Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Deathbed Conversions
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Deathbed Conversions
TRANSCRIPT
One of the splendid aspects of the Faith that Catholics embrace warmly is the deathbed conversion.
It has deep roots in Catholicism — Satan getting "cheated," so to speak, out of a soul at the last minute, Our Blessed Lord's parable about the workers who show up and labor for only the last hour but still receive a full day's wage. Deathbed conversions speak to the continual mercy of God, straight up until a person's last breath and, even then, in Purgatory.
For those who appear to us as if a deathbed conversion is their only hope, we should be praying, absolutely. We have various examples of deathbed conversions to the Faith, beautiful stories of such last-minute, come-from-behind victories. There is Dismas, the good thief, as well as John Wayne.
And there is another one. Allow us to share it with you.
My father told me this many years ago, so a detail here or there might be off, but you get the idea.
There was once a brother and sister who were raised Catholic. The sister went off to be a nun and was sent to work with a very poor tribe in Africa. She had a hard life. The brother, whose name was John, fell away from the Faith and lived an extremely sinful life, actually coming to despise the Faith.
This caused no end of sorrow for his sister, who offered all her sufferings up for his reversion. Eventually, she received word that her brother had died, and then she inquired if he had received last rites. She was told he had spit at the priest, yelled at him to leave the room, rolled his head over toward the wall and died.
His sister was spiritually crippled by the news and mourned to Our Lord how such a thing could happen after her life of sacrifice for his salvation.
It has deep roots in Catholicism.
Owing to her great sorrow and especially spiritual distress, Our Lord appeared to her. He revealed to her what really happened that last moment of John's life. He showed her that, after he spit at the priest and turned toward the wall, a split second before John died, Our Lord appeared to him with His Sacred Heart and said, "John, will you spit on Me now?" John said to Our Lord, "Jesus, have mercy on me" — and died.
Our Blessed Lord revealed to the sister it was her sufferings and sacrifices that had merited John that final grace and that he had been saved. That is a Catholic story if there ever was one.
Another story, my father told me when I was a young fellow. This one involves the infamous Voltaire, the French Enlightenment writer who left this earth for eternity on May 30, 1778. Voltaire was the toast of the town, a prolific writer and the favorite of the Parisian elites in the run-up to the French Revolution. He also greatly ridiculed the Faith and made such ridicule something of a hallmark of his — despite being a baptized Catholic.
At one point, he fell desperately ill and was on what appeared to be his deathbed. A priest was summoned and Voltaire received the last rites. Unfortunately, he recovered and, once back to his parties, received insults and ridicule for submitting to the Church after a career of mocking it. He went back to his ridicule.
Sometime later, he was on his deathbed again but, this time, he would not recover. Once again, a priest was dispatched. But this time he was turned away, prevented from coming in by some of Voltaire's associates. The attending nurse reported that, in his last moments, he died screaming he saw the Devil coming for him and she said she would never attend the deathbed of an atheist ever again.
God, you see, is not mocked. Voltaire's death is instructive for those who think and hope in terms of deathbed conversions — as opposed to John's deathbed conversion owing to his sister's sacrifices.
If there is no actual contrition (or sufficient contrition), there is no forgiveness. The reason Dismas was forgiven by Our Lord on the Cross, the first deathbed conversion, was because he had an actual conversion, meaning that had he somehow been taken down from the Cross and lived a longer life, he would have lived that life differently, abandoning his thieving.
Admission to Heaven is based on that true conversion, the reality, the requirement, that if you were to spring up from your deathbed you would lead a changed life. It's not enough to merely receive the last rites, just as it's not enough to merely go to confession without a real desire and intent to change.
And for those who are thinking in terms of a deathbed conversion for someone, pray, certainly — but more is required of us than just prayer. Placing too much hope in a dramatic come-from-behind, last-second spiritual victory is not a good thing if it deters us from the path of saying and doing what needs to be done now.
When notorious child-killer Sen. Ted Kennedy was dying, secular media made much of the fact that some priest was at his deathbed. But, just three days before he died, he issued a letter from that deathbed urging senators to pass Obamacare with its provisions for abortion.
He would have lived that life differently.
Chuck Schumer even appealed to Kennedy's deathbed letter as inspiration to his fellow senators to "honor" Kennedy, lauding him as the "liberal lion" of the Senate. Now, we don't know the final disposition of Kennedy, but no one has ever suggested that, before he died, he reversed course on his support for the pro-abortion legislation.
And here's the question — if Kennedy would have been able to get up off that deathbed and live another few years, would he have changed, led a changed life like Dismas? Or would he have pulled a Voltaire and gone right back to his sin?
There's nothing anyone knows of to suggest he would have been Dismas and not Voltaire. We can only hope that, through someone's prayers and sacrifices, Kennedy's story was that of John's in his last breath.
Eventually, a soul commits to one path or the other. We here on earth may not know the commitment — but God does. Likewise, we don't know if, or how, a soul can or will switch from the path of evil to the path of goodness. But God does. And, as we peer into eternity, this is one reason a final judgment is everlasting — because God knows, if a soul were to be given more time, if it would ever change and turn to the good.
If Hitler, everyone's favorite example, were to have been given an extra, say, 300 years of earthly life, would he have eventually, somehow, become good? Only God knows the answer to that. But what we do know is that of those who are damned, the answer is a resounding no.
The deathbed, either our own or of others, is not the place you want to be making your final wager. Live and fight for the Faith now, while you still can. Remember — across from Dismas, over on the other cross, was the thief who saw the exact same scene as his crime partner. Dismas had a deathbed conversion, but he did not.
