"Angels are nothing else

but God’s idea"

Master Eckhard

THE ANGEL

I was not well. I felt bad. Years after years I lied myself, I made myself believe that I do not need Him, that I can manage without Him. But in reality, He never abandoned me. God was always with me.

Why did I come exactly in this place? Sometimes I was walking, making large turnings round the chapel, exactly as if I got there by chance, in my walks, without a precise aim. I lied to myself as I never lied myself more years before. Moreover, I did not know too well my aim. I resisted, I did not want to admit. But I came closer and closer here in Kevelaer am Niederrhein. Here, where once the trolleybuses unloaded the human load and they were transporting here and there the talkative tourists, eager to make photos, I was alone. Really, it was not the time for imploring help. I wandered again through "The Mercy Market", being still full of doubt. Here they found a face that had to produce the wonder. Wasn’t this a great absurdity? I looked scornfully at these veneration places for Saint Mary. And still, something attracted me exactly there.

I did not want. I did not want to leave my barriers to be so quickly broken. At last, I eliminated of my life ten years of church and God, I fought against God. Was my fight in vain? What value had these years?

"If you exist, leave me alone", I said to me loudly. "I do not want any more. I was served. I have enough behind me. You cause me enough suffering. I am a wandering child and I had no real parents. And still: I threw everything for You, I separated myself from everything. I entrusted You my life with solemn vows: I wanted to be poor, I wanted to be obedient, I wanted to be a hermit and to be pure, I wanted to interiorize Jesus Christ’s suffering and to live it, to answer affirmative and to follow only You.

The crown of thorns was put on my head when taking holy orders, as vow to follow Jesus in suffering. But where were You?" Nevertheless accusing did not make me stronger. Moreover, I wanted to look powerful in front of Him and in front of myself. Nevertheless my power of resistance became wicker, wicker and wicker. I evaded for a time in front of the chapel, I was running here and there, up and down, as if I wanted to exploit time as before an unpleasant meeting. Suddenly, I was standing only a few steps before the place of mercy. The double door was open.

Ø A great force was pulling me inside.

I had the feeling that I was pulled inside by an irresistible aspiration. It was silence in the chapel. Some candles were flickering before the icon of Saint Mary. First of all my eyes had to become accustomed with the dark. Silence was embracing me and I started to become dizzy. The whole room was pressing me heavily. I hardly moved my body. My power dispersed, I gave up. I let myself to fall down and I kneeled down "without words, without thoughts. I simply kneeled down on the floor near the benches.

My body and my soul collapsed. The weight of the past years seemed to tear away as a metal mantle. I was crying, yes, I was moaning, I started to implore. I was calling the one I had expelled of my life. Bent, I was sitting crouched on the stone floor as the last sinner in the deep mud. Nevertheless this collapse was a relief for me. I felt how the burden on my soul diminished, how I became free. I was redeemed. My God…

"Father, why do you cry?"

Somebody touched my shoulders from behind, while I was on the floor. How long did I stay there on my knees? Scared, I turned round. I looked upwards. A boy was bent over me. He might have been 12 years old.

What did he say? I have not being wearing priest clothes for a long time. I was completely normal dressed, I looked exactly as the others. Nobody knew me here, and nobody could have known that I was once member of an order.

Little by little I came to my senses. The boy brought me back to that grey day. I felt like a strike the moment when I understood that I talked with the "Father". I rose quickly, I wanted to follow him and to talk with him. But the boy disappeared. I rushed again in the chapel but he was not there. Then I run out round the building – but nothing! I was alone. An incredible situation. I couldn’t control myself and I was still amazed by his words. What happened here?

Maybe I was only more hot-headed. I had behind me a great time. These psychical Scottish showers, the turns here and there in my life that could not be continued like this and a new life which I did not know and in which I did not re-sit. In fact, in this respect I could not discover anything miraculous.

Today I know that that boy was an angel. An angel that had to deliver me this message, an angel sent by God, as the messengers of God with human face were often sent. An existence that descends from the fourth dimension in our dimension and manifests itself in front of a human being.

But I was far away from this thought at that time. The specters of angel or devil were things that I had better let to other natures.

The next day I went again to the chapel, to the icon of Saint Mary for "Consolatrix Afflictorum", to the mother of the deceived. I thought there might be again a chance to meet the boy, maybe he was not an angel, maybe, maybe. But this time I was walking in the chapel rounding, without hesitations.

On the altar, before Mary’s face, I put a notice written on package paper, which I wrote before at home, in a hurry:

My God, do You hear me?

Write me as the chalk writes on the door of this church,

Burn me as the incense burns

Melt me as the gold melts

Drain me as the wax drains

As the candles … here before me ….

When my voice does no longer play with the organ

When I cry and I implore,

When I break my hand looking for You

When my pains are blood duty

For a new life

Then I am calm and I sink

Thinking more and more

To those who cry with me

And who bring their deep wounds.

Passage from the book "Dornen Priester" – A Priest with Thorns

Author – Don Demidoff