Bellarmine Chapel, December 8, 2001

My name is Jim McDaniel. I made my Cursillo weekend in September 2000 at Missionhurst where I sat at the table of the SEEKERS.

What a privilege it is, just a little over a year since my Cursillo weekend, to be asked to share a witness with you. I am humbled. I am honored. I will try my best to share a personal vision of holiness, formation and evangelization with you in the next few minutes.

Today, December 8^th, we commemorate the Immaculate Conception.

“And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.” (LUKE 1:38)

• A simple, but powerful statement

• An act of putting oneself into God’s hands

• An acceptance of God’s plan over one’s own plan

• A setting aside of the issues that trouble you, the things you don’t understand – “Let Go, Let God”

• Anticipation of a future that only God can know, a future that will be revealed to you in God’s time

Yet, for most of my life, this was a concept that I understood intellectually, but did not necessarily practice.

Until 3 years ago

On a trip to Australia with my daughter in 1998, she met for the first time several of my maternal grandmother’s relatives, including 3 elderly siblings. It was an emotional experience for all of us. My daughter received several gifts from her great-great aunts and uncle, whom she would probably never see again. They are all in their late 80’s and 90’s. She told me she would treasure forever the gifts and the photos she took with her.

When we left Australia, I put all the mementos and the film in one suitcase, and that was the suitcase that the airline lost. We waited at Dulles Airport for hours, but the carousel just wouldn’t produce that precious bag. My daughter was devastated, but I wasn’t worried. From experience I knew that lost baggage usually turned up the next day. However, 3 days went by, and nothing…

On that 3^rd day, with despair looming on my personal horizon, I finally put this dilemma into God’s hands. I prayed. I said, “Lord, if it is in your plan to find this lost suitcase, this would be a good time.” Not minutes after I finished my prayer, the phone rang. It was United Airlines. The bag had been located and it was on its way to us. Hallelujah!

The very next Sunday, at mass, I said a prayer of thanksgiving. I ended by saying, “Lord, if there is something I can do to show my appreciation, please send me a sign.” As we were leaving the church, our pastor put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Jim, I’m going to Haiti in February. Would you like to come?” All of a sudden, I stopped believing in coincidences. It was like being hit on the head. “Of course I’ll go,” I responded, not knowing anything about Haiti, just knowing that the connection between my prayer and this offer was too immediate to ignore.

Thus began what I am seeing as a significant conversion experience in my life.

I went to Haiti in February 1999. Passing through the headquarters of Food For the Poor in Florida I remember two powerful messages. One was a sign on a desk that said “There are no coincidences in life – only steps in God’s plan.” The other message was in the photos lining the walls of the corridors. They were of people – close up – with eyes that burned with hope. I would have expected to see pictures of projects too, but it was only the eyes of the poor that followed us throughout the building. And I thought to myself that these photos are a constant reminder to the people who work there that the fruit of their labor satisfies a desperate human need.

My life changed in Haiti.

I went to Maison D’Amour. Sounds like a classy French restaurant, doesn’t it? But it is a place where 12 sisters and workers care for 206 girls, ages 2 to 16. All are orphans, abandoned by mothers who could not afford to feed them, left to beg for food on the streets, rescued before they were forced into prostitution or dead of starvation and disease.

I went to Isaie Jeanty Maternity Hospital where women have to lie or sit on the floor in the hallway before being moved into the delivery room to give birth. There is no labor room. Women in recovery sleep two, sometimes three to a bed, with their babies. It is not uncommon for mothers and babies to die during or after delivery due to the lack of proper equipment and supplies. There is no facility for babies born with complications. They can’t even do a Caesarian Section here. Two out of ten babies who are born here will die here. Incredibly, this is the best place for a woman to give birth. Elsewhere in Haiti, one out of every two babies born does not make it to age one.

I helped feed 2,000 people one afternoon, scooping rice and a watery stew into plastic pails, tin buckets – whatever containers they had. My back hurt, but my pain was nothing compared to the constant hunger these people and their families live with. They are destitute, but their eyes are bright with appreciation. As I have at every stop, I saw God again in the eyes of the poor.

I went to Cite Soleil, a horrible slum where 500,000 people barely survive. Naked children walked barefoot through excrement and filth. People squatted in garbage heaps to move their bowels, while goats and pigs picked through the trash beside them. The front of our vehicle was like the bow of a boat, parting waves of people as we drifted further into hell.

I cried then. I cry now, at the thought of how much suffering and sorrow these people bear.

When I returned from Haiti, on the next Sunday morning, at mass, my wife Michele and I selected a pew without looking at who was beside us. When I looked up from my initial prayers, to my surprise, my roommate from the Haiti trip and his family were right next to us. Coincidence? I think not. Nor was it coincidental that the first reading that day was from Isaiah 58:

“Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? …..”

At that moment I committed to giving some part of the rest of my life to helping those less fortunate.

The next step in my conversion came in September 2000, just 7 months after the pilgrimage to Haiti. Again, a significant spiritual experience came my way. A fellow parishioner, who had accompanied us to Haiti, just happened to ask if I would be interested in a Cursillo weekend. I was open to the suggestion only because I trusted this friend, based on our Haiti experience. I had no idea what Cursillo was. I had seen “De Colores” on bumper stickers, but thought it was a symbol of some Hispanic gang.

What a powerful experience that weekend was. The structure of the Cursillo movement worked on me in a wonderful way. The weekend opened my heart and mind to the depth of God’s love. The fourth day has reinforced the investment the team made in me during the weekend. The fourth day has also kept me focussed on living the example Jesus gives us with His life. And the fourth day provides regular opportunities to share with others my closest moments with God, my efforts at formation, and examples of evangelization.

