It is in the practice of Catholic hospitals to have a chaplain in their employment and on that specific day, a patient from ICU requested to receive the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. With the bedside RN, the priest did this for the patient. Upon returning to his office, he found out that the patient that he performed this sacrament on was one of the priests involved in the sexual abuse scandals in East-coast Canada.
I truly believe that if you have true contrition in your heart, you will see Him again in the face and actions of humanity. The care of the ICU nurse and the use of the priest to perform this last act of hope for a dying man are His way of letting you know I love you, Son. I find that perhaps, although we may walk astray, we are never far from His grace and from finding our way back to His embrace. True forgiveness requires only love - that pureness of love - and for the unperfect human, it is by His true love for us alone that can save us from ourselves and eternal damnation. Although I cannot speak with absolute truth to my belief other than what I know internally, a life without Him is hell as I know it.
What is one soul from a hundred more? Wouldn’t he rather an obedient and righteous soul than one that has slandered and hurt Him? No. Even one lost sheep in a Shepherd’s herd is worthy of heavy effort to retrieve them back. The worth or value of a person that is physically bound to the material can only live according to what is present and therefore, is measured by it. It is our reality that we are here and it is outside of our power to dictate where we want to be. But, how then can we, who is materialized into known existence from conception, measure what cannot be seen? How can we judge the soul of a man? The measure of one’s worthiness, therefore, does not lie in our realm; it should be left to the One who is Everything. We are not called to judge but to love. To do His will is not to be everything and to know. To do His will means, for whatever in the principle of causal effect, we act according to His will. That we, despite our bound knowledge of what is, are in fact His instruments. This is not to say that we are but ants in a tank but to present the idea that although we live day to day according to principles and values (we are conditioned to live by as dictated by the environment we have grown up in), whatever will He has for us, it is only one that emanates love. Meticulously, His plan is not to lose you but to carefully bring you back. One cannot look at this case-to-case because regardless of what has come to light in the time humans have existed in the material, the mysteries surrounding His will and the purpose of one’s life in accordance to it remains exactly that: mysteries. Theories can support one that goes against my belief; history can contradict many of what I can only prove with my heart; the matters of God, in the humility of our mere existence, should remain unspoken for by human tongue.
This is, of course, assuming that we are of the same belief that we have souls and that our actions are left for grace, not immediate condemnation; that we are loved even at our worst; that we are worthy, despite what we believe.
Sincerely.