8:30 in the morning, after silence, I leave the house to say the rosary, walking towards a park close to our home. I have not even finished the first mystery when I hear someone calling me: “Father! Father!”. A lady leans out the window and tells me that she has been looking for a priest for a few days but has not been able to find one. I am a bit skeptical: the parish is three minutes from her house and there is always a secretary ready to call a priest in case of an emergency, from 9 in the morning until 6 in the evening. But I do not get lost in these legitimate thoughts and stop to listen to her.
She tells me that her father, recently out of the hospital, is in a critical health situation and wants to see a priest to speak. I ask if he would like the Anointing of the Sick, to go to confession or to receive Communion but she insists that he just wants to speak. I go into the home and she shows me to the bedroom of her father. And in this way, I meet Matias [invented name], an elderly gentleman, evidently very sick and constrained to his bed. Beyond the many medicines present on his nightstand, Matias needs an oxygen machine to breathe. I sit down and the daughter leaves us alone.
I ask him if he wants to confess but he avoids the question and begins to speak to me about his life. From a Catholic background, he became estranged from the Church due to the baptism of one of his children. When his pastor told him that he could not accept as godfather for baptism a person who cohabitates and is not married, he became angry with the clear perception of having suffered an injustice. He went to seek a less “rigid” priest, baptized the child and cut the already weak thread that was keeping him tied to the Church.
“Are you absolutely sure that you would not like to confess?”.
Regarding the rest of his life, he was married once, had children, divorced, then got married a second time with another woman from whom he had more children. In the end, he was left a widow, with two daughters next to him. In the midst of the story of his life, we also speak about God.
When I see that he was done telling his story, I lean in once more: “Are you absolutely sure that you would not like to confess?”. This time, he does not avoid it and accepts. Obviously, he did not remember how many years it had been since the last time, but he did it sincerely. After the confession, I remain for another five minutes and then we say goodbye to one another.
After a week, I see the daughter at Mass and it is she who recognizes me: she tells me that her father is dead, and that in his final days he was peaceful.
Thinking of Matias, of his life far from the faith and then of that confession, a few days before dying, I thought of Dismas, the good thief crucified with Jesus. St. Augustine said that he stayed a thief until the very end because he “stole” paradise in the final moment available to him. I do not know the life of Dismas and I know little of the life of Matias, but it seems to me that in the end, they resemble one another quite a bit: a sincere repentance and a desire that the Lord not forget them.
Jesus says that the publicans and the prostitutes will pass by us into the Kingdom of Heaven: given the kind of life they led, it is very probable that the theme of mercy be in them more urgent that it is in us, who are often satisfied with our “good behavior.” The words of Jesus, beyond eliciting a needful examination of conscience, are a consolation because they remind us that the most important thing is not “how” we enter the Kingdom, but that we enter:V before, after, at the front door or through a window, with an official invite or sneaking in, meriting it or stealing it. And I too, hope to end up in that place and to once again see Matias.
