One deserves just a few more words.
Back in July of 2020, we received an image and posted it of a priest giving last rites on Intestate 81.
This photo was taken from Interstate 81 south on July 8, 2020, at the scene of multiple accidents along the highway. The then unnamed priest was on site to offer help and prayers to those injured .. there are several people on Facebook trying to find out his identity so they can thank him for his assistance.
Several media outlets contacted Coal Speaker for the rights to the photo… I declined each time, stating that I had no idea who took the photo and certainly will never claim false credit for something.
While to date the person who snapped the photo is unknown, the name of the priest is.
Father John Killacky was the priest pictured in the haunting photo.
A few days after we published this photo, it literally circulated worldwide.
Finally the National Catholic Register was able to get commentary from Fr. Killacky.
He said,
I was on my way back to the parish — I’m stationed in Harrisburg right now — and I just got from I-78 to I-81. And there had been these small thunderstorms in the path, so you had to put on the hazard lights and that kind of thing, and as I was going down the highway I saw this silhouette of a tractor-trailer wreck. I had to come to a quick stop and get over on the side. It had just happened, I guess. So I wasn’t too far — just two or three cars behind the wreck there.
And there were many wrecks along the highway that day. I don’t know exactly how many. But I remembered I had my holy oil for the sick in the back of my car. So I just grabbed that and thought, “Well, this looks pretty bad.” There were four or five tractor-trailers that had been involved, and a lot of other minor accidents, so I just got out and tried to see if I could find anybody that was seriously injured or needed the last rites.
So then, I circled around and was asking some of the truck drivers if there’s anybody that needed attention. Somebody there brought me to one who did. I think he had already passed on at that time, but we do not know the exact moment when the soul leaves the body; and whatever we can do to help the soul prepare to meet God is so important. So I gave him last rites right there and then cleared away because the EMTs were starting to arrive at that time.
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Last rites…
The moment a soul leaves the body.
Heavy stuff.
And after all these thousands of years, we still debate and have yet to learn what really happens when we die. Where do we go? Get transformed into the light, or just cease to exist.. No light. No dark. Neither. The lack of it all.
Father Killacky’s efforts in a heavy rain storm provided thousands of people hope for a brief time this summer, as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of time this post on the Coal Speaker Facebook page was shared.
Enduring hope? Or a momentary lapse of hopelessness?
12 months have come and gone once again.
And we sing that old Auld song..
Translated from Scottish, the song’s title is “Old Long Since.” Most people know the first two lines of the song, “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?” but sometimes instead of “auld” they sing “old.” While the mistaken word maintains the same meaning, as “auld” means “old” in Scottish, the correct word is “auld.”
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my jo,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp!
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
We twa hae run about the braes
And pu’d the gowans fine
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary foot
Sin auld lang syne.
We twa hae paidl’d i’ the burn
Frae mornin’ sun till dine.
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin auld lang syne.
And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
And gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a right guid willy waught,
For auld lang syne.
As we have done since the early 2000s in each year-end review, it’s time now for our final tradition of the holiday season is to play out the year with a more modern song. Goodbye 2020. You cannot turn back the hands of time, courtesy of Groove Armada from 2002..
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