My second visit occurred late one night.
I was outside taking a late evening walk and gazing at the stars when I came upon a young man trying to locate something on a map that he was holding in his hands. He was of an average size with moderately long brown wavy hair.
It was obvious that he was not only trying to locate a destination on his map, but he was also trying to determine where he was located on the map. He appeared frustrated as he would look at his map and then look up to try to visualize which direction he needed to head towards. He continued to look at his map and he spun it upside down and then right side up as it appeared that he could not determine north from south. He was still trying to locate something on his map.
He must have heard my footsteps as I approached.
As he continued to look at his map, he spoke to me. He said: “Can you help a brother in need”?
His vocabulary caught me off guard as it had been decades since I heard anyone using the term “brother” outside of an immediate family.
As I looked at the back of his head, I replied by saying to him: “How can I help you”?
He asked me: “How good are you with directions”?
I replied by saying: “I’m usually pretty good with directions. Where are you heading”?
He turned around with the map in his hands and I thought that I recognized him. He then asked me something that I was not expecting to hear. He said: “I’m trying to find Jesus. Can you point me in the right direction. Can you help me find him”?
Out of all the things in the world, I never expected anyone to ask me that question!
As I stood there looking at this young man, trying to figure out how to respond to him, I realized who he was. His given name was James. He had a few nicknames over the years. We were never personal friends. If we lived on the same street when we were growing up, we still would not have been childhood friends because of a significant age difference.
James died many years ago.
As I was standing there with James, I thought to myself: “I must have died earlier today. I need to work with James to find our way to Jesus”.
I looked at the map with James. It was a large multi-folded piece of heavy white paper. The map only had the color lines of state roads and interstate highways. There were no words or landmarks on his map.
I looked at James and I didn’t want to upset him, so I told him: “Well, this map isn’t going to work for us tonight. Let’s walk down the road and we can find a priest who can give us better directions”.
Just as we began to walk, it was as if it immediately became daylight. Not just a normal daylight, but a very bright white light. Everything was so white that I had to squint my eyes to attempt to see anything.
At that moment, I found myself sitting up in bed covered in perspiration. I wasn’t sure if my heart stopped for a few seconds, and I was propelled to another dimension. Or perhaps, I really did stop breathing and during that event. I had the opportunity to visit with James before I started to breathe again.
The next day, I realized that out of all the people in the world, James picked me to help him. Maybe someone put in a good word for me and suggested that he should visit me for help. I have never considered myself as having the ability to pray with the same intensity of the Carmelites. But I try in my own way.
So, I added James to my list of souls that I pray for when I pray the Holy Rosary. I pray for the intentions of James and his family to Our Blessed Mother each time I pray the Holy Rosary.
After praying for him for several weeks, I realized that he might need a bit more help. It had been many years since he died, but he still visited me. I thought that he would have been in Heaven many years ago. I was wondering if he needed more prayers than what I was providing in my Rosaries. So, I contacted my favorite priest.
I explained to him what had happened with James. I also discussed with him the other souls that I have been visited by (which I will post in other future posts). I asked him if I should have masses said for these souls who have been visiting me from purgatory.
After listening to my descriptions of the visits, amazingly he agreed with me that they were indeed visitors from purgatory. He asked me to send him the list of names of the departed souls and he would say a Sunday Mass for each of them.
More to come….
My first visit from a soul in purgatory came as a surprise.