Chapter 17. Experiences with Angels. I, PETRUS ROMANUS, a documented fiction

Angels, as I know them, are no different from you or me, or the neighbors across the street.

They are there, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, and they help us when those who trust in the Lord's mercy need them most.

I have heard many testimonies of people who suffer accidents or catastrophes and receive the providential help of a man or a woman who rescues them.

Caring angels

The mother of an old acquaintance was the victim of Escobar's bomb on 93 in Bogotá: she recounted how a man came to her, picked her up from the rubble in agony and handed her over to the ambulance that arrived just to save her.

When I lived in Paris in 2010 waiting for my Indian work visa, I spent my afternoons in parks and cafes, wondering about human evil, which forced me to wait for months.

An individual who told me that he was Jewish introduced himself to me, sat at my table with his computer and told me not to worry, my future was bright.

He left me a card with his contact in Tel Aviv; A year later I wrote to him but got no response.

In 2009 I suffered a minor traffic accident, in which a woman immediately came to help me. She lent me her cell phone, I made several calls, and after reassuring me I was fine, she said goodbye without me hearing from her again.

In January of this year, when my wife had to undergo a dangerous operation after losing her fourth baby, an ambulance took her from the house to the FOSCAL, as was recorded in my documentary LOVE ACCORDING TO THE POETS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBCSu_SBHjU&t=2684s

She was very nervous, but when we got to the emergency room, a man got on her, took her hands and said in a calm voice:

"Don't worry. Everything will be fine."

His self-confidence was such that she calmed down and fell into a deep sleep.

I was there and I didn't see anyone.

The area was, in fact, heavily restricted to third parties.

Angels of dead people

Angels often appear in the form of people who are gone.

In my documentary MANATÍ, ALTABLES OF AN UNDERDEVELOPED AND HAPPY PEOPLE, an agronomist recounts how a priest had an afterlife encounter before he died.

My great-uncle, Jaime Santander SJ, “the only honest Jesuit we have ever met”, talked for several hours with a farmer who guided him through intricate trails, until he pointed out a house where he could spend the night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcHD1glQ2yg

"That Lord has been deceased for more than 20 years, father!" They told him in the house when mentioning his guide.

Swedenborg relates that angels, like demons, are actually the perfect marriage between a man and a woman.

Intuition (female) and intelligence (male) combined create angels who in future lives serve the righteous in this world.

Likewise, Swedenborg thus explains the existence of demons, entities that continually tempt men and women, inviting them to self-destruction.

A friend of mine was furious with his son for putting him in debt; He promised not to associate her with him anymore. Then his mother came in a dream to remind him of the faults she had endured, emphasizing that the family is the place of forgiveness.

I am amazed at the attachment that so many people have to this life of appearances and simulacra. There is no need to fear death, I say; It is like traveling from one place to another.

Happiness in mourning

Neither Leyla nor I mourn the loss of our four babies.

"We are eternal," I told her, "and we have nothing to fear.

Before, on the contrary, we know that we don’t have to worry about our children’s care, because Jesus and the angels will take care of them until our arrival.

Two years ago my dog ​​Cleopatra growled with another dog of an aggressive man, who was about to hit me.

A man wearing 1970s sports gear stepped in to calm things down, pointing out that it was normal for animals to growl at each other.

Turning around to thank him, the man had disappeared.

The Orange Seller

In November 2021 a motorcycle tried to pass me on the right just as I was making a junction; I braked, but the motorcyclist hit his leg against the bumper of my car.

I helped the wounded man, and eventually his colleagues arrived, members of a sect, who tried to persuade the traffic policeman of my guilt.

The policeman intimidated me with phrases that showed his sympathy for the motorcyclist, "so it wasn't his fault."

A humble man, who identified himself as a mandarin seller on the corner, came to deny their accusations, also pointing out that the motorcyclist was already drunk.

Although the offender's relatives postponed the breathalyzer test for 7 hours, the result corroborated the opinion of the orange seller.

I went back to that corner days later.

There were no orange stands, and no sign of the Good Samaritan.

Invisible Angels

Those of us who entrust ourselves to the protection of heaven also have what I call, for lack of a better name, invisible angels.

In any transport terminal in India there is no bus that leaves without its puja, prayer or purification ritual. Little matters the God or the religion invoked.

It is in that gesture of humility before the unknown and invisible where spiritual greatness resides; in recognizing that we cannot control what is going to happen.

It was 2006 and I was traveling with my parents, in an old Nissan sedan, back to Bucaramanga from San Gil.

We appreciated the abysses of the Chicamocha Canyon and stopped at a store on the edge of a cliff, where we bought a drink.

We went back to the car, but it didn't start. We examined it and discovered that the brake fluid pump had broken.

The car then started with no problem. Were it not for that sudden and inexplicable failure, we would have fallen to the bottom of the canyon.

Thus, the experiences of salvation that I comment on in my stories and novels are many and varied.

I could, of course, put it down to happy coincidence.

But I only have to look at the crowds in the streets to realize that the greatest miracle is that we live safely for another day.