Now, I was starting to see a pattern emerging. I have always been a planner. At work and at home, I meticulously planned every event, every career move, every stage of life. And I always had contingencies worked out, in case things didn’t go according to my plan. Now, I was clearly being led away from my plan. I was learning to be open to another plan – a plan being revealed to me gradually, step by step.

Within a month after the Cursillo weekend, I found myself in Nicaragua, assessing continuing relief needs following Hurricane Mitch.

I became more involved with Nativity Church’s “Project Starfish,” an annual fundraising effort that has now brought nearly $500,000 in housing and medical relief to the poor of Haiti. I helped produce a videotape about “Project Starfish” that has gone to churches across the country.

I was contacted by Catholic Relief Services about assisting them with future projects in Latin America.

I was approached by the Greenstar Foundation about helping select a site in Haiti for a development project.

I was starting to feel like the Jabez Prayer had taken hold of my life – that God had something big, something wonderful, something only He could make happen – in store for me. And all I had to do was be open to His plan.

This past summer, another major spiritual event took hold of my life. On the 4^th of July, I was well into planning a second pilgrimage to Haiti for Nativity parishioners. I had recruited nearly all of the 21 people who would be leaving August 28 for a weeklong experience with the poorest of the poor. I was thrilled that 2 high schoolers would be going – the first time young people would be joining us. I also had encouraged an official from the University of Illinois and a retired businessman from Massachusetts to join us. Fr. Dick Martin, our pastor, was looking forward to this trip.

On that same day, the 4^th of July, I was struggling with a personal decision. My sister in Boston had called me the day before to say that our mother would be having an endoscopy on July 5^th. She had a little stomach pain and the doctor thought it might be a gallstone. I didn’t know whether I should go to Boston or not. Plane fares are so expensive when you travel on short notice. And it didn’t sound like much of a problem for Mom. My plan was to wait until the procedure was done.

But my life now was different. I no longer had as much confidence in My Plan. That day I asked God what His plan was. And He said “GO!”

At 6 a.m. on July 5^th, I was on a US Airways Shuttle flight to Boston. A couple of hours later, I was sitting in a waiting room at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital when the endocrinologist emerged from the O.R. When I saw the expression on his face, I grabbed my sister’s hand. He said “It’s not good. She has a tumor. It looks to be malignant. It is too far advanced to do anything about. She has 3-6 months.”

The doctor’s prediction of 3-6 months turned out to be 57 days. On August 28, my mother died at 3 o’clock in the morning. A few hours earlier, she woke from a dream and said, “Jimmy, I just saw a beautiful place. I want to go back there.” I replied, “Mom, it’s OK. Your work here is done. Sharon and I will be fine. You can go home to Jesus now.”

During those two months from July 5^th to August 28^th, God was more present in my life than ever before. He understood the disappointment I felt when I realized that my plan for Mom was not His plan for her. In His love and compassion, he put a number of people in our environment and caused a number of things to happen to make the experience more bearable for Mom, my sister and me. These were things that only He could do.

• Like having Mom in a Catholic Hospital with 3 full time priests on staff

• Like creating a first-time hospice arrangement in the hospital, which was what Mom wanted

• Like building a friendship between me and the head chaplain, who was losing his father to illness at the same time

• Like having Fr. Martin there to answer the phone every single time I called for support. I remember worrying about the pilgrimage. He reassured me that God would not take Mom while I was in Haiti. He felt confident that he and I would be together at Mom’s funeral when it happened.

Only those who have been there best understand the experience of losing a parent. The grief process is different for everybody, but those of us who lose parents can’t help but feel more understanding, more compassion, for each other.

God’s presence didn’t diminish after Mom died. I saw Him at work when I called Fr. Martin in his hotel room in Miami to inform him of Mom’s passing. You will recall that August 28^th was the day our pilgrimage was leaving for Haiti. Imagine my shock when, after telling Fr. Martin that we had lost my mother, he said, “Jim, last night while I was in a McDonald’s getting a hamburger, someone broke into my rental car and stole my suitcases, including my passport. I’m not going to Haiti with the group today. I’m coming home. Looks like the Lord wants me in Boston to say the funeral mass for your Mom.”

It was a beautiful funeral. My pastor, my sister’s pastor, and a boyhood friend who is pastor of a Catholic church in Springfield, Massachusetts, all joined us in Boston to concelebrate. It was a teaching moment for the congregation – people still talk about how the liturgy, the music, the eulogies all came together to celebrate Mom’s life of love, service and simplicity.

And God’s inspiration to me through the experience of bringing my Mother home to him has continued to provide opportunities to evangelize. Michele and I were at a grief workshop just last week where we were able to help a woman who lost her husband at the Pentagon on September 11 with some simple, but timely advice on dealing with the holidays.

In less than 3 years, with these experiences and many others, I cannot help but feel that God has something big in store for me. In this short amount of time, the Holy Spirit has showered me with changes in my life that are like fireworks going off on the 4^th of July. Spectacular, continuous bursts of beauty that have enriched my spiritual life and opened my heart to whatever He has in mind for me. I have moved from being a member of the Church to being a Disciple of Christ.

I recently took another step in opening myself to Him. I decided to end my career with the federal government 5 years earlier than I myself had planned. I am retiring at the end of this month so I can devote more time and energy to whatever it is that God has planned for me.

It is a little unsettling to make major changes like early retirement, with only the faith that I am following a plan that is yet to be revealed to me. But, I believe that only by clearing the decks, removing the clutter of life, quieting things down, only by making life simpler and being more open, can I hear the message He has for me and follow His lead.

Jesus, I exalt you! You have given me a new heart, no longer darkened by sin but made pure by the shedding of Your blood. By Your spirit, give me the strength and courage to cooperate with You as You reshape me in Your image.

De Colores!

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