Miraculous Conversion Story

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Rosalinda

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This is a remarkable conversion story of Claude Newman, a man on death row who put a Miraculous Medal around his neck thinking it was no more than a discarded trinket thrown on the floor by an angry inmate. Anyone in need of hope today and something uplifting should read this account by Fr. O’Leary.

angelfire.com/ms/seanie/BVM/claudenewman.html

(By the way, please pray for the husband of my niece who has been sent to prison for a year after a drunk driving incident. Pray for his repentance and conversion so that he may return to his family of five children and be a good husband and father.)
 
Thank you so much for sharing that with us! I love the story!
 
What a marvelous story! Does anyone know if Claude Newman’s cause for sainthood is being put forward? If it isn’t, it ought to be! How wonderful to have such an inspiring American saint. :yup:
 
What an extraordinary story! Thank you so much for bringing Claude Newman to our attention.
 
I find this statement at the end of that account disturbing in its implication that God’s mercy is dependent upon the actions of people:

“Many souls go to Hell” said Our Lady of Fatima, “because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them.”

I don’t believe that – and I have a hard time swallowing that. Perhaps in the proper context it’s not so bad, but I haven’t studied Fatima and am just relating my initial reaction to such a statement that presumes to take power from God.
 
That’s a good point! Can someone explain this please? Couldn’t God choose to impart grace to someone even if no-one prays for them? Doesn’t necessarily mean that the person will accept that grace, but neither does us praying for them mean that they will accept the grace. So why should our prayers make the difference between God inviting someone to come to Him and God not making that invitation?
 
People have Free Will. Many choose not to repent and God will not impose His Will over their decision.

When we pray, fast and make sacrifices for our brothers and sisters it goes into the balance. We pray that they will receive enlightenment and the grace to repent like the prisioner who was given the chance to see his place in Hell by Claude Newman’s offering.

I pray that God will ‘hound’ the members of my family and friends who do not practice the Faith so that they will receive a conversion of heart. He can do that, but in the end I won’t blame Him if the refuse the gift He offers.

I can’t see how that takes power away from God. To me, it is co-operating with God in His work of salvation.
 
But can’t God ‘hound’ your relatives even if you don’t pray for them? Considering that it is spiritually beneficial for them, don’t you think God would do that anyway?
 
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Flopfoot:
But can’t God ‘hound’ your relatives even if you don’t pray for them? Considering that it is spiritually beneficial for them, don’t you think God would do that anyway?
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👋 Its like the story of the man who was caught in a flood and denied help 3 times because he was convinced God would save him, when he drowned and asked God “Why didnt you save me” and God responded “I sent help 3 times”. God never turns his back on us, we all get chances throughout our lives, how we choose to act upon those chances, is OUR choice. Praying for a loved one is always beneficial, however if that loved one does not recognise God’s grace there aint much more you can do about it except PRAY some more. 👍
 
I have been misunderstood again. Let me be clear on this.

There are 3 parties here - you, God, and your friend. There are 2 actions that have been getting confused. One action is God offering your friend grace to convert. The other action is your friend choosing to accept or reject that grace, and hence either converting or not converting.

I am not trying to discuss the second action here. I know that neither you nor God can force your friend to convert, as he has free will. That is totally up to him.

However, it is the first action I am discussing - God offering grace to your friend in the first place. Can you influence this action, or not? Because we know that you can’t influence the second action (your friend accepting or rejecting) by prayer… so can your prayer influence the first action, God’s action, or not? Does God give more grace, encourage more strongly, etc., because someone prayed for Him to do this? I’ve read that God is always calling us to himself. That means that God will always be offering grace - regardless of whether you pray or not. But, if your prayer can influence neither your friend’s decision to convert nor God’s decision to offer grace, then doesn’t that mean that your prayer doesn’t do any good at all (except for making you feel better?)

I’m stuck between 2 beliefs I have that I think are both true but that don’t seem to work together. The first idea - that prayer is always helpful for the person I pray for. The second idea - that God is loving and always offers grace to people to help them to know and love him. The reason these don’t seem to be able to co-exist? If God already is doing the best He can to help someone to know and love Him, then what can my prayer possibly do?

If there is no way to compromise, if I have to pick which of those things I believe, then I would pick the second thing. I can’t believe that God would refuse to offer someone the grace to convert unless someone prayed for him. God’s love should not (does not) depend on human love, even if no one in the world loved, God would still love. Of course, this would mean that prayer is sort of ‘useless’, but I’d be okay with that as I could think, that prayer that is sort of fruitless still helps the person who is praying and still gives glory to God even if it can’t do it’s intended action, so it’s actually not that useless.

The problem then is, that if that story is true, it seems that Mary disagrees with me - she says that our prayers will actually help to determine who goes where. Surely she’s not just saying that to frighten us into praying harder. There must be a compromise. So what is it???
 
What is a prayer? In this situation it is a petition to God.

James 5:16: “Pray one for another, that you may be saved.”

Chrysostom says “Necessity binds us to pray for ourselves, fraternal charity urges us to pray for others: and the prayer that fraternal charity proffers is sweeter to God than that which is the outcome of necessity.”

If you hear the testimony of Fr Steven Scheier
bottom of this page triumphoftruth.com/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx you will hear how Mary petitioned God for Fr Steven to have one more chance when he Fr Steven) knew he was destined for Hell.

I believe that Mary’s heart was touched by the prayers of all the people who were praying for the priest following his accident, and she appealed to God’s Mercy rather than have Father face God’s Justice at that time.
 
Okay, so 2 things I get from that is…
  • The ‘sweeter to God’ bit is like what I was saying before, that even if our prayer didn’t do good for others, it would still be good as it gives glory to God.
  • But also, with the example you gave, it’s like our prayers can sometimes move God to be exceptionally compassionate, sort of crazy miraculous stuff happening, rather than just the regular grace that God imparts to everyone. So then our prayers do some good…
Hmm, but God is supposed to be infinite and eternal - well, He is. Isn’t it strange that a being that is infinitely powerful and wise and loving and just could be moved by a mere creature (or creatures)? I mean, either giving a person a second chance is good or bad. If it is good, then since God can obviously do it, as He has shown, wouldn’t He do it for everyone? But for pretty much everyone, they don’t get a second chance once they die, so that makes me think that it can’t be a ‘good’ thing for God to do (God would always do something if it is good, surely?) So, if it isn’t, then why did God make an exception? Being constant and refusing to let people get to you has always been a trait of the strong - Julius Caesar, Japanese Samaurais etc. I know Jesus gave us the example of ‘the unjust judge’ who eventually gave in because the widow kept bothering him. But a judge has finite patience. God has infinite patience, I don’t think an eternal knock on the door would bother Him. So why this inconsistency?
And another question, if God is sometimes going to be inconsistent and be more merciful than usual, then how much do we have to ‘bother’ Him before He shows this mercy? How long does the widow have to knock on the door? Surely God doesn’t base things on the number of days, so what exactly is it that moves Him?
 
very nice story…about us needing others to pray for us and your points on this Flipfoot (and I must admit, I only skimmed through your posts)…I think that the best way to look at this is to figure out why we pray for others at all? Maybe that will make Mary’s point clearer to you. Is it absolutely necessary to have others pray for you…no, but it sure helps.

God Bless.
 
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