Meeting Father Valerian in Heaven
The angel took me away, and I found myself in a building in Heaven. The interior of the building looked like a church with an altar. There were three, small beautiful round loaves of bread on the altar, all the same, all glowing.
All of a sudden, I could see Father Valerian standing at the altar, dressed in beautiful Priestly robes. Standing beside him, partially obscured, I could see another priest, only his shoulder was visible. Father Valerian was assisting this Priest.
As I looked around, here and there, there were a few other saintly people present.
Father Valerian opened a Book and was about to read from this Book, when he said to me, “You know, people are going to read your message about reading passages from the Holy Bible, but I think we all better pray the Lord’s Prayer; that is the prayer that everyone knows.” As he said this, he closed the Book and then all of us who were present prayed the ‘Our Father’, the ‘Hail Mary’ and the ‘Glory Be.’
Once we finished praying, Father Valerian came towards me. I was sitting on a little bench. He came really close to me and said, “I was supposed to go and visit another place, but for some reason, I ended up here in this church.”
I said, “Father Valerian, nothing is by chance. Everything is by God’s Will. He is the One Who organises everything.”
He agreed and said, “Definitely, it must be meant for you and me to talk.”
We were conversing so happily. Father Valerian said, “Have hope, and be cheerful all the time, because you are in God’s presence all the time, even if you don’t see Him.”
I said, “Father Valerian, you were so beautiful, so unique when you were living on earth, and you were among us. You were like a father to all of us, to the Slovenian people, you never hurt anyone, you knew everyone by name, and we really miss you. It is not the same without you.”
He said, “Is that so, you thought that I was like a father?”
I said, “Yes, you were like a father to all of us. We love you so much. May our Lord reward you for what to have done for your people.”
We conversed about the state of the world, and then he said, “I am going to give you an example of how people should live. There was a mother with her daughter, and the daughter decided to leave home to go to another country to work there. The mother said to the daughter, ‘My daughter, I cannot stop you from going, but you have to remember, don’t forget God, don’t forget your daily prayers that I taught you, and don’t forget how to make soup!’”
We both laughed when he mentioned the soup. It is traditional in the Slovenian culture to make soup. Every country has some tradition that the mother teaches and passes on to the next generation.
He said, “And that is beautiful and pleases God very much. Because the children listen and they obey, and they carry on the faith, unlike these days.”
I said, “Father Valerian, people don’t realise that we have to learn here on earth and prepare for Heaven; to be educated about our Heavenly home, because that is forever. However, they don’t want to hear this.”
He said, “I know, that is why it is so bad, the world has become so bad because they ignore the Hereafter. They don’t want to know.”
Suddenly, I was back home.
Lord Jesus, thank you for allowing me to meet Father Valerian; and for teaching us on how important it is to pass on our Catholic faith and traditions to the next generation.