Spoke Ecuadorian Priest Father Patricio when preaching the homily at Holy Mass
Social media is abuzz with the news of Father Patricio Alfredo Sanchez Molinari, who, during a sermon, uttered the words, “One day, we will also die.”, which became tragically prophetic when a large crucifix hanging behind him fell and struck the back of his head during a livestreamed Mass in Ecuador.
In a tragic coincidence, the priest had been discussing the uncertainty and brevity of life shortly before the accident. He was reflecting on the words of Jesus and the inevitability of death. He also urged members of the congregation not to waste their lives endlessly scrolling on their mobile phones. Instead, he encouraged them to devote more time to God, their families and their loved ones.
The Word of God is for all times. From Adam to Jesus in the Old and New Testaments, God reveals his will to His people. On Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time, October 23, 2026, we heard these words from Jesus:
“Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?” (Lk 12:56)
The Gospel Reading, Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time, October 24, 2026, from Luke 12:54-59 helps us interpret what happened to Father Patricio Alfredo Sanchez Molinari.
Do tragedies happen only to sinners, or are they part of the human journey? Anything can happen to any of us at any time. The Word of God has one purpose: to call us to repentance before the inevitable happens.
Our life on earth is finite, but our afterlife is forever. God is asking us to focus on the afterlife to guide our earthly life. Seek not the rewards of the earth, but the rewards we can behold every day of our lives: Peace, serenity, freed from bodily needs, for we have no body in heaven that will grow old and wither, be struck with sickness and tragedies, or marry. In heaven, we are spirit, as God is spirit. “At the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” (Mt 22:30)
There is no further death after the death on earth. When we die, we are born again into a new life that is everlasting. In the company of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, with Mother Mary, and all the Saints, our departed parents, brothers and sisters, who by self-will or by grace made a deliberate choice to repent before they were bid to come to Him.
In the passage below, Jesus clarifies for those who today debate the manner of Father Patricio Alfredo Sanchez Molinari’s death and ascribe judgment depending on which side of the fence our beliefs lean: faith or faithlessness.
As Father Patricio said, don’t spend your time scrolling for news but on the Word of God. God gives us multiple chances to repent and return to Him: the parable of the man and the fig tree being one of them.
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilise it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’” (Lk 13:6-9)
The man who takes care of the fig tree is Jesus, who is appealing to His Father to allow one more year, pleading not to cut the fig tree down. Jesus appeals to His Father every day for us. One more year. One more year. One more year. Jesus knows we will come around. Yes, He died for us. He did not die in vain. He knows he can gather His flock and bring them around. When we are blessed with such a loving God, how can we resist but heed His call?
Resist we do. We take sides. Not with God, but with God’s fallen angel, Lucifer. His constituency is the ones who reject God. When we look at the world we live in, there is no debate on who is winning. Why is that so? We make it so. Not God, as detractors claim.
God is not a tyrant, as some imply when reading the Old Testament. He has given us free will. What did we do with the free will? We crucified His Son then, and continue to crucify Him every day with our reluctance to repent.
Father Patricio stood under the cross, as priests all over the world do. Will the Catholic Church shift the altar or the cross because of this incident? God forbid! The Cross at the centre of our worship sets us apart from all other Christian denominations.
Some denominations resent the cross. They do not have it, at least not front and centre, as the Catholic Church does, larger than life, commanding our attention, touching every sinew and nerve in our body by its presence. The words from the Book of Deuteronomy challenge people with the truth: Jesus became a curse that we may be saved:
“And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.” (Deut 21:22-23)
They don’t want to associate their life with suffering, only abundance, the Gospel of Prosperity. The Catholic Church embraces suffering, poverty, and is built on the Beatitudes, the hallmark of our belief that Jesus preached to us to observe if we desire the afterlife with Him. “I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Lk 13:5)
- Mathew Anthony
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