The Resurrection

If I did not confess in this chapter what I experienced then, God would punish me. Because He did the miracle and I have to say it. That is why this chapter is the only one that is addressed only to those who believe in God, in the Gospel and in His Church without limits.

Christianity is a religion of miracles. The Incarnation of the Son of God from the Blessed Virgin Mary, an event that does not obey the laws of nature, is the beginning of miracles.

God becomes a man like us, so that we can see Him, touch Him, hear Him speak, see the wonders He has done with us human beings; and we end up denying Him as the Son of God, persecuting Him and crucifying Him on the cross.

The miracle of all miracles, which human reason cannot understand or admit, is the resurrection of the Son of God from the dead. While He was with us on earth, He said to us: “I am the resurrection and the life, I am the life of the world, I am the way, the truth and the life.

The Son of God died and rose again, not as God, because He cannot die, but as man. Those who do not believe in the resurrection of the Son of God and the miracles He and the Saints have performed by His power will not share in the resurrection and eternal happiness, but will rise to receive the reward of their unbelief and the evil deeds they have done as servants of Satan. If they served Satan on earth, they will serve Satan in eternity.

Christianity is received by faith alone, not by the penetrating power of human reason. Faith is a “gift” given by God to man through creation. And it works especially where human reason cannot penetrate. “Believe and you will be saved”, “Search the Scriptures”, says the Son of God, “My whole being trembles like one who has lived in hell for four years. But what will the unbelievers say at the Last Resurrection, when God will work the greatest miracle and raise man and the world for eternity? So that man can live and be happy forever.

It was not by chance that I met Jimboiu in room 1 ward. I met him to understand man’s possibilities to save his soul with the help of God’s grace. And it was no coincidence that we were above the chapel where we had met Flueraș, the atheist who, in the twilight of his life, turned to the true faith.

Easter was approaching and my physical and spiritual strength was exhausted. Without realising it, an uneasiness, or perhaps a premonition, had settled in my whole being that something was going to happen to me. I was experiencing the feeling of someone facing death. But I was not afraid of death, which I had so often wished for, but I was afraid that from one moment to the next I would lose my mind forever.

It was Easter Saturday. The day before I had prayed as deeply as perhaps I had ever prayed in my life; but at the same time I had experienced the despair that my prayer would not be answered.

So on Saturday night, at about ten o’clock, when the curfew rang, I lay down on the veranda. I hadn’t been able to sleep for several nights. Around midnight, something urged me to get up and move around the room. I approached the window and that’s when I heard the church bells of Gherla ringing at twelve o’clock to announce the resurrection service. The sound of the bells seemed to come from another world, so harmonious it was.

I fell on my knees in front of the window and, with my hands clasped in prayer, I cried out from the depths of my soul: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, I confess that I have offended You, but You, Lord, know that I have reached the limit of my patience and suffering. I can’t bear it any longer! Do with me what You will! I have run away from You, Lord, but I pray to You with all my being, if it is possible, forgive me and resurrect my soul, because I believe in Your Resurrection without limit”.

At that moment, as I knelt with my hands folded and my eyes focused through the bars, my whole being trembled and tears began to flow from my eyes.

That’s all I could say through the tears: “Lord, have mercy on me!” I did not have time to finish these words, for my whole body was seized with a trembling and shaking like that of the possessed, and I felt a strange power coming out of my soul and body and leaving me. It was the spirit of Satan who had been torturing and possessing me for four years.

I compare my healing, for it was a healing, to the rapture of a man who carries a heavy burden on his back until he falls under its weight and can no longer lift himself up; then someone takes the burden from him and he suddenly feels as light as if he was flying. That is how I felt when the satanic force left me.

I fell with my head on the cement and fainted, my shirt soaked with sweat and my tears never stopped flowing. I felt my forehead wet with tears falling on the cold cement I was kissing. They were tears of repentance that God had graciously received, forgiving me for the offence I had caused Him. In four years of torment I had not shed a tear, but now my soul was bathed in the bath of repentance and God’s miracle.

I got up late, not knowing where I was; I felt like another man and I was so light as if I were floating in another sphere. In the resurrection, God had healed me and raised me too.

I knelt down again and, lying face down on the ground, cried out with all my breath: “Lord, You are so good and merciful to sinners that I don’t know how to thank You!”

And then the words of Jesus healing the sick man came to my mind: “Behold, you are healed; go and sin no more! And my heart felt a joy that can only be understood by those who have experienced it. If I had been in hell, I felt at that moment that the happiness of heaven was not far from my soul.

I rose from the cement and, like an apparition from the world of dreams, Jimboiu stood before me. I embraced him and said with all my heart: “Christ is risen!

“He is risen indeed!” he replied, full of joy. We both cried for a while. I have never in my life felt so close to anyone as I did to Jimboiu at that moment. We were both experiencing the joy of my resurrection. I wanted to thank him for his guidance, but he was content to say: “Your tears have been received by God and His mercy has healed you. Since you came down from the bed, I have seen everything; even I have not slept. I rejoice for you with all my heart.

It was getting light and the people in the room stood up. The light of the Resurrection bathed me in its rays. I was a different person, for “I was lost and found myself, I was dead and rose again”.

I returned to the bed, lay down and fell into a deep sleep, so that my comrades did not manage to wake me until the evening meal. I hadn’t slept like that for four years.

Easter 1954 was for me the true birth and resurrection; a decisive event for my faith and my thinking. Instead of the horror and fear I had experienced for four years, a power had settled in my soul that made me fear nothing but God. From then on, prison was no longer a shackle for me, but complete freedom. Although my body remained in chains, my soul was free from that which had drawn me into this earthly life.

It was the freedom that the Son of God gave when he said: “I give you true freedom”. The prison walls, the padlocks and chains that bound and imprisoned us were less important to me; I lived in different coordinates of existence. Not only was my soul, my thinking, my understanding and my life different, but my powerless body, weakened almost to the point of dystrophy, had become stronger.

Those who will read this chapter with kindness and patience will know, I believe, why I think and live as I have shown in my confessions.

I stayed in that room for about a month, during which time I had the most fruitful discussions with my beloved friend and comrade Gheorghe Jimboiu. He was then taken away and taken to the examination room where, as I later found out, his illness worsened in Aiud and, subjected to a strict regime and without medication, he died a martyr’s death. I have this intimate belief that God has taken him to heaven among the Saints.

(Dumitru Bordeianu – Confessions from the Swamp of Despair)