THE FAITH OF A DRUNKARD
- by Deacon Julian Perez
I remember reading a long, long time ago in a Catholic magazine this story:
There was an intellectual. Not only was he an intellectual, he was also a great writer and philosopher and a professor at an important University. He used to glorify himself saying and teaching that he was a convinced atheist and God was just imagination. But in secret he investigated the possibility of the existence of God, because the theory of evolution did not totally convince him.
One night he dreamed that God spoke to him, telling him to go to the steps of the church. There he would find a person who could explain everything to him. The intellectual went just for curiosity. Big surprise! There was indeed a man there. He was lying on the ground, drunk as a fish, with a bottle of liquor in his left hand. The proud intellectual asked himself: "Could this be the messenger?" He pushed with his toe one of the broken shoes that the drunk was wearing. Then suddenly the drunkard lifted himself from the waist up, all salivating and hiccupping He asked, "What hh...a.a.a....pp... enn?" The intellectual asked him "Are you the person who is going to explain everything to me?" The drunk answered, "Yes sir. I am."
The intellectual opened his mouth to a cynic laughter and asked him "My Dear Most Reverend and Eminent Sir, how are you going to do it?" The drunkard answered, "Very easy, My Most Humble Sir. Look at this bottle of whisky." And he lifted it up. "You must know that inside of it is God. Because the priest said in Mass last Sunday; that God is everywhere; and when I drink this bottle of liquor I see God just the way the priest said. "I see Him double and triple, over here and over there." The intellectual could not take it any more, turn away disgusted and left.
But, in the same instant that he left, he looked back. The drunkard was gone, disappeared totally from the scene, like he never had been there, like the earth had opened up and swallowed him. The intellectual began to wonder. He finished the investigation, now everything was clear. In the following months we see that arrogant and proud intellectual in one of the poorest villages of India. He is now one of the most humble and enthusiastic catechists of the area. And, he never tired repeating that famous phrase from St. Augustine "Oh Wisdom ever ancient, ever new, how late have I come to know you!"
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