Confession At A Wal-Mart Parking Lot
Offered By June Klins (editor of Spirit of Medjugorje)

At Mass tonight Fr. Tim said that he was in Wal-Mart today and a lady he did not know came up to him. She said that her husband was very ill and she was worried because he had not been to confession in 30-40 years, although he went to Mass every Sunday. She said he NEEDED to go to confession and that they always argued about this. On the way there they had passed a house that had a big picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the picture window. The lady remembered that Saturday was the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and that today was the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. So she prayed to Them that her husband would go to confession. She was trying to convince her husband to go to confession and the man said, "If Wal-Mart is having confessions today, then I will go." So when she saw Father Jim dressed in his clerics, she approached him and asked him to hear her husband's confession. The man was sitting in the car waiting for his wife. Father was a little reluctant to do this, but looked at his watch and saw that it was a few minutes before 3:00, the Hour of Mercy, and being that it was the feast of the Sacred Heart, a favorite devotion of his, he agreed. He went out to the car and knocked on the window and told the man what his wife had said about Wal-Mart having confessions. How could the man resist? I was laughing out loud in church tonight. I could not believe it. Who but God could orchestrate this scenario?

Father said he shared this story to show the great love of the Sacred Heart for us, and also to impress upon us to never give up praying for our loved ones. You never know when that moment of grace will come. Like "Candid Camera" - when you least expect it!

I talked to Father Tim after Mass, and I said that it was good that he was wearing his clerics. Otherwise the woman would not have known he was a priest. He said he had just come from mowing his mother's lawn and just stopped into Wal-Mart to get one thing and normally would not have been wearing his clerics after mowing the lawn. He told me he is going to ride by the house with the big picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The people with the picture have no idea about the sequence of events that took place because of their picture. But they are certainly following the message: "Therefore, dear children, help my Immaculate Heart to triumph in the sinful world." (9/25/91)

I hope this story put a smile on your face as it did mine.
June Klins

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