God Exists?

By Patrick Flanagan

 

The question is not whether God exists, but rather “Do You Believe that God Exists?”

From almost time immemorial, the question of God’s existence has intrigued the minds of men from the days of Plato, Socrates, even to the days of my birth and 68 years of my search for Him and perhaps soon to come to a conclusion in a great atom smasher searching for the God Particle as proof, a perhaps modern vision of God Himself.  Imagine the gall of man and presumption that he can reduce God to a particle as a way of finally proving His existence.  Only man could presume to reduce infinity down to a single particle in resolving one of the greatest mysteries of all humankind.

My efforts to find God, to know He exists have consumed almost all of my life’s thoughts and have certainly taken a very different approach than any of those others before me who have also searched.  And this is such an important question to answer.  It changes everything.  If God exists, then the questions of why man exists all must be then answered; if He does not, then the future of man and why he exists changes just so radically and carries a very heavy weight upon us all.

Then there is also the question that if I prove that God exists, how do I then get others to agree and to share the truth which answers the ageless question that must possess almost all of mankind?  Unlike others before me, I wish to approach this question and answer in a much different manner: I believe I have proven God exists finally, and by explaining this adventure, I will also hopefully lead you to the same truth at your own time, place and manner.  Certainly the search for God’s existence is both subjective and objective, but His existence can only really be the objective resolution of the question.  Otherwise, the search becomes meaningless.  So we must engage in a journey of life, my life and the lives of others, and at the end finally reach our destination.  Be patient and aware of the events as we travel together toward that end.

Preface

Like all of us, born from the womb, God didn’t even enter our minds even though many might say He had a hand in our very conception.  I was no different.  My brain and mind were clean as a slate, totally unaware of what was to come.  Why, I didn’t even know that I may also have a soul but I did know the happiness of being held close to my mother and that I was protected.  I was innocent and unbeknown of what was to come.  It wasn’t until later that I realized I was being exposed to love as one of my first real experiences, and it was an unconditional love.  Or at least it should be, but, sadly, often is not for others.

So my first real memories of God and His existence started out at Assumption School managed and run by the Dominican nuns.

I guess one might say that I was blessed from the beginning in that my parents strongly believed in education, tried to be religious and that it must be a quality type of education.  Most of what we gossip about nuns in those days really happened to me.  They were tough and started out in teaching the assumption that God existed; it was a given to them.  Each morning, we started in our Religion classes.  And all day, no opportunity was missed to remind us that we were getting a Catholic education.  The Baltimore Catechism was the Bible and foundation.  Then at night, on a black and white television, the message would be reinforced by Bishop Fulton Sheen who would reinforce St. Thomas Aquinas.

My first real confrontation with God’s existence really came about in the fifth grade where I was exposed to the Five Proofs of God by St. Thomas Aquinas.  This was different than Religion class; it was the beginnings of Philosophy.  They are not the same.  I was fascinated by St. Thomas, his logic and thoroughness.  No stone was left unturned.  I read those five proofs over and over, wrote essays in English class on them, and even became an altar boy and sang in the Church choir, all in the quest for God’s existence.  But I still didn’t believe.  I still questioned and I would continue to question throughout grammar school.  To me, God’s existence was still in question.  Yet almost all my fellow students and their parents all seemed to know He existed…or did they?  At times, it became difficult to ask questions as my peer group all seemed to accept God.  I went to the public library for solitude and also to expand my search, mostly in the stacks of Philosophy.  And I prayed.  By my eighth grade year, I was seriously thinking of entering the priesthood thinking that the seminary would complete my search.  At the last minute, I changed my mind.

The Gospel Truth

 

So in 1959, I enrolled into Bishop O’Dowd High School to continue in my search.  I was honored to have a number of very brilliant priests as my teachers and all were striving for excellence and professionalism in education.  Now my Religion classes had changed to Theology classes.  Plus I had to study Latin, the Romans and the Greeks.  My search was expanded and my professors encouraged me as they all assumed that I believed in God’s existence.  By this time, I had become silent in my disbelief.  My thoughts were radical and different in an environment which just seemed to accept God as a given, He was the Gospel truth that all just accepted.

