Pierced by a Sword (31 page)

The son disappeared. Fields changed and Nathan saw two daughters:

Nathan beheld them next to their angels. He became aware that they were sisters by the same mother, Gail Stein. Gail had been on the pill. Each daughter had been destroyed because
the pill did not allow them to adhere to Gail Stein's uterine wall before their second day of life. The first daughter had died seven weeks before the second daughter. Nathan had dated Gail for three months–his longest relationship. That relationship had ended bitterly, broken up by Nathan. During this Warning, Nathan did not perceive any of his children as tiny cells, but in their full immortal
potentialities, as adults, without stain of chosen sin, standing in golden fields, looking directly at their father. They did not recognize Nathan as their stricken father. Their pure eyes looked right through him.

Nathan beheld his third daughter, aborted by a girl named Jessica Thomas. She had slept with him during a one night stand. He had picked her up on Rush Street in a nightclub. He had
been drunk that night and did not remember Jessica's last name the next morning after she left him sleeping on his bed. Nathan was horrified to realize that his third daughter's death was Jessica's first abortion–the first of three other aborted children by other fathers. Fields changed, and he saw his third daughter next to her three aborted half-siblings. All four stared right through him. It was
made known to him that had he not seduced the naïve Miss Thomas, she
might not have chosen
to continue sleeping with other men. Nathan's skillful seduction of Jessica Thomas had led her to mistakenly conclude that she was powerless before her sex drive. In this way, Nathan was indirectly responsible for not only his daughter's death, but also the murders of three others.

He was aware that he had
been a partial "cause" of these children coming into existence but that he was not necessarily culpable for the abortions and the deaths by abortifacients. For these sins (and for other sins he had been shown during his Warning), he was made perfectly aware of the endless connections, permutations, and potentialities those sins set into motion.

He presently saw that Jessica was so depressed that
she was now susceptible to being tempted to suicide by demons assigned to torment her in "real time" on earth. He also was permitted to see the valiant efforts made by Jessica's angel and the angels of her aborted children to save the depressed mother from killing herself. Her fate was not fixed. He found himself wanting to help her but he couldn't. Jessica's field faded and then disappeared from
Nathan's view.

In fact, no book could catalogue the repercussions of his sins, which themselves were the free-willed repercussions of sins traced back to Adam and Eve. Layers enclosed and enfolded upon layers.

Then, Nathan saw his second son, his fifth child. This son had a name: Nathan Jr.

Jennifer Gower, Nathan Jr.'s mother, had aborted him at fourteen weeks. She had named the son in her womb
after his father, guessing correctly that he was a boy. She had initially been excited to be pregnant by the man she thought she loved. Jennifer had naïvely hoped the pregnancy would convince Nathan to marry her. She was saving the news for Christmas day, but never got a chance to tell Nathan, who had severed their relationship over the phone on Christmas Eve. Now God showed Nathan the unborn boy's
eyes, heart, and fingers. Nathan saw how perfectly Nathan Jr. was formed. God let him know that Nathan Jr. had inherited the tremendous mathematical intellect of his father. At fourteen weeks of age, Nathan's son already had black hair like his mother. He saw his son's heart beating peacefully, then speeding up as the abortionist's specialized machete came to slice him to pieces. How the boy struggled
to live! Nathan was forced to watch as the forceps came and crushed Nathan Jr.'s head so the pieces could be sucked out of Jennifer's womb by vacuum. He saw Jennifer's uterus perforated accidentally by the abortionist and knew that the resulting infection had caused an emergency hysterectomy in July. In a desperate attempt to avoid facing the moral implications of her abortion, she embraced
feminist ideology. What is so cloudy to the human intellect on earth–moral distinction–was crystal clear to Nathan during the Warning. He was completely immersed in the Moral Universe now. Layers changed, and a golden field with a man and an angel was before Nathan. Nathan was paralyzed by the blank stare of Nathan Jr.'s eyes.

Nathan regained his voice and was able to turn back to the Cross as
he cried out in agony:
I am not fit to dwell in the House of the Lord! Oh Nathan Jr., my son! My son! Nathan my son!

