Local priest is on Friday's Late Late Show

A local priest who believes that he has received proof that heaven and God exist is appearing on the Late Late Show next Friday night March 8.

Father Sean Hyland, the curate in Rhode and Clonbullogue, started studying for the priesthood in September 2010 at the age of 62 less two years after the death of his wife Liz from cancer.

Speaking to the Offaly Independent, Fr Sean says that Liz was the “light, the energy, the optimism in my life” and “carried” him during the darkest period of their 36 year marriage when, in little over the space of a year, the couple lost their two beloved children, Seana and Kieran.

Seana died at the age of two after she contracted viral pneumonia in 1975 and her brother Kieran passed away at the age of one from Reye's Syndrome.

While Sean admits he suffered “anger and darkness” following the death of his children, Liz's faith was a constant source of comfort for her.

From an engineering background, he says that by studying philosophy, science and religion over a number of years, “through reason” he “concluded beyond a shadow of a doubt” that there is a “divine intelligence” behind the creation of the universe.

Strengthened by his faith and Liz's love and support, Sean enjoyed a successful career and by the time he took early retirement in 2006 he was a senior executive with Hewlett Packard.

The couple spent the first year of Sean's retirement playing golf and travelling, but their world was thrown into turmoil in April 2008 when Liz was diagnosed with cancer, from which she passed away that December.

When his wife died Sean says that he just had one prayer: “Jesus let me know Liz and my children are safe and well with you”.

Sean says that in the years after Liz's death he received over 30 messages, which he says came in the forms of “dreams, locutions, visions and heavenly blessings”, that left him convinced that his wife and children are happy together in heaven.

He published a book late last year, Whisperings of My Soul, in which he gives accounts of the 30 incidents.

He says that ten of the incidents involved himself or family members, while 20 were from “third-party people” who came to him.

It was the high number of stories from other people that inspired him to write his book.
“If they were only in my head, I wouldn't have written them down,” he says.

One of the most amazing incidents in the book involves a former colleague of Sean's in Hewlett Packard.

Around six months after Liz's death, Sean received a phone call from his former colleague, who told him that he had met Liz in a dream.

“She said to him: 'I want you to phone Sean and let him know how incredibly happy I am with Seana and Kieran and we are looking out for him', “ Sean says.

Eager to find out every detail of his friend's encounter with his wife, Sean met him for lunch. When he asked what his wife was wearing, his friend described a distinctive dress that Sean says he instantly recognised as one that he bought Liz shortly after they started going out in the late 1960s.

“I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was a message from heaven, all the other doubts I had when they [the signs] were in the family were gone,” Sean said.

These messages he says were the “catalyst” for both writing the book and entering the priesthood.

“Being given that assurance that Liz and my children are safe and well and not only that but that they know what is going on in my life and are beavering away for me.”

Since publishing his book late last year, Fr Sean says that he has been visited by people from across the country, who are experiencing grief.

“It's been an amazing consolation to people that have been in tragedy...To be given the reassurance that heaven is that real and that close is all they need to know.”

He says that he is looking forward to appearing on the Late Late Show as it will give him an opportunity to reach a wider audience with his message.

“My little life story which has its own ups and downs is a platform for me to let people know how real heaven and God is and how close to us he is and how explicitly he and Jesus communicate with us. My story is simply a platform for that.”