley was pastor of a small parish in Grass Valley,
California. One evening while he was preparing
his homily for the coming Sunday, his telephone rang.
The
weather was stormy, and all the electrical lines were
down. A voice on the other end of the telephone said,
"Fr. O'Malley, I am calling from the local
hospital and we have a terminally ill patient here who
is asking to see a priest about the last rites, can
you come quickly?"
The trip
was 30 miles, the going was rough as trees and power
lines were down. The nurse met Fr. O'Malley at the
door, and thanked him for coming. The person who
wants to see you, Father, is an alcoholic, but he is
still coherent but is slipping fast. Fr. O'Malley
asked the nurse what the patients name was. She
answered, the hospital calls him Tom.
Fr.
O'Malley went into Tom's room and said to Tom, "I
was just passing thru and thought I would visit you
before you sleep."
"Don't
give me any of that garbage", Tom replied,
"I asked that nurse to call someone to give me
the last rites because I know my time is done and its
my turn to go. Now get with it."
"Would
you like to make a confession?" the priest asked
Tom.
"Absolutely
not" Tom answered. They talked for a long time
and occasionally Father would ask Tom if he was ready
for confession. After some time Tom told Father
that he had done something in his life that was with
him every day and he did not feel that God would
forgive him. Finally after some time, Tom agreed
to tell the priest his story. "Thirty-two
years ago, two months and eleven days ago, I was
working for the railroad. It happened in a bad storm.
It was two days before Christmas and the whole crew
was drunk. Someone had to go out and push the
switch for the train to go northbound. I guess I was
more drunk than the rest because I pushed the switch
in the wrong direction. At 45 miles per hour the
freight train slammed into a passenger car at the end
of the next crossing and killed a young man, his wife,
and their two daughters. I have had to live with
that all of my life," Tom said.
There
was a moment of silence as Tom's confession of this
tragedy hung in the air. After what seemed like
an eternity, Fr. O'Malley gently put his hand on Tom's
shoulder and said very quietly. "If I can
forgive you, God can forgive you, because in that car
were my mother, my father and my two sisters.
Do we
still find it difficult to forgive anyone?