During those four years, I was exposed to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, naturally St. Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Pascal, and Kant.  I was confronted with the ageless debates on good vs. evil, ethics, knowledge, and all the other areas of philosophical dissertation and exploration.  As strong as St. Thomas was in his Five Proofs, I began to realize that others had spent time in proving that God did not exist.  And their arguments were strong and intelligent, logical.  I was now in more conflict than ever before in my search.  I began to question the very existence of truth, did I even really exist, let alone did God exist.  Instead of answers, I was being confronted with more questions and a further expansion of my quest.  My thoughts were very confused and in conflict.  I still did not believe in God and now realized that my search was expanded to even my own existence and whether good and evil even existed.  It was here that I was confronted with a subjective morality thanks to Dewey and others and now the objective morality even came into question despite the eight years of Dominican nuns saying otherwise.  Perhaps this was the start of the Church’s crisis which few wanted to discuss in Catholic schools.

It was in those four years that I began to revolt against my Catholic education.  Instead of solid truth, I was discovering that many were also questioning God’s existence and that the Church was being threatened to its very core.  My original strong belief in objective morality was now under attack as I expanded my awareness and search.  I was constantly reading and going to the library.

And then, in my junior year, the priests started confiscating books from me.  They were my books but they took them away if I brought them to school.  How could a priest steal and why.  The very foundation of my education now was being challenged and raised the level of my questioning even more.  Perhaps the major confiscation was my books by Aldous Huxley.  That only peaked my curiosity as I wondered what other books may be censored by the Catholic Church.  Thank God for our public libraries as I searched for more books which I shouldn’t be reading.  And it was here that I discovered changes happening in the world which few wished to discuss in the Catholic environment.  And it went back so far to my birth when this quest for God started.  These were days when even the U.S. government was censoring Miller and James Joyce.

The world had changed during WWII.  And it changed in the cafes of France.  The worlds of Theology, Philosophy, History and Literature were all merging together over cappuccinos and lattes.  From Huxley, I moved to Arthur Miller, Anais  Nin, Hemingway, Orwell and realized that quite another world was developing.  The complexities of Philosophy were interacting with the complexities of life, history and just living one’s personal life.  God’s life was being discussed in a number of different disciplines and trying to challenge the everyman to question.  It was the Everyman Era.  All while I was being kept in solitary to be indoctrinated with a pure Catholic or Christian world that censored and stole to prevent the question of God’s existence.  I still, and even more now, did not believe in God’s existence.  After 12 years of education, I began to realize that a whole new world had been kept from me and that I really knew nothing except that others were asking the same question and still not answering or finding the real truth to the question.  I was discovering agnosticism and atheism and having to give both a fair hearing in my disbelief.  I was now about to graduate from high school with still no answers to the central question of my life, but I also began to realize that I was not alone.  Perhaps God was dead.  Time Magazine even carried the news on its cover.  Was that the Gospel Truth?  So the Church responded with Vatican II.

Ite, Missa Est

So I then continued on in my journey by choosing the University of San Francisco as my next step in education.  This was a Jesuit university and Jesuits were known for their high demands in education and in having a very strong base in theology and philosophy.  Yet they also were known as radicals in the Church.  It seemed like “questioning” was a given in their creed and, considering my rebelliousness, it was the place for me to be, learn and continue in my search.

It was exciting times as Vatican II was in session and in deliberation.  It appealed to the radicalism of Catholic youth who seemed to enjoy conflict and wanted to challenge all of the past.  Student debates on priests getting married, use of birth control, the place of mysticism in the Church were frequent and heated.  In all of the background was the drug community of the Haight Ashbury and the re-emergence of spiritual meditation aided by hash and mushrooms.  It was about this time that I started to look at the Rosary as a form of spiritual meditation.  A new interest in Asian religions also began to emerge in an effort to greatly expand the reach of Christianity and its tenets.