Nathan was overcome with guilt and grief. He collapsed on the rocks sobbing, his invisible arms covering his head. Without looking at the Cross, he heard the tender words of Jesus:

"They are all my sons and daughters, Nathan. Let the little children come to me. I have given all
the nameless ones names! Son of man, Look!"

Landscapes changed. Nathan turned and saw a rolling field of endless aborted souls, flowing and undulating like ocean waves, beyond his sight. The sound of wind blowing filled Nathan's mind. Far away he heard the sound of beautiful music and singing, but neither sound was coming from the aborted ones.

These countless Holy Innocents were facing away from
Nathan. The aborted children were between him and the indescribable light of the Trinity. Each and every child he saw; and each and every one was without any sin except original sin, not having had the opportunity to commit even the smallest offense against the Holy Trinity! Some had been slaughtered by the Pharaoh in Moses' time. Some by Herod. Some by Genghis Khan. Most by Nathan's own generation
in the name of Liberty!

Nathan found the courage to speak: "I am accursed, My Lord, as is my generation."

The Father replied: "Before which one of these Holy Innocents, Nathan, would thou enter into My Kingdom?"

Nathan answered, beyond any capacity to lie or plead his case before Eternal Truth: "Not one, Master. I am not worthy to stand in your presence. My offenses are always before me." His
contrition was total, inside every fiber of his being.

Nathan was prepared to go to hell. Curiously, he was not disturbed by his willingness to accept his choice of eternity in hell. The only consolation in hell would be his certain knowledge that he had cooperated with Divine Justice. Hell was what he deserved.

He held up his hands before Divine Justice, as if to be shackled and led away. He
realized that he would indeed be willing to take his place in the burning cauldron. It was not right to take a place in the Kingdom before his own five children or any of the other unbaptized Holy Innocents.

But God's Warning was not over. God did not shackle the young man of sorrows before the Cross.

Layers changed and Nathan realized that Eternal Wisdom wanted him to look up. He looked, and
saw how he had unknowingly cooperated with evil spirits who had worked hard to convince him to commit sin. While in the world, Nathan had rarely been aware that his sins were mortal in nature at the time of his willing participation. A word came into Nathan's mind:
Mitigation.

Then Nathan heard:
"Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

It was the voice of the Son on the Cross. Nathan
had been decimated without being annihilated for what seemed an immeasurable period of time by his own sins and the effects of his sins. He spun and saw the Cross as the landscape seamlessly changed once more. Jesus spoke directly to him again. Yet, it was not the voice of Jesus coming from the Cross but the voice of Nathan's closest friend, Father Chet. Jesus repeated to Nathan a familiar doxology
in Chet's voice:

"Through the ministry of the Church, I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

Nathan knew that these were the very words Chet spoke to him in the confessional at Sacred Heart Basilica at Notre Dame on Monday...

And Nathan spun and layers folded and landscapes moved and he saw all his sins again sprawled across seemingly endless
fields. He saw the light streaming from the wounds of the Man of Sorrows on the Cross. The light from Jesus' wounds "covered" the sins, blotting them out, making them impossible to see. The light was so bright that Nathan tried to cover his eyes with hands he no longer had.

And then the light faded into a light which allowed Nathan to see. He no longer saw his sins. The fields were empty of sins.
Instead, Nathan saw a Lamb, with a white fleece bright shining as the sun. It was the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world!

Choirs (layers) of angels praised the Lamb. Music and Light and Beauty and Oneness and Perfection were everywhere, in and out and around Nathan. This was the music he had faintly heard coming from the Holy Trinity while Nathan looked upon the Holy Innocents! He
looked and saw the Legions of the Elect. He heard the voices of each one as they praised the Lamb of God. He saw hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of priests raising the Lamb up to the Father on the Divine Altar. Nathan was totally convinced that the Lamb was Jesus and that Jesus is the Eucharist.

Amidst the voices of the Elect, he heard Babsie's voice and Sister Leonardo's voice, and for the
first time since under-going his Warning, his wounded heart rejoiced. He bathed in the perfect harmonies of countless angels and saints. He opened his own mouth to sing praise to the Lamb, but he could not speak.

