Mt 13:10-17 Blessed Are Your Eyes“Blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.”
To see things clearly means to have 20/20 vision. To see things more clearly means to allow the Spirit to work through you and be a part of you so as to see beyond what the human eye can see. To see things more clearly means to invite God to enhance your internal imaging process. For example: to hear a symphony by observing a pastoral setting or to write poetry while observing a field of wheat.
Many read Scripture. Some are inspired, others are not. Some read it as a novel while others read it as Sacred. Some consider it as brilliant literature. Others can see it as divine intervention. “Blessed are your eyes, because they see.”
Many motorists passed her by. Many never even considered investigating the twisted metal. But one newly ordained priest understood that something was seriously wrong.
I personally know Fr. Jorge Garcia, L.C. He was a seminarian in Rome while I was preparing for my ordination. On December 12th, on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, he was ordained a priest. Two days later, he traveled with his family to San Giovanni Rotondo to celebrate Mass. The journey was long, roughly five hours from Rome, but the longing to visit St. Padre Pio’s tomb and monastery was strong, very strong. After a few hours there, the family headed back to Rome. The day appeared to be complete. Little did they know what would happen next.
As night descended, Fr. Jorge’s brother insisted that they stop at a store to fix his cell phone. It hadn’t been working at all that day. It was already getting late and Father really didn’t want to. “Can’t this wait?” he thought to himself. But in the end he relented, and solved what appeared to be a non-essential matter.
The traffic was slow. A young lady, riding a motorcycle, was slowing down traffic. She was driving very cautiously on the winding roads. The weather had turned bad only a few minutes ago and everyone was anxious to get back home before midnight.
Suddenly, the cars began to move at a normal pace. As they turned in what appeared to be an endless number of curves, Father Jorge noticed a twisted motorcycle up ahead. Here, I want to stress to you that not a single car stopped or slowed down as they passed the broken motorcycle near the guard rail. The Garcia family passed to, but Fr. Jorge immediately had a reaction, a knee jerk reaction. He knew, without seeing, that something serious had happened. They stopped. He got out. He walked over to the wreckage and saw no one and heard nothing. He called out. Nothing. He called out again. Nothing. He walked a few feet and into the bushes. There he saw a young girl, Rosanna, 17 years old, lying on the ground. One arm had been completely severed, the other was severely cut. She was bleeding profusely. Her head had been crushed and she was alone, dying. He reached out to her and spoke to her: “I am a priest…can you hear me? If you want, I can give you absolution…” Her head moved slightly up and down.
Fr. Jorge asked his brother to use his cell phone to call paramedics. They arrived almost immediately. But as soon as they saw this young girl, they knew she would not make it. She didn’t. She died in priest's arms. When the time came to call Rosanna’s mother, he learned that Rosanna had just finished a novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This was her second time. She had Holy Communion and Confession on the first nine Fridays of every month. That is why she did not die alone. That is why she died in the arms of a priest.
All in all: We have a personal desire to see the tomb of Padre Pio; a heartfelt need to celebrate Mass five hours away from home; and an irrational insistence to fix a cell phone that would delay the return home. We have a young girl who had made a special devotion to the Heart of Jesus and there was no way that Jesus would not keep his promise. Who would ever have seen these three coming together and for a completely different reason.
“Blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.”
As Fulton Sheen would often say, “It appears as though the number of coincidences increases for those who pray.”