In his own way, Pope John XXIII opened the Council with a portend of things to come:

“What is needed at the present time is a new enthusiasm, a new joy and serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire Christian faith, without forfeiting that accuracy and precision in its presentation which characterized the proceedings of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council.   What is needed, and what everyone imbued with a truly Christian, Catholic and apostolic spirit craves today, is that this doctrine shall be more widely known, more deeply understood, and more penetrating in its effects on men’s moral lives.   What is needed is that this certain and immutable doctrine, to which the faithful owe obedience, be studied afresh and reformulated in contemporary terms.   For this deposit of faith, or truths which are contained in our time-honored teaching is one thing; the manner in which these truths are set forth (with their meaning preserved intact) is something else.”  Blessed Pope John XXIII (Opening address to the Council)

The sense of hope for the Church was strong, but I still did not believe in God.  Vatican II did excite me and encourage me in my quest.  It gave renewed strength to continue my search.  These were things that I could believe in.  Many of my religious teachers of my past began leaving the priesthood as part of that questioning.  I was no longer by myself in my questions.  We were on a very new and different journey.  And many began to question.  The brainwashing of the Dominican nuns and the Baltimore Catechism were coming to an end or at least now in question as well.

Michael Novak, another radical, described Vatican II as a spirit that "sometimes soared far beyond the actual, hard-won documents and decisions of Vatican II. ... It was as though the world (or at least the history of the Church) were now to be divided into only two periods, pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II.   Everything 'pre' was then pretty much dismissed, so far as its authority mattered. For the most extreme, to be a Catholic now meant to believe more or less anything one wished to believe, or at least in the sense in which one personally interpreted it.  One could be a Catholic 'in spirit'.  One could take Catholic to mean the 'culture' in which one was born, rather than to mean a creed making objective and rigorous demands.  One could imagine Rome as a distant and irrelevant anachronism, embarrassment, even adversary.  Rome as 'them'. “  Part of me said yes, and part of me said no.  Vatican II was a time of both rupture and of consolidation for me.  It was painful and exciting both for what was to follow.

It was here at the University that I discovered Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J., another Jesuit radical.  Perhaps he attracted me as I had wanted to be a paleontologist as a youngster.  I was fascinated by Darwin and again questioned him against Adam and Eve.  To me, this was tied to the search for God’s existence.  It was Chardin who opened my eyes up to the possibility of man evolving as an individual and also as a species.  And it was Chardin who taught me to see evolution as truth yet still be consistent to believe also in Creationism as truth.  Chardin was a radical as well, having much of his writings restricted, but I never gave up on him.  The Church was in revolt.  For some reason, I felt that I was getting closer to discovering God and that the truth was attainable.  My search continued.

These were the times when Harvey Cox’s Secular City was in full debate on the campus.  It was ushering in the Age of the Spirit for Christianity and that seemed to me natural.  God was, if He existed, around us all and not just in the Catholic Church.

 Karl Rahner S.J.  came under attack about this time from the Jesuit order itself.   In his own way, he was trying to revitalize St. Thomas Aquinas with the post-war movement of existentialism.  It  seemed to me that he was also probing for the truth and joined the ranks of Chardin.  The basis for Rahner's theology was that all human beings have a latent experience of God in any perception of meaning or "transcendental experience."  Was this somehow the path to my discovery of God?  The idea of a special revelation became something that warranted more investigation.  I was now moving into a much different area than ever before in my life and was dismayed by his period of censorship.

My search for God was really also trying to become aware of God around me.  As this states it quite well, I quote: “The basis for Rahner's theology is that all human beings have a latent ("unthematic") awareness of God in any experiences of limitation in knowledge or freedom as finite subjects. Because such experience is the "condition of possibility" for knowledge and freedom as such.  Rahner borrows the language of Kant to describe this experience as "transcendental.  This transcendental experiential factor reveals his closeness to Maréchal’s Transcendental Thomism.  Such is the extent of Rahner's idea of the "natural knowledge of God" — what can be known by reason prior to the advent of "special" revelation. God is only approached asymptotically, in the mode of what Rahner calls "absolute mystery." While one may try to furnish proofs for God's existence, these explicit proofs ultimately refer to the inescapable orientation towards Mystery which constitute — by transcendental necessity — the very nature of the human being.”

This kind of explained my journey up to this time.  And showed me why my quest had and was so difficult in achieving.  What shocked me was Rahner’s dependence upon the early writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and his effort to renew and rediscover Aquinas’ relevance to the 20^th century and the turmoil of Vatican II.  It was if my years of search were coming right back to their beginnings.