Then Nathan saw a Woman Clothed with the Sun, with a crown of twelve stars suspended above her head. The Queen stood in the Court of the Lamb. Nathan heard her voice for the second time.
It was the Woman who spoke to him in the car before the Mustang crashed:

Nathaniel Payne, you are
my
consecrated warrior. The angel has placed the cross upon your forehead. My Son has shown mercy upon your soul on this day through the merits of His Holy Cross and Resurrection, through your merits, and through the merits of others. Your sins have been forgiven. The Father has designs upon your
soul!

Landscapes changed and layers unfolded again and the Woman showed Nathan many things in the fruitful fields of heaven where Mary reigned as Queen. She showed Nathan the mitigating acts of goodness he had chosen during his short life. Like his sins, he saw each one at once and in particular, like leaves of grass in a field.

The dinner which he had bought for a homeless man named Brian Stanesi
the very afternoon before he conceived his son by Jennifer Gower.

The many grade school friends he had helped by finding a "place" for them to excel and develop confidence during school-yard games. Nathan realized that his little-used leadership skills could help others in much more serious matters later during his life. If Nathan returned to earth.

Nathan was shown the hundreds (yes, hundreds!)
of women with whom he had decided
not
to have intercourse. Nathan realized that his motives had not always been selfish in turning them down. Having lived with loneliness and sorrow since childhood himself, Nathan, always a sensitive man, realized from experience that sexual relations would have made the amorous women feel empty, and chose
for their greater good
to turn these women away. Nathan
had often charmed them in order to soften the rejection: "You're too good a person to sleep around with a nobody like me." Or, he had often whispered with complete honesty, using his unique gift for convincing others to act: "Find a good man and get married. Don't sell yourself short." Some had been offended. For many, he had been the first man to ever turn them away. A few, feeling guilty about
their promiscuous lifestyles, had taken his words seriously. One, a girl named Ellen McMonagle, had started praying again the evening Nathan turned her away and eventually became a nun with Mother Teresa's nuns in the Bronx, New York. Nathan saw each woman he had helped for the better in the satanic atmospheres of nightclubs.

Nathan saw Tommy Gervin, a baptized Catholic, in "real time" on earth.
Tommy was attending Mass with his mother in Houston. Nathan was made to realize that he had helped save Tommy's soul on the Skyway. He also saw the potential good that Tommy Gervin could do in the future. Nathan was overwhelmed–
awed
–by God's plan for him.

The Queen of Heaven spoke: "Yes, Nathan, Tommy Gervin came close to losing his soul forever that night, and upon dying, suffering a freely chosen
eternity in hell."

Nathan did not question the truth of the Blessed Mother's statement.

Nathan saw George Moore, who had been abused like Nathan as a child by George's brutal father, and how Nathan's episode behind the gym after school had deeply changed George. He was now a happily married accountant in Naperville. He had three children and attended daily Mass, influenced to do so by others whom
Nathan did not know on earth.

Nathan saw that his honest dedication to his work at VV&B had affected many lives for the better. He had helped dozens of families grow and protect their material assets. Some of Nathan's investments had procured good educations for the investors' children. One investor had donated almost all his material wealth–tripled in value by Nathan's savvy–to financing an entire
group of Catholic missionary nuns in Africa. In turn these nuns were doing great things for God as Nathan watched in fascination and awe. He did not want to stop watching this field of goodness. This field, like all of the fields Nathan Payne saw during his Warning, was a great surprise.

In perhaps the most amazing sequence, Nathan saw Chet's ordination and how the thousands of times Chet had
prayed for Nathan's soul had not only merited grace for Nathan's life, but had helped develop Chet into the wonderful priest he was today. Nathan rejoiced for his friend! He became aware of the seemingly endless fields of good that Chet had "started." Nathan's input had not been
the
deciding factor in Chet's decision to become a priest. But Nathan had played a part, especially as Chet's closest
friend during the secure childhood Chet had enjoyed. Chet never consciously realized it on earth, but he was influenced to become a priest so he could help people like Nathan. In this odd way, Nathan had
inspired
Chet. (Nathan was also aware that his bad example had been a negative influence on Chet during their college days. Nathan had seen this earlier during the "sin" part of the Warning.)