Can the dead speak to us?

[Benadam]

I know that I’m supposed to forgive him. I find this difficult because his policy had been deliberate my entire life up to the point that he died.

*Bob, I I can relate to your experience as the son of a father who persecutes without reason. I hope you don’t mind my (name removed by moderator)ut. *
Try to keep the meaning of forgiveness. It isn’t overcoming the hurt, anger, or the unjustice suffered. It’s just not wanting the person to have to suffer the measure of punishment due.The rest will follow.

Try to see it as an opportunity to add power to your prayer. To experience that is to rejoice at the opportunity to forgive.

The scream you heard would be an unchangeable eternal existence for him.

“We had no idea of what you were going through”
“I’ve completely wrecked your life” he burst out. “And I did it deliberately!”

He would have wanted you to know his treatment of you was deliberate when it was happening if he were completely void of love for you. If he trully hated you.

“Son, you’ve got to forgive me!”

“Why should I?

I didn’t have the chance to see anything like this!”

imo.These lines reveal his intention that night. They were not selfish imo.

"You’ll wonder if you should pray for me. It will be a waste of time.

“Son, you’ve got to forgive me!”

This isn’t the man you knew as yor father is it?

"Watch out for (this lady)! Your father’s paying for it, believe me! You don’t want to join him!’ Then he repeated, “Watch out for (the lady)!)”.

Was this anti-catholicism?

Bob. It’s quite the work God put before you. I pray for you.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

"Watch out for (this lady)! Your father’s paying for it, believe me! You don’t want to join him!’ Then he repeated, “Watch out for (the lady)!)”.

Was this anti-catholicism?

Bob. It’s quite the work God put before you. I pray for you.

No, it wasn’t anti-Catholicism. The pastor told me he generally got on quite well with Catholics, although obviousy he had a (well-informed) Protestant’s disagreement on certain issues. However towards the end of his life, I think he was starting to wonder about a few things.

He did tell me a humorous story about his early years as a Methodist pastor. He had a posting to some northern Queensland town, and on the back of this church property was an old shack he wanted to get rid of. A local builder offer him fifty quid for the timber, and the pastor was more than willing to take it. But then he realised the builder was Catholic.

So he said “Er, um, I appreciate the offer, but, ah, what might Father say if he finds out you’ve given the Methodist Church fifty quid?” He muttered to me, in a slightly sarcastic voice, “The Catholics call their priest ‘Father’, you know?”.

He continued, “The builder thought for a minute, then replied, “Here, look, you keep the fifty quid. And if Father says anything about it, I’ll just tell him I was helping to demolish Protestantism!””

Re. the lady … it was tied up to a prediction he made before he died, when he was talking to me in his office. He said he thought that a certain very close relative of his would suffer a severe health trauma. About four or five years after he died, this relative had a stroke and hasn’t worked since. It was his wife the pastor was warning me about. For some reason, he warned me again after he died.

One of my weaknesses is carnal-mindedness. But as he said, I “wouldn’t start anything”. It’s not my temperament. For some reason, she’s the only person he specificaly warned me about. As a consequence, I’ve always been a bit leery about visiting this particular couple. Yet left to my own mind, she’s the very last person I’d suspect of making a line for someone.

But it had nothing at all to do with anti-Catholicism. As I said, he generally got on quite well with Catholics.