So it was natural now that I finally ended up in the philosophy of Jacques Maritain and his wife, Raissa.  It was in his teachings and philosophy that my search was coming to an end and providing me with new tools to continue in my search for God’s existence.  All of this was beginning to make sense but I still had not found God.

Tools of One’s Trade

In my search, I had started out with logic and critical thinking.  St. Thomas Aquinas had been one of the strongest in this area with his “Five Proofs”.  I had also tried getting closer to God by my years as an altar boy and singing Gregorian Chant.  My years of Latin, study of early philosophers up to the modern ages had also expanded my use of critical thought in my search.  Then came the days of Vatican II and the movement of mysticism and meditation.  The mistaken use of drugs as a means to find God was also part of those changes but led nowhere.  The turmoil and debate, censorship and acceptance, all of the changes of the 1960’s seemed to again reinforce that I was not alone and that many were in search of God.  Many in the world were coming to believe that “God was Dead!”  Yet the existentialism of God and Christ was now being introduced by Jacques Maritain in opposition to all of the agnostics and atheists whose ranks seemed to be growing.

It was not the philosophy of Maritain which captured me though it did reinforce my respect for St. Thomas in the 20^th century.  No, the major breakthrough came from the experience of him and his wife with the “Light”.  It had nothing to do with critical thinking, philosophy, but rather the experience of God Himself.  What fascinated me was that both Jacques and his wife were both agnostics, perhaps even atheists at some points, always questioning like I.  While I have never been able to verify this, one day both walked into the Cathedral of Chartreuse and walked out later with both believing in God.  How could this have happened?   They both then went on to be baptized and became great leaders in a neo-revitalization of St. Thomas.  It is just so miraculous to see how they spread God’s existence to all that they touched.  How could all of this happen?  How could an existentialist philosophy which appealed to non-believers now be adopted by those that believe and make it a very strong counter-movement in the support of God and Christ?  For the first time, I saw Jesus Christ as the perfect existentialist and this brought new meaning to all of my Catholic teachings.  St. Thomas was again relevant.  Christ became more relevant.  The very idea of an “unconditional love” was just such a perfect “existentialism”. 

So it was in one moment that everything changed.  While I cannot verify the event, it is verifiable from the words of Jacques and Raissa themselves that this moment of transformation involved a “Light”.  A brief moment happened which changed their entire lives and ended their search for what we all search for, a God and a greater meaning for our very existence.  It was not all the teachings, the philosophies, the strange events in one’s life, all of my efforts; it was just one moment, a transcendentalist moment.

This is not to say that everything was a waste of time.  No, it was a long journey and I gained so much in knowledge and wisdom.  If not making that journey, I may not have come to know that the answer was in just one moment.  And I just owe so much to the Maritains for giving me that knowledge and revelation.  All these years of searching, praying to finally find God, and then now to realize that it all came down to one event, one moment.  I call this moment, “Listening to God”.  That is how we come to know of God’s existence, a brief moment when He talks to us and we are humble enough to listen.  And then we firmly believe that He does exist.  The search is finally over but only to lead on to many other searches for a spiritual life.

How to Listen

We always seem to “pray” to God, talk to Him when we need things or are sad.  I remember an important book I once read by Mortimer Adler, “How to Speak and How to Listen”.  Seems obvious to me that listening is just as important as speaking.  Ironically, Adler also was a Thomist but conducted his own search which paralleled mine.  His conflicts were the same as mine.

He was such a brilliant man and it is ironic that his answers were in a book which had nothing to do with God, but with just the human need to communicate.  It was Christ who tried to teach us how to listen.  Sadly, I believe that Adler never really believed in God and never followed his own advice to “listen” to God as a way of finding that belief.  Perhaps in the end, he finally did see his own “Light”.  We may never know.

