Angel Visitation

Church of Saint Mary the Virgin - New York City

(This is another excerpt from Bedeviled It happened 7 years before Tom got cancer. Maybe the angel was trying to reach out to him to get him to save his life.)

If I ignored the unconventional visions that spoke to me from the spirit world trying to save our love story, Tom also missed the meaning and purpose of the unconventional occurrence that happened to him in his very traditional church. He had a deep faith in God, but no longer went to church. He’d gone to Catholic schools and loved the rituals of the Catholic church, but his grandfather had been Episcopalian Catholic, which as I understand it, is a church that is not part of the Roman Catholic church, but still preserves all the richly spiritual practices of the Catholic tradition. Tom felt very comfortable in that atmosphere. I wonder if he didn’t avoid regular Catholic church attendance because his conscience was bothering him too much to face even the thought of confession. But he managed to get to church in his own way.

Auditions were always held in New York City, and Tom regularly took the bus into the city to go on job interviews. Often finding himself with time on his hands in the city and in the Times Square area, he would spend an hour or so in The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin on West Forty-Sixth Street just off Broadway. This lovely, nineteenth century church was open during the week and here he found a sanctuary that exactly suited his spiritual needs. Darkness, mystery, powerful organ music and smoky incense opened Tom’s spiritual channels to peace and faith. And it was an Episcopalian Catholic Church.

On one particular occasion, he’d sat in a coffee shop and made a list of people who’d passed over and whose souls he wanted to pray for and light candles for. There were about twenty names on his list as he proceeded to his favorite church of Saint Mary the Virgin. He was standing, praying and lighting candles, when someone approached him from behind. He turned to face a tall, interesting looking stranger very close by. Tom, who still retained his Military police skills of careful and detailed observation, saw a man who looked Egyptian. He was bald, with mocha skin, and striking, almond shaped dark eyes. He wore a beautiful, fine gold chain over his sweater which was woven in mellow autumn tones.

As if he had overheard all Tom's prayers in detail, he spoke very reassuringly and very specifically to him, telling him not to worry. He took Tom's hand in his own, electrifying him with a feeling so deeply moving that Tom was convinced he was in the presence of something extraordinary, in fact, an angel. Then the angel said, "Believe in the Christ." Tom thanked him, and, quite overcome, went to sit down in a nearby pew. When he looked up, the angel had vanished, which would have been impossible in the very large nave of the church in the few moments that elapsed.

Tom came home immediately and was still a bit shaken as he related the story to me. He told me that story so many times over the years, and it always thrilled me and gave me hope. A very dark time was coming to Manhattan, one that would need a great deal of hope and faith to get through. The angel visited Tom in May of 2001, a few short months before 9/11.

I believed Tom’s story completely, because he’d never said anything like that in his life. He was generally a hard-bitten realist and quite often a cynic.

When I consulted psychic Pam Coronado much later, she told me she also was visited by an angel in a similar way. The angel appeared out of nowhere, took her hand and she knew instantly that the beautiful woman who greeted her on the beach was a higher being. This angel also disappeared after her short visit. Pam added that she had heard from many people that in the months prior to 9/11 there were many unusual spiritual manifestations. I believe this was one such manifestation. Tom was praying devoutly for departed souls in a church near where thousands of innocent souls were soon to depart from life in an horrific tragedy.

When I spoke to Pam, I mentioned this incident and how it reminded me of the episode of her television show “Sensing Murder” where she was helping to solve the mystery of a nun who had been murdered on hill overlooking her convent. Something very unusual happened to Pam on that hill. She could not find any trace of the murder or any clues, as she always does in all her many other cases. The reason turned out to be that over the years since the murder, the nuns had prayed extensively at that site. Pam feels that their prayers had cleansed the site of the feelings of fear and anger, which she usually can sense and which tell her so much about the crime that has happened. Pam also said that this was one of her favorite episodes due to that unusual occurrence. I wonder if prayers before tragedies can also help to mitigate some of the fear and anger that will be visited on those so close by and so deeply affected by the deadly events that are soon to transpire.

On a more personal level, however, this visitation was regarded by Tom as somewhat embarrassing. He never told any of his friends. He didn’t think they’d believe him. I forced him to tell our son, because I felt it was important that he hear the story from his father’s own mouth. Now, I am sure the spirit world was reaching out to Tom through the channels that his spirit understood and had faith in, the church and Christ, trying to help him to stay true to the love that had been given to him in this life.

This is the strangest afterlife story you will ever read. A man with a divided soul, one in hell and one in heaven, came back to confess the truth and expose how the devil ruined his life. A must read for anyone struggling to reconcile sin and mental illness.