there are no atheists in foxholes...

In light of the Church celebrating "All Souls Day" yesterday, Fr. Cantalamessa, Preacher to the Papal Household, gave an excellent homily on life after death.

In talking about how we as believers still experience physical death, yet hold on to the hope of immortality, he included a moving testimony in that regard from Russia. Its a prayer that was found in a jacket pocket of a Russian soldier, Aleksander Zacepa, composed just before the World War II battle in which he would die...

It says:

'Hear me, oh God! In my lifetime, I have not spoken with you even once, but today I have the desire to celebrate. Since I was little, they have always told me that you don't exist. And I, like an idiot, believed it.

I have never contemplated your works, but tonight I have seen from the crater of a grenade the sky full of stars, and I have been fascinated by their splendor. In that instant I have understood how terrible is the deception. I don't know, oh God, if you will give me your hand, but I say to you that you understand me...

Is it not strange that in the middle of a frightful hell, light has appeared to me, and I have discovered you?

I have nothing more to tell you. I feel happy, because I have known you. At midnight, we have to attack, but I am not afraid. You see us.

They have given the signal. I have to go. How good it was to be with you! I want to tell you, and you know, that the battle will be difficult: Perhaps this night, I will go to knock on your door. And if up to now, I have not been your friend, when I go, will you allow me to enter?

But, what's happening to me? I cry? My God, look at what has happened to me. Only now, I have begun to see with clarity. My God, I go. It will be difficult to return. How strange, now, death does not make me afraid.