'Miracle': Priest Driving to Church on Feast Day of Guardian Angels Escapes Death

By Amanda Thomason November 4, 2022 at 8:20am

Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.

Father John Bok, 87, was on his way to celebrate mass at St. Andrew Catholic Church in Milford, Ohio, in October when something amazing happened that has shocked many, including Bok himself.

Oct. 2 was the feast day of guardian angels, and what happened that morning was a poignant reminder of God’s grace and perfect timing — and the importance of not driving faster than your guardian angel.

At about 8:40 a.m., when Bok was about to turn into the church parking lot in the white car he was driving, he saw something go by on his left side. He later said he had thought it was a bird.

“I sort of saw something out of the corner of my left eye fly by the back of me,” he wrote in an article on The Franciscan Friars website.

“I was born with a lazy left eye and have very limited vision out of it. I thought maybe it was a large bird or something and continued on my way to have the Mass.”

Bok went on with his day, having breakfast with a local family afterward at a nearby restaurant, unaware that the “bird” that he thought had flown by was something much more serious — something that could have claimed Bok’s life.

“A family that owns a funeral home next to where all of this happened often invites me to join them at a local restaurant for breakfast after Mass,” Bok wrote.

“I joined them that morning. One of the sons is a policeman and had on his phone a video of what happened taken from one of the security cameras in their parking lot. He recognized the white car as mine. When he showed me the video I couldn’t believe what happened.”

As he had driven along, an SUV left a nearby road, crossed the grassy shoulder and headed straight for Bok’s car. As the SUV approached Bok’s car, it likely should have broadsided it — but instead, the video shows it lifting and arcing over the priest’s car, not even touching it.

The SUV then landed on all four tires and soon came to a stop.

Bok later learned that the driver was a teen who had experienced a seizure and his SUV had gone off the road. There just happened to be a metal pole and a road sign in the path of the SUV that launched the SUV up and over Bok’s car, saving both the teen and the priest from what could have been a disaster.

The teen was taken to the hospital and found to be fine after the ordeal, Bok said.

“It’s a miracle,” the priest told the Catholic News Agency.

The complexity of the situation wasn’t lost on Bok, who used to be a physics teacher.

“I believe in science and the laws of physics,” he wrote in The Franciscan Friars article. “My first assignment after ordination was to our Franciscan high school in Cincinnati. I taught various science classes, including physics.

“As a Christian, I also believe in the providence of God, miracles, and Guardian Angels.”

After his death-defying experience, Bok has been in awe of the situation, and it certainly has strengthened his faith and his curiosity.

“Why was the pole standing in that exact spot attached to nothing?” he wrote. “By what laws of physics did it lift the boy’s car almost 5 feet in the air and send it over my car? So many questions. I am certainly thankful to God.

“I will continue to wonder how much God and how much the laws of science played in the experience. And I continue to be amused by the fact that I was oblivious to what happened until I saw the video in the restaurant. As always, God is good.”

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