Posted on 02/13/2014 6:28:59 AM PST by NYer
QUITO, Ecuador, February 12, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A priest in Ecuador has shared how he was conceived in rape when his mother was 13, and then later not only forgave his father but heard his confession.
“I could be in a trash can, but I was given life,” Father Luis Alfredo Leon Armijos, 41, told ACI Prensa in an interview last year.
The priest shared how his mother, Maria Eugenia Armijos, had to work cleaning a house in Loja, Ecuador, to help her parents support her seven siblings. She was only 13 when “the owner of the house, taking advantage of being alone, abused her and left her pregnant.”
Maria Eugenia’s family rejected her. “They didn’t want the baby to be born so they hit her in the belly and gave her drinks that would make her abort,” the priest said.
The girl decided to run away to the city of Cuenca, where she gave birth to Luis Alfredo, who was born with respiratory problems due to his mother’s young age.
After some time, Maria Eugenia made it back to Loja with the baby. “She ended up under the care of her rapist - my father - who acknowledged I was his and said he would take care of me,” said Leon, “but that doesn’t mean that things between them were healthy.”
“They had three more children and my relationship with him was distant,” explained the priest.
When Fr. Leon was 16, he was invited to the Charismatic Renewal. “I had my first encounter with Christ,” he said.
At 18 he decided to enter the Seminary in Loja, and was ordained at 23 with the bishop’s special permission due to his young age.
His parents split up two years later and his mother finally revealed to him how he was conceived.
Leon said how he realized that “God was allowing me to be a priest not to judge but to forgive. I had judged my father a lot for everything.”
Years later he received a call from his father who had to go through a surgery. “He was scared and told me: I want you to hear my confession,” said Leon.
“I told him: ‘Father, you deserve heaven, an eternal life,’” explained the priest. “In that moment my father was filled with tears.”
After 30 years, Leon’s father received Communion.
“You can come to know your own story and hate your life,” he continued. “Judge God like I had done. But I discovered that God’s love had been there looking over my life.”
“Everything I have is a gratuity. Life itself is an exquisite gift from God,” he concluded.
Fr. Leon is currently a parish priest for the San José Parish in Loja, Ecuador.
Ping!
Darn blurry screen!
Sounds like the old Strom Thurmond tragedy not reveal until after the old man’s passing.
I don't care much for these deathbed conversions.
It reminds me of Hugo Chavez who was smooching every crucifix within arms reach once he found out he was dying
If you live a bad life you don't get to wipe the slate clean at the end by SAYING you are sorry.
God is forgiving, merciful, and just. Exactingly just. "The last penny."
I have to assume that the Good Thief on the cross next to Jesus could enter Paradise "this day" because he'd paid the price in this life. After all, he was crucified.
This one sounds like it's real enough and, as told, seems to fit well with what Jesus taught.
His confession to his son, conceived by his raping his mom, would indicate a kind of change of heart well beyond Chavez's kissing some crosses.
None of us are sin free, but we are forgiven as we forgive. Both men/souls win in this story, as do those who take it to heart.
**After 30 years, Leon’s father received Communion.
“You can come to know your own story and hate your life,” he continued. “Judge God like I had done. But I discovered that God’s love had been there looking over my life.”
“Everything I have is a gratuity. Life itself is an exquisite gift from God,” he concluded.**
Wow!
“If you live a bad life you don’t get to wipe the slate clean at the end by SAYING you are sorry.”
That is correct. You apparently are unaware that grace can happen in an instant. You nor I are the arbiters of that. God is
+1 for correcting egregious assumptions.
Points from me, too. You are exactly right.
A couple comments:
There are many Jews who refuse to accept Jesus because how could a man like Adolf Hitler go to Heaven after killing so many people through genocide and aggressive war?
The easy answer is that this man is not at all like Adolf Hitler. He did not brutally rape and then torture and kill the priest’s mother, and afterword he apparently helped the mother raise the child that resulted from the rape.
But, what if this man did brutally rape and then torture and kill the mother, and/or then abandon and then kill the child? Or, what if Adolf Hitler asked for a priest and then did not commit suicide but allowed himself to be taken prisoner and stand trial for war crimes?
I’d bet that there are some people who would want God to forgive whatever the wantonness of the crime. And, here’s what I’ll say about that: would you have God not forgive anybody who obeyed the Ten Commandments all their lives because they failed to confess on the name of Jesus?
Everybody, it seems, has their unforgivable sin.
While he was kissing Crucifixes he could have been trying to undo what he did to his country. BUT he didn't!
Here are the words of absolution that the priest says.....notice that God forgives the sins!
Catechism of the Catholic Church
|
1449 The formula of absolution used in the Latin Church expresses the essential elements of this sacrament: the Father of mercies is the source of all forgiveness. He effects the reconciliation of sinners through the Passover of his Son and the gift of his Spirit, through the prayer and ministry of the Church:
God, the Father of mercies, |
I agree with you but God knows the heart. He alone knows if the repentance comes from faith because God calls and gives faith. That's the purpose of the Law, to show a sinner his sins, then God will forgive and justify that sinner. Christian need to recall the parable of the vineyard owner who needed workers.
Laying aside the inability to keep the Law, there is no salvation through the Law as scripture attests. Salvation is by grace through faith in the redeeming work of Christ, as scripture says.
Wow! What a story. His life reads like a bad novel until you get to the divine redemption. Amazing man. God is good.
Well, he can smooch all the idols he wants, ain't gonna help him. BUT, if ole Hugo really, actually, asked Jesus Christ to forgive him of all his sins, and truly had a "come to Jesus moment" and it was for real, then ole Hugo will be walking the streets of gold in Heaven. Because, our LORD Jesus who will know if it was real, will have forgiven him, and Hugo will be there. It was up to Hugo. God forgives when you ask Him to forgive you of your sins and you truly believe on Him, believe the Gospel of Grace, death, burial and RESURRECTION!!! He rose, thus He lives. He forgives. Even those as bad a Hugo. Because we are all sinners and come short of the glory of God.
Adolph Hitler is in heaven? Says who?
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