View all episodes
By Church Militant
4.7
325325 ratings
TRANSCRIPT
One of the splendid aspects of the Faith that Catholics embrace warmly is the deathbed conversion.
It has deep roots in Catholicism — Satan getting "cheated," so to speak, out of a soul at the last minute, Our Blessed Lord's parable about the workers who show up and labor for only the last hour but still receive a full day's wage. Deathbed conversions speak to the continual mercy of God, straight up until a person's last breath and, even then, in Purgatory.
For those who appear to us as if a deathbed conversion is their only hope, we should be praying, absolutely. We have various examples of deathbed conversions to the Faith, beautiful stories of such last-minute, come-from-behind victories. There is Dismas, the good thief, as well as John Wayne.
And there is another one. Allow us to share it with you.
My father told me this many years ago, so a detail here or there might be off, but you get the idea.
There was once a brother and sister who were raised Catholic. The sister went off to be a nun and was sent to work with a very poor tribe in Africa. She had a hard life. The brother, whose name was John, fell away from the Faith and lived an extremely sinful life, actually coming to despise the Faith.
This caused no end of sorrow for his sister, who offered all her sufferings up for his reversion. Eventually, she received word that her brother had died, and then she inquired if he had received last rites. She was told he had spit at the priest, yelled at him to leave the room, rolled his head over toward the wall and died.
His sister was spiritually crippled by the news and mourned to Our Lord how such a thing could happen after her life of sacrifice for his salvation.
It has deep roots in Catholicism.
Owing to her great sorrow and especially spiritual distress, Our Lord appeared to her. He revealed to her what really happened that last moment of John's life. He showed her that, after he spit at the priest and turned toward the wall, a split second before John died, Our Lord appeared to him with His Sacred Heart and said, "John, will you spit on Me now?" John said to Our Lord, "Jesus, have mercy on me" — and died.
Our Blessed Lord revealed to the sister it was her sufferings and sacrifices that had merited John that final grace and that he had been saved. That is a Catholic story if there ever was one.
Another story, my father told me when I was a young fellow. This one involves the infamous Voltaire, the French Enlightenment writer who left this earth for eternity on May 30, 1778. Voltaire was the toast of the town, a prolific writer and the favorite of the Parisian elites in the run-up to the French Revolution. He also greatly ridiculed the Faith and made such ridicule something of a hallmark of his — despite being a baptized Catholic.
At one point, he fell desperately ill and was on what appeared to be his deathbed. A priest was summoned and Voltaire received the last rites. Unfortunately, he recovered and, once back to his parties, received insults and ridicule for submitting to the Church after a career of mocking it. He went back to his ridicule.
Sometime later, he was on his deathbed again but, this time, he would not recover. Once again, a priest was dispatched. But this time he was turned away, prevented from coming in by some of Voltaire's associates. The attending nurse reported that, in his last moments, he died screaming he saw the Devil coming for him and she said she would never attend the deathbed of an atheist ever again.
God, you see, is not mocked. Voltaire's death is instructive for those who think and hope in terms of deathbed conversions — as opposed to John's deathbed conversion owing to his sister's sacrifices.
If there is no actual contrition (or sufficient contrition), there is no forgiveness. The reason Dismas was forgiven by Our Lord on the Cross, the first deathbed conversion, was because he had an actual conversion, meaning that had he somehow been taken down from the Cross and lived a longer life, he would have lived that life differently, abandoning his thieving.
Admission to Heaven is based on that true conversion, the reality, the requirement, that if you were to spring up from your deathbed you would lead a changed life. It's not enough to merely receive the last rites, just as it's not enough to merely go to confession without a real desire and intent to change.
And for those who are thinking in terms of a deathbed conversion for someone, pray, certainly — but more is required of us than just prayer. Placing too much hope in a dramatic come-from-behind, last-second spiritual victory is not a good thing if it deters us from the path of saying and doing what needs to be done now.
When notorious child-killer Sen. Ted Kennedy was dying, secular media made much of the fact that some priest was at his deathbed. But, just three days before he died, he issued a letter from that deathbed urging senators to pass Obamacare with its provisions for abortion.
He would have lived that life differently.
Chuck Schumer even appealed to Kennedy's deathbed letter as inspiration to his fellow senators to "honor" Kennedy, lauding him as the "liberal lion" of the Senate. Now, we don't know the final disposition of Kennedy, but no one has ever suggested that, before he died, he reversed course on his support for the pro-abortion legislation.
And here's the question — if Kennedy would have been able to get up off that deathbed and live another few years, would he have changed, led a changed life like Dismas? Or would he have pulled a Voltaire and gone right back to his sin?
There's nothing anyone knows of to suggest he would have been Dismas and not Voltaire. We can only hope that, through someone's prayers and sacrifices, Kennedy's story was that of John's in his last breath.
Eventually, a soul commits to one path or the other. We here on earth may not know the commitment — but God does. Likewise, we don't know if, or how, a soul can or will switch from the path of evil to the path of goodness. But God does. And, as we peer into eternity, this is one reason a final judgment is everlasting — because God knows, if a soul were to be given more time, if it would ever change and turn to the good.
If Hitler, everyone's favorite example, were to have been given an extra, say, 300 years of earthly life, would he have eventually, somehow, become good? Only God knows the answer to that. But what we do know is that of those who are damned, the answer is a resounding no.
The deathbed, either our own or of others, is not the place you want to be making your final wager. Live and fight for the Faith now, while you still can. Remember — across from Dismas, over on the other cross, was the thief who saw the exact same scene as his crime partner. Dismas had a deathbed conversion, but he did not.