A Spacecraft Without an Engine

(Plain Text Version)

A Spacecraft Without an Engine
My disabled spacecraft was on a collision course with the Moon.  The Mission Clock announced: “One minute to impact”.
The view of the Moon is marvelous, but I don’t care.  My time is coming very quickly.  “Lord, have mercy!  Lord, have mercy!  Lord…” 
A lean bearded man greets me.  I instantly recognize him as St. Peter.  “Welcome to Heaven, your troubles are over.  Let us walk through the Pearly Gate.  On the other side, my worst enemy was smiling and reaching out to me.  I stiffened and blurted out: “What is he doing here?” 
My old enemy and the Pearly Gate vanish.  St. Peter says: “There must have been a mistake”.  An enormous book appears, and I see my name at the top of a page.  “I see, your name is in the Book of Life, but the PF code is after your name.  ‘PF’ means ‘Purgatory First’.  The corner of the page was folded, so we didn’t notice the code.”
“Purgatory?  There’s no such thing!” is my retort.  St. Peter smiles and vanishes.
Suddenly, I see every sin I ever committed, all my lost opportunities, and all the time I wasted.  In an instant, I see everyone who tried to show me a better way.  I am paralyzed with pain as I see what my life could have been. 
My guide appears.  “This is Purgatory, the place where you will be purified of anything that keeps you out of Heaven.  I think you realize that you needed to forgive that person who caused you so much pain.  The folks in Heaver thought you would be glad to see that he made it there.” 
He opens a small book, and reports: “You did a decent job of keeping the Ten Commandments, but not the Sermon on the Mount or the lessons in St. Paul’s Letters.  It says here that you never studied your faith since you were 12 years old.  In a word, you didn’t make Christ the model for your life.  There is more, but we won’t rush things.  We have lots of time.”
I respond, “Why was Purgatory such a big secret?  It is not in the Bible, and I rarely heard about it in my religion classes.”
As an exceptionally large golden Bible appears, my guide replies: “The Bible  mentions Purgatory quite a few times.  You will be studying them.  Right now, the passage for you is the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, Matthew 18: 23-35.  Do you remember this one?”
“Yes…”
“The Unforgiving Servant owes his master ten thousand talents.  This is hundreds of thousands of denarii.  As you know, a denarius is a day’s wage for a laborer.  It will take many lifetimes to pay it off.”
After a long pause, he continues: “You are the Unforgiving Servant.”
I heard this parable many times, but never asked the question: “What is God telling me through this passage?”  I start to feel very sick.
He continues: “It won’t be easy to rid you of the poison of unforgiveness, but it will happen.”
“How long will it take?”
“When you were on Earth, you were able to change.  Now, you can’t change your own course, just like a spacecraft without an engine.  But God will make the  changes for you, one at a time.    No one knows how long this will take.  A few people spend only a minute here.  Some people, a long time.  One of Herod’s soldiers just graduated.  He was quite a mess, but you would never know that now.”
He lets me think a while, and then says: “Anyone who believes in Heaven should believe in Purgatory.  If people in Heaven acted the way they did on Earth, Heaven wouldn’t be Heaven.”
Suddenly, I am looking at an intense light.  It is the Sun.  I sit on the edge of my bed. I try to run through everything I heard so that I remember it. 
I circle today’s date on my calendar.  This is the first day of my new life.  I will make the changes!
Immediately, I realize that I don’t even know where to start.  How will it ever happen? 
I think I hear St. Peter’s voice: “Take it from me, you will fail if you do it on your own.  God wants to guide you.  Tell Him that you would like to have your Purgatory on Earth.”