Adler once wrote: “I suggest that the men and women who have given up religion because of the impact on their minds of modern science and philosophy were never truly religious in the first place, but only superstitious. The prevalence and predominance of science in our culture has cured a great many of the superstitious beliefs that constituted their false religiosity. The increase of secularism and irreligion in our society does not reflect a decrease in the number of persons who are truly religious, but a decrease in the number of those who are falsely religious; that is, merely superstitious. There is no question but that science is the cure for superstition, and, if given half the chance with education, it will reduce the amount that exists. The truths of religion must be compatible with the truths of science and the truths of philosophy. As scientific knowledge advances, and as philosophical analysis improves, religion is progressively purified of the superstitions that accidentally attach themselves to it as parasites. That being so, it is easier in fact to be more truly religious today than ever before, precisely because of the advances that have been made in science and philosophy. That is to say, it is easier for those who will make the effort to think clearly in and about religion, not for those whose addiction to religion is nothing more than a slavish adherence to inherited superstition. Throughout the whole of the past, only a small number of men were ever truly religious. The vast majority who gave their epochs and their societies the appearance of being religious were primarily and essentially superstitious.”

As you read what follows, you must consider also what Adler said, “Applying … insight to the fact that the existing cosmos is merely one of a plurality of possible universes, we come to the conclusion that the cosmos, radically contingent in existence, would not exist at all were its existence not caused. A merely possible cosmos cannot be an uncaused cosmos. A cosmos that is radically contingent in existence, and needs a cause of that existence, needs a supernatural cause, one that exists and acts to ex-nihilate this merely possible cosmos, thus preventing the realization of what is always possible for merely a possible cosmos, namely, its absolute non-existence or reduction to nothingness.”  Could it be that physics now is close to seeing the infinity of many cosmos as we search for the God particle?  Does the existence of an infinity of dimensions now also lead us to the belief in God just as St. Thomas tried to lead us?

Adler finishes by pointing out that the conclusion reached conforms to Ockham’s Rule (the rule which states that we are justified in positing or asserting the real existence of unobserved or unobservable entities if-and only-if their real existence is indispensable for the explanation of observable phenomena) because we have found it necessary to posit the existence of God, the Supreme Being, in order to explain what needs to be explained-the actual existence here and now of a merely possible cosmos.

Adler stressed that even with this conclusion, God's existence cannot be proven or demonstrated, but only established as true beyond a reasonable doubt. However, in a recent re-review of the argument, John Cramer concluded that recent developments in physics appear to converge with and support Adler's argument, and that in light of such theories as the multiverse, the argument is no worse for wear and may, indeed, now be judged somewhat more probable than it was originally. To me, it is amazing just how all of the pieces now seem to be coming together.  It is all so Paschalian and Thomist, yet still consistent with Einstein.

I agree and disagree with Adler.  Belief in God can only be based upon a truth which is beyond a reasonable doubt.  But we seem to be closely approaching that moment in physics and in philosophy.  If we would only listen.

To listen to God is very different than how we listen to man.  He speaks to us almost in a multi-physical manner.  To listen to God, we must not just use our ears, but our eyes, our feelings, our minds, and all of our being.  We must be very observant as often He speaks not in words but in events.  Sometimes it may just be the “Light” of the Maritains.  If we listen, and we hear Him, we usually will now finally believe in God about as much as we can and under Adler’s constraints.  Much more than that, we cannot hope for until we finally die and experience the Truth in the end.

I guess I am blessed that God has spoken to me a few times in my life and I was listening.  People who know me, know that it is hard for me to listen so perhaps that is why it took me so long to believe in God.  I thought I would give you some instances where I listened so that maybe it would help you to also listen to God.  Perhaps we all listen to Him differently, or He speaks to us in a different way, but the most important is that we are aware and ready to listen when the time comes.  It may just be a “Light” or it may be something just particular to you.  What I do know is that if you listen carefully, you will finally believe in God as I now do.  And it is in support of this that I must say here that all great spiritual people I have met in my life have all been successful in listening to God.  They all believe and we are all brothers now in a new quest for a higher life of spiritualism.  The quest for life stays but just changes the loftiness of attainment.

