My friend Fr. Tom Carleton sent this:
There is an interesting story to which I would like to give testimony while it is fresh in my mind.
On Saturday I anointed a devout man named Anthony, who was dying and was not expected to live much longer.
Sister Cordata, a very holy nun and good friend of Anthony, was herself ill and was in fact today taken to the hospital with pneumonia (say a prayer for her, if you will). When her blood sister came for her this afternoon at about 2:15 p.m., Sister Cordata said, “Anthony has died.” Those present of course assured her that although he was dying he had not yet died, and now she had to take care of her own health.
Well, as it turned out, at 12:15 p.m. this afternoon Anthony indeed had died, so it appears to me at least that God (maybe through a communication between Anthony’s guardian angel and Sister’s guardian angel) somehow revealed to Sister Cordata of his passing into eternity.
Really, this sort of thing happens all the time, doesn’t it?
A little over two years ago, my 96 year old great grandmother was at the end of her exile on Earth. She had been at a nursing home, but enjoyed frequent visitors. On the night she passed away, there was a steady stream of people coming in to say goodbye, even though she was not conscious. I stayed as late as I could, but had to leave around 10pm. Most of the others did as well.
At 2:01am, she breathed her last, with just my aunt and a friend in her company. The next morning, as relatives were making the rounds of phone calls, many of them (all grandchildren actually) reported that they awoke suddenly at 2:01am the night before, and all of them said that at the time, they just had this certainty that she must have just passed away.
How do non-believers explain such things away, other than to accuse us of making such stories up?