Christopher Hitchens is dead.
The atheist who spent his life ridiculing the existence of the Living God has died of cancer.
Now here is the million dollar question that a brother Knight asked of me:
Shall you pray for the repose of the soul of a man who does not even believe in God and the afterlife?
If I'd be the complete blunt about it...I WON'T. It's like praying for Hitler in his dying minutes.
BUT...
We don't know. He might have a change of heart a few moments before he died.
BUT, would it hurt if you ask for God's mercy on him?
Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies, didn't He?
BUT...Hitchens spent the rest of his life cursing God.
According to our Faith, we know what awaits an unrepentant man.
Quite ironic that he still chose to be named "Christopher", meaning Christ-bearer.
***
Our priest readers might want to give us a little lesson on this one.
Father Gary?
We pray to the Lord for those who have gone before us in hopes that He will grant them His mercy. We also do so because we do not know the state of his soul at the very end of his life; it might be that at the last second he repented, and God in His mercy gave him the grace to be with Him. That is why we commend to God those who have died, since they are in His justice now, and so as He had compassion for us, so we too as Christians we must show the same compassion for them. After all, in the end it his His mercy and His grace that counts.
ReplyDeleteI agree. This is the time we need to pray harder.
ReplyDeleteI always see the Good Shepherd in this story. I hope he repented before his last breath.
As the angel said to Mary in the Gospel (for Catholics) this Sunday--"Nothing is impossible with God". And as we Orthodox pray at Divine Liturgy, "Lord have mercy".
ReplyDeleteRemember he said "I hope to live,so as to publish my obituaries of Villains like Joseph Ratzinger".
ReplyDeleteNow look what happened!
Christopher Hitchens is an avowed atheist in his public life. What IF, by the grace of God ( prayers answered by Christians praying for his conversion) he acknowledged our Lord before his last breath. Only God can judge the state of his soul. I prayed for God's mercy on his soul in pectore.
ReplyDeleteOnly GOD KNOWS what was inside of his heart and his mind at the last moment of his life.
ReplyDeleteWe are only human, we don't see what God sees. What we know about him is nothing compared to what God knows about him for only God is "ALL KNOWING."