God Speaks to Me

My first real listening to God was soon after I had read most of Jacques Maritain.  It was when I was dating my wife and going through the process of courtship.  All of a sudden, the thought came to me that she was trying to love me unconditionally.  She really did love me even with all of my faults.  I was both honored and humbled.  And it was then that I decided to also love her unconditionally; I thought I could really do this.  The feeling that went over me was quite unbelievable and I felt that God was there when we made this joint acceptance.  After all, He was just reminding us of what Christ tried to teach us all.  There was no light, but there was a very unusual love at that moment and I then believed in God.  Maybe Jacques and Raissa also felt that love when they saw the light.  I would like to believe it is so.

The second time that God spoke to me and I listened happened at the Grotto in Portland, Oregon.  It was on Good Friday and the occasion of my oldest daughter’s Confirmation.  By happenstance, I found myself within the Grotto alone and decided that I would pray the Stations of the Cross.  By this time in my life, I was searching for a higher level in my spiritual life.  I was fascinated by St. John of the Cross, Mother Teresa, and so many others who had clearly achieved very high levels of spirituality and goodness.  And they all had experienced the Hours of Darkness as part of that process of listening to God much more closely.

The Grotto had a small place where all of the Stations of the Cross were remembered with sculptures; in front of each, there was a wooden kneeler for one to kneel on as one commemorated that particular ordeal in Christ’s Passion.  The time was about noon when Christ first started his ordeal on that Friday and that I was going to commemorate in my prayers.  Perhaps this mystical ritual would absolve me of all of my sins and bring me peace.

So I prayed at each of the stations and finally finished.  I took all of this into my perspective and then realized that at each station, my knees had been very painful at the stations where Christ was in pain, but my knees had not been painful at stations where Christ was being consoled.  I went back and looked at each station again and realized that this was true and that this had happened.  Yet all the wooden kneelers were exactly the same.  How could all of this be?  Was it my imagination or was God trying to speak to me?

I still had time in the Grotto but I was shaken by these events.  I then saw a very large cast sculpture of Christ carrying the Cross in what was kind of a secluded area nearby.  I then decided to then pray the Rosary which I am a very big believer in as a form of spiritual meditation.  It can be a way of listening to God if we let it.

In the front of this area were two very large camellia plants in full flower with tons of bright red petals.  As I walked into this area where the large sculpture of Christ carrying His Cross was, all of the red petals of the two plants dropped to the ground as if tears of sorrow.  There was no wind; they just dropped in sorrow.  All of them and at once.  I looked at my watch and it was 3:00 p.m., the time we remember as to when Christ finally expired.  I then went into the area and said the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary in memory.  It was as if I could feel the tremendous sorrow of Christ’s mother as she removed her Son from the Cross.

After, I had a tremendous sense of peace and realized that I was very honored to have had Christ speak to me that day.  I just listened and my belief in His existence was firmly set within my heart, my mind and my soul.  The Grotto is a very holy place.

For the rest of my life, I have tried to rise in my spiritual capability.  This has not been very easy.  I have become a very big believer of the Rosary as a prayer which helps us to listen to God.  I have tried to meditate in different ways and tried to do good things for people in my life.  And I often am weak and I fail.  I wish and want God to speak to me more often but who am I to demand such a thing.  I can’t.  All I can do is listen and hope.  Sometimes I begin to doubt during these periods of darkness.  St. John and others warn of this in the quest for spirituality.  Then I remember the time in the Grotto and regain my strength and resolve.

At this time, it is important to note another time when God spoke to me.  It was a period when my daughter was very sick and ill.  There was nothing that I could do for her but wait.  One night I was so worried and upset, I went into our backyard for some peace during the night.  It was then that I saw demons upon the wall of her bedroom where she was resting.  They were so horrible and crawling all around her bedroom.  I was terrified.  I was helpless.  All I could think of doing was to pray the Rosary for the intention of my daughter and her safety.  After I was finished, all of these demonic shadows were gone and I had peace that she would recover which she did.  It was a very scary evening, but I realized that if demons exist, if evil exists, then God must also exist and good must as well.  I also realized that I am weak and cannot fight against the demons without God’s help or the help of His angels.  I was humbled as I realized just how helpless I am without God.  I realized just how hard humility is and how much we need to reach for it in our struggle for spirituality.  God spoke to me that night but in a way which I just was not prepared for.  I now knew that evil exists and that demons wish me to fail, to despair and to give up in my belief of God.  Ironically, the opposite was the result.

