An 87-year-old Ohio priest driving to Sunday Mass narrowly escaped death when an SUV barreling the other way went off-road, smashed into a road sign and another vertical object, then soared directly over the priest’s car.
On October 2, the feast of the Guardian Angels, Father John Bok, who is now retired, headed to St. Andrew Catholic Church in Milford, Ohio at roughly 8:40 a.m. to help serve Mass. A young man driving the SUV suffered a seizure wheel and passed out, leaving the vehicle to smash into the objects and get hurled into the air. Bok stated later that the young man recovered.
“It’s a miracle,” Bok told the Catholic News Agency.
“I did not know that that car went over top of me because I was looking ahead and it was to my left and above,” said Bok, who is blind in his left eye and wears hearing aids. “And out of the corner of my eye I sensed something went by, but I just thought it was a bird or something like that.”
According to Bok, he remained unaware of what had transpired until a police officer whom he spoke to at a restaurant after Mass showed him a video taken by a funeral home across the street from the incident.
“I was in amazement that it had happened,” Bok, who had spent part of his life as a physics teacher, admitted. “One of the mysteries is that it would happen to be that Oct. 2 feast (of the Guardian Angels).”
“I don’t know what God was thinking,” he quipped, adding that if he had indeed been killed in the incident, it would be a “win-win” situation because “heaven is going to be better than here.”
“I’m happy I’m still here and it’s a mystery why I am when you look at that darn video,” he concluded. “When I see it, I just scratch my head and say, ‘Thank you, Lord.’”
One of the parishioners at St. Andrew Catholic Church wrote on Facebook, “St. Andrew is our parish. Fr. John always closes Mass with a corny joke, often involving a pun or play on words. His brother, Fr. Jim Bock (also in his 80’s), is also a Franciscan priest, serving in Jamaica for many years.” A commenter replied, “God is good, all the time!! All the time, God is good!!”
