Daily Thought For April 23, 2020

Amazing Mercy & Grace!

Dear Father, here I am at the close of my life, my soul at peace and my heart steady. In a few hours a new and eternal dawn will break for me, if our Lord judges me worthy to be counted among his children. In these last moments I can hardly help reviewing all the scenes of my past life in the radiance of the new light that is mine as I stand on the threshold of life. They are not sad, because they have led up to the love of Jesus, thus taking on a meaning I never suspected. Some are even happy, and here I am thinking of those hours I spent at the foot of the improvised altar in a prison cell, or the time passed in reading the spiritual books your goodness knew how to choose for me—always the best!

I owe you my heartfelt thanks, Father, for your perseverance in my regard, for your kindness and the care you have always taken for my soul’s welfare, ­nourishing it faithfully with its one need: our Lord Jesus Christ. I am trying to thank you at least in part here below, but although I may seem presumptuous in saying this, I cannot hide from you the fact that it is from heaven, whence all blessings flow, that I should like to be able to thank you.

I shall carry your name to heaven with me, written in my heart, and when the Lord allows me to cast a glance down to earth, I shall gaze into a dark little cell where a priest is celebrating the greatest of all possible sacrifices, uniting himself each day to crucified love, and then I shall ask our Lord to cast a gracious glance on his faithful minister and fill him with blessings. Peace be with you, my Father, and may the eternal light soon shine upon you also.

Until we meet in God,


Your humble and grateful sheep, Jacques.

Servant of God Jacques Fesch


Jacques Fesch († 1957) was a murderer who experienced a profound conversion before his execution in a French prison. This text is a letter to the prison chaplain. [From Light Over the Scaffold: Prison Letters of Jacques Fesch and Cell 18: Unedited Letters of Jacques Fesch, Sr. Mary Thomas Noble, o.p., Tr. © 1996, The Fathers and Brothers of the Society of St. Paul, ST PAULS/Alba House, Staten Island, NY. www.stpauls.us. Used with permission.]

From Magnificat Daily Meditation. 

Here is an article to read more about this amazing man's conversion from WORD ON FIRE.