![](\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SZwClXwbAMI\/AAAAAAAAFI0\/y2B5zWRHqiE\/s320\/hudson3.jpg\")
<\/a> Frederick Berretta humbly admits to being away from the church, to his \u201chalf-hearted approach to living the faith and not trusting in God.\u201d He acknowledges that he was living a life of \u201call\u201d \u2013 a pilot\u2019s license and private plane, a corporate executive in the financial world. And on Jan. 15 aboard U.S. Airways flight 1549, everything changed.<\/p>\n\u201cAs I look back now, God was trying to get my attention all along,\u201d Berretta said. \u201cI had a conversion experience just before I married my wife, Liz, and tried to be a good Catholic. Our fifth child died shortly after birth at Christmas in 2003 and that gave me a more profound appreciation of life. Then six months later, my dad died and I was close to my dad. Work became very stressful and the last couple of years, we\u2019ve had the financial crisis. We lost our retirement. We went from better off to the reality of how we are going to get the kids through college. My New Year\u2019s resolution was to get in better spiritual shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
Berretta read a story about a couple hiding under a bed for 14 hours during a terrorist attack in India and the woman prayed the rosary the entire time. He was inspired and started praying the rosary.<\/p>\n
A last-minute decision sent Berretta on a business trip to New York City from his home in Charlotte, N.C. He had a few moments of unoccupied time, cleaned out his briefcase only to find a Divine Mercy pamphlet and he prayed the chaplet. The following day his business finished early, so he stopped at St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral for noon Mass. In the cathedral\u2019s gift shop, he bought the book \u201cThe Seven Secrets of the Eucharist\u201d by Vinny Flynn, which he read as he waited for his flight to depart.<\/p>\n
The story of U.S. Airways flight 1549 and it\u2019s landing in the Hudson River without any loss of life is well-known now. As a pilot, Berretta has an even greater understanding and appreciation for all that transpired.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the engines blew, I thought there\u2019s a good chance many of us will die. I thought about my wife and kids and how hard it will be for them. Something was pushing my conscience and I knew I have to accept this. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m ready for this, but then I remembered the Divine Mercy promise, \u2018nothing will be refused in that hour\u2019 and with every fiber of my being I asked God to be merciful to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Berretta does not claim cause and effect in his prayer for mercy and the outcome of the splash landing, but he was comforted by the prayer and is thankful for the outcome and was transformed by the experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plane left the gate at 3:03 p.m., it was 3:30 p.m. when I prayed the chaplet and at 3:48 p.m., I was on a boat talking to my wife. There are so many things that could have gone wrong, but everything was in place to make it miraculous.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Read more at the link<\/a>. Amazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the passengers on that miracle flight that landed in the Hudson thinks that miracle may be due to something more than just divine intervention — perhaps, Divine Mercy. From Florida Catholic: Frederick Berretta humbly admits to being away from the church, to his \u201chalf-hearted approach to living the faith and not trusting in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\n
Divine Mercy, indeed - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/divine-mercy-indeed.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Divine Mercy, indeed - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the passengers on that miracle flight that landed in the Hudson thinks that miracle may be due to something more than just divine intervention — perhaps, Divine Mercy. From Florida Catholic: Frederick Berretta humbly admits to being away from the church, to his \u201chalf-hearted approach to living the faith and not trusting in…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/divine-mercy-indeed.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-18T07:40:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SZwClXwbAMI\/AAAAAAAAFI0\/y2B5zWRHqiE\/s320\/hudson3.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Divine Mercy, indeed - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/divine-mercy-indeed.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Divine Mercy, indeed - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"One of the passengers on that miracle flight that landed in the Hudson thinks that miracle may be due to something more than just divine intervention — perhaps, Divine Mercy. From Florida Catholic: Frederick Berretta humbly admits to being away from the church, to his \u201chalf-hearted approach to living the faith and not trusting in…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/divine-mercy-indeed.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2009-02-18T07:40:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SZwClXwbAMI\/AAAAAAAAFI0\/y2B5zWRHqiE\/s320\/hudson3.jpg"}],"author":"deacon greg kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/divine-mercy-indeed.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/divine-mercy-indeed.html","name":"Divine Mercy, indeed - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/divine-mercy-indeed.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/divine-mercy-indeed.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SZwClXwbAMI\/AAAAAAAAFI0\/y2B5zWRHqiE\/s320\/hudson3.jpg","datePublished":"2009-02-18T07:40:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-18T07:40:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/divine-mercy-indeed.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/divine-mercy-indeed.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/divine-mercy-indeed.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SZwClXwbAMI\/AAAAAAAAFI0\/y2B5zWRHqiE\/s320\/hudson3.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SZwClXwbAMI\/AAAAAAAAFI0\/y2B5zWRHqiE\/s320\/hudson3.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/divine-mercy-indeed.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Divine Mercy, indeed"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10","name":"deacon greg kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","caption":"deacon greg kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}