A US priest has spoken words of mercy and faith after a series of “wildly improbable events” saved his life after being stabbed on the street by a stranger with no apparent motive.
Father Matt Marino – who ministers in Trinity Parish church in town of St Augustine, Florida – told local TV news channels of his compassion for the young woman who committed the senseless act which nearly took his life.
Early morning in October, he was sitting with friends at a coffee shop. A girl he didn’t know approached him and said: “I actually have problems.”
Fr Marino told the local TV news channel First Coast News (FCN) of his first response to her words: “Pastors instinctively go, ‘oh, well, tell me your story.'”
But as he leaned forward to assist her, she pulled out a rusty knife and plunged it into his chest. “I just looked down and said, ‘hey, you simply stabbed me’,” he told the news channel.
“Then she type of got this look on her face like, ‘and now I’m gonna finish the job’ and it jogged my memory of, Lord of the Rings when Gollum sees his precious.”
She was not in a position to make one other attack as others intervened. Initially the priest didn’t realise the seriousness of what had occurred. But when he coughed and saw blood which was also running down his leg, he realised he was at risk, and fell to the bottom. He was told later that he had lost 2.5 pints of blood – half of his total.
As he lay down, the sky, he thought, “what a random strategy to die” and said to God: “I do not actually need to go today. So not today, Lord.'” He believes that God responded: “OK.”
Then a series of unlikely coincidences got here together to make sure that his life was saved as first responders arrived and an area friend accompanied him to the hospital.
The first extraordinary event was that as he lay on the road, driving past was “the one person within the county who had a combat chest seal in his automobile,” who happened to see a person on the bottom and stopped to assist.
According to sales web sites, a combat chest seal is designed to seal open chest wounds and forestall considered one of the major causes of death on a battlefield. They should not widely utilized in the civilian population, nonetheless, so the likelihood of 1 being within the vicinity of a street stabbing appears very low.
“The possibilities of me being listed below are the results of several wildly improbable events and an amazingly good set of first responders, trauma docs and ICU people at Florida Memorial,” he told FCN. “So due to an awesome fire department, a man pulling over in his automobile, a extremely fast ambulance driver, a man within the back who had a child who goes to our preschool, keeping me with him mostly – I used to be out and in, but mostly with him – after which this army of trauma docs, here I’m.”
Within several hours, a 22-year-old woman was arrested on the charge of attempted murder and has appeared in court.
Fr Marino has been involved in young adults ministry and said that experiences with that helped him to have concern for the young woman who attacked him. His church website describes him as “an adolescent atheist turned Episcopal priest” who’s “in wonder on the grandeur of the One who made us and calls us home through the cross and empty tomb.”
He blogs on “The Gospel Side” where he has called for more grace for our political opponents and spoken of his intention to wish for people he disagrees with.
Despite his ordeal, Fr Marino said he didn’t feel fear or pain until the interventions needed to avoid wasting his life began, which needed to be refrained from anaesthetic and was “not a cushty experience”. Instead, he expressed concern for those around him.
“This was not as mentally painful for me because the people around me,” he told FCN. “I mean, whatever this poor girl was going through, it was surely worse for her.
“Who wakes up on a Wednesday morning and says ‘I’m going out to knife people’? You know, whatever she was going through was worse. The individuals who needed to see me laying there in a pool of blood, I’m sure that was traumatic. For me, I used to be the sky.”
He also spoke of his understanding of why he may need to suffer in this fashion. “I do not know what God is doing on this, nevertheless it seems to me that people who find themselves pastors or first responders, they should undergo things that should not for his or her profit but for the good thing about others,” he said. He cited Isaiah 55:8-9 as to how we cannot understand what God has planned because his thoughts are higher than ours.
The priest said it was not difficult to forgive his attacker and spoke of being inspired by his faith. “I mean, Christianity is ‘you might be forgiven through the love of Jesus’,” he told FCN, on the verge of tears. “So, how could I not forgive her? I’ve been forgiven a lot. How could I not extend that forgiveness? Now, the law is gonna do what the law is gonna do and it’s gonna be sure that that society is secure and hopefully get her help.”
He said he hoped to see her in person and tell her himself of his forgiveness for her.
He also cited a verse from 1 Peter 4, to rejoice once you experience the sufferings of Christ. “I believed, Christ died for us, so we needn’t,” he reflected.
“Then I noticed Peter said, no, sometimes you get to suffer as someone who follows the Lord.
“You know, the reality is that a pastor is all the time gonna be the best goal in a community, because we have made a life commitment to be open handed and open hearted to other people and to have the love of Jesus for them.”
Heather Tomlinson is a contract Christian author. Find more of her work at https://heathertomlinson.substack.com or via X (twitter) @heathertomli