This happened again to me.  One night I entered into a bar in Virginia City.  I was drinking alcohol very heavy in those days.  I ordered a drink and then felt the presence of evil.  As I sipped my drink, I looked up to the wall of the bar and again saw the same demonic images there, as if they were watching me, hoping for my despair.  Again, I was very frightened and knew I had to leave.  I left immediately and said the Rosary as I drove home for my protection.  Again, God was talking to me that the presence of evil also strengthens the belief that God and good also exist and that they will be victorious.  I was listening to God again.

Not too long after the bar event, I developed a severe case of pancreatitis.  I rushed to the doctor’s office and he immediately rushed me to the hospital where I was informed that I could die within the next 24 hours if they didn’t get this to stop.  The cause was probably from my drinking of alcohol.  I had to take a test and wait for an hour to see what the doctors could do to save my life.  I was very scared and desperate.  I really thought I was going to die soon.

During my wait, I roamed the hospital and found a small chapel.  I decided to go in and say the Rosary, hoping that God would answer my prayers and allow me to survive.  I went in to the chapel, sat down and started to recite the Rosary.  By now, I use my fingers and have it memorized.  After, I felt tired and laid down in the pew to rest.  I fell asleep.

 

As I was sleeping, I had a dream.  In this dream, I was in the very same chapel at the hospital, sleeping in the pew but I was not alone.  Above me, over my stomach and pancreas were three small cherub angels.  They were all black dressed in flowery white dresses, hovering above me and waving their hands all around my stomach.  Imagine, black angels in white dresses.  Who could have dreamt of such an incongruity unless it was a reality.  I then woke up.  I then got up and left to go back to the doctors.  The pancreatitis was gone.  I left and stopped drinking alcohol from that point on in my life.  This time God spoke to me and kept me living for reasons that I still am not sure of.

Oh, there are other times when God spoke to me; sometimes I was listening, sometimes I was not.  The most important thing is to try to listen all of the time.  If you doubt God exists, maybe this will help you to find him.  It has been a very long journey for me.  I can only urge you to read some of the works I have discussed here, some of the brilliant men who shared the same journey as we all do.  I urge you to keep all of your senses open to the word of God, your eyes open to His light and how He speaks with the actions and events around us.  Be aware and be observant, listen.

One last instance of His speaking to me.  I have for a number of months been trying to help a good friend of mine regain his eyesight.  His wife had passed away and he got cataracts which progressed to such a point that he was really blind.  It has been a long battle and many visits to the hospital, the eye surgeon, to the grocery store to buy groceries, to the mail boxes to pick up mail.  Once blind, life is very limited, but we always had hope.  It was a lot of work and took a lot of time.  I will never forget the day of his first eye operation to remove the cataract and he was starting to see again.  Then the operation on his other eye and more of the world was coming back to him in his eyes.  It was then that I had such a feeling of honor that I now felt what Christ felt when He made the blind man see again.  That feeling is and was priceless. 

During this, both Mike and I went through a lot of emotions and despair.  We were disappointed with progress and often had doubts as to where we were going.  We had setbacks but we continued on.  It is just so frustrating to take a man who is blind grocery shopping.  One must have patience and perseverance.  But the gamut of emotions during this battle has been all over the place, both good and bad.  I often had my doubts about all of it but often told my friend that I think God wants us to do this.  Deep in my heart, I still wondered.  I wondered where we were going and whether all of this was worth it.  Our friendship provided us strength during the difficult times and I prayed.

Then one day, as I was leaving my friend at his home, I noticed a very bright red tulip growing in all of the weeds.  Red tulips are one of my favorites.  I told my friend right then, this is God speaking to us.  That we are doing the right things and that everything is going to be just fine.  That tulip was growing where none should have or could have grown, but it was just a quick word from God to both of us.  A few days later it was totally gone but the Word of God still stays with us.  And I now feel what Christ felt when he cured the blind man; I am so honored to have shared such a feeling in my life.  It makes all of the doubts and trials worthwhile, just with a tulip as a short word.  Brief and to the point.  But we had to listen.

I hope this helps you.  I hope that God will speak to you soon and often.  Just listen.