Dear Danny,
I found a picture of you and me from Christmas Day in 1971. I was fourteen and you were five. In it we are sitting on the floor playing what looks like a new game, with our Christmas tree, stunning as always, lighting up the background. I remember the year because my arm is in a sling after surgery from a sports injury. In the picture I was looking down at the game, but you were looking up at me, with your eyes and smile revealing your heart, as they always did, so full of affection and joy, that the picture has become etched in my memory. My own heart aches as I try to recapture that moment in time but cannot. What did we talk about? Did I return your affection, and smile? I hope I did.
You were a beautiful child and as the years went by your good looks, thick head of dark brown hair, intelligence, and eager warm smile became your trademarks. Your best feature though was your huge trusting heart that was open to anyone, especially if they were a bit down or needed a friend. Do you remember how excited you were to be an altar boy at our Parish? Then came the sexual abuse that you would experience at the hands of the Pastor. He gained your trust and affection, grooming you for many months, and then robbing you of your innocence. I would not learn of this very dark period of your life until you were in drug rehab and had contracted HIV-AIDS.
I am so sorry that I wasn’t there for you. Perhaps I would have noticed that your eyes were not as bright or that you did not smile as often as you once had. But by the time you were being abused I had moved away, too busy with my own life I guess. Because of that my stomach feels ill. I have since met many young men and women who were sexually abused as children. Today in our nation there are 60 million adults, one in four girls and one in six boys, who were sexually abused as children — a staggering number of the walking wounded. Many are ashamed to share their stories and so they carry this heavy burden alone. Today I search faces, sometimes I can see it in their eyes.
As fate would have it, through drug rehab and your HIV-AIDS diagnosis, you came back into the Church that seemed to betray you. This time it was a faithful priest and community who would be there for you. As you grew too weak to attend Mass this humble priest would come and bring the Eucharist and hear your confession. Leaving your room after one such visit, the priest said to mom, “there is a little saint in the making in that room.” You had found your way back home. Soon you would lead me back too.
I never told you, but about the time the priest left your room, I was kneeling in prayer 1200 miles away. It seemed that there was no hope to save my crumbling marriage and with three young children and my back against the wall I knelt in prayer for the first time in twenty years, “God do you have a plan for my life?” I think God might have smiled back, “Yes Jack, I have a plan for your life, but you’re not following it very well.” When I got up from my knees, the phone was ringing. It was mom, calling from Orlando to tell us that you were no longer responsive and your organs were shutting down.
Miraculously all four of your brothers made it to the airport and boarded the plane to Orlando with seconds to spare. I was the first one through the door of your home and passed two hospice people in the kitchen who said, “thank goodness you made it in time, Danny is unresponsive, but you can go in to see him. He is on the couch in the next room.” Then the unexpected. Only minutes after you heard our voices the tendons in your neck began to strain and in what seemed like a tremendous internal battle, one eyelid opened ever so slightly. I touched your arm and said, “Danny, you can hear us, we are all here.” Then, both of your eyes opened, your head came up slightly and as you seemed to be looking past me, at someone or something in the corner of the room, when you said, “Let’s pray together.” Your mouth was dry, I wanted to be sure, “What Danny? Did you say let’s pray together?” “Yes! Yes!” you replied very clearly, “Pray to God!”
You laid back down and closed your eyes. You did not attempt to pray, and I understood that this moment was meant for us, you were simply the messenger. Back on my knees, with our brothers, a cousin, and a handful of your friends looking on, I attempted to pray but not a word would come out. Awkwardly, I tried again, nothing. Then the words of a prayer, one we learned as children, began to flow forth and we prayed;
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, Amen.”
Of course, this is the prayer that Jesus Himself taught us to pray! While we prayed a presence, so palpable and thick that it seemed I could taste it, pressed in from the corner of the room. Laying there, you became very peaceful and your labored breathing ceased. I remember thinking, that was powerful, when another prayer came to mind. But would I remember the words?
“Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.”
It was during those final words, “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death” that I knew for certain that the presence in the room was God.
That evening, before you left to complete your journey on September 20th, 1995, I sat in your kitchen with a pad and pen, trying to put into words what had happened only hours before. I wrote, Daniel lay very still while we prayed, his eyes opening and closing just slightly, as a sign that he was with us. Danny asked us to pray, what a parting gift! In what is a Divine mystery, I believe that the Holy Spirit was asked by Danny, while he was departing the temporal world, to arrange one last visit with his brothers so that he could leave us a simple and profound message, “Let’s pray to God.” This led to an encounter with Christ that would put me on a path where He would answer my question, “God, do you have a plan for my life?”
You wanted to be cremated and a memorial Mass was scheduled in the chapel of your Parish. This was well before cell phones and social media and since we were operating on short notice, we assumed that the 100 seats in the chapel would be plenty. It was not. Over 200 people came – your co-workers, neighbors and friends poured in, and then came the doctor, the nurses and the whole office staff that had treated you, and many others. So many of them, strangers to us, shared stories about the impact you had on their lives.
I was allowed to speak at your memorial Mass, to people I had never met, and relate a couple of stories and express our gratitude. The grace of God and love in that chapel was again palpable. And then, another unexpected gift. When I came close to the Priest and he extended his hand for me to receive the Eucharist, the same presence that was in your room pushed up against me, only this encounter was more intense and I felt a rush through my body, my knees became weak, and tears began to flow…Receive the Body of Jesus Christ. He was there, in the Bread. Given to me.
Searching for the words to describe this encounter I picked up a book, Beginning to Pray, by Archbishop Anthony Bloom. In it he writes of his own encounter with Christ –
“up until my middle teens I was an unbeliever and very aggressively anti-Church. I knew no God, I wasn’t interested and hated everything that connected with the idea of God. As I began to look for meaning in my life I came to a time when I felt something intensely dramatic inside myself, and everything around me seemed small and meaningless. I heard a priest speak during this time. I didn’t intend to listen but my ears pricked up. I became more and more indignant. I saw a vision of Christ and Christianity that was profoundly repulsive to me. I hurried home to check the truth of what he had been saying. While I was reading the book of Mark, I suddenly became aware that on the other side of my desk there was a presence. And the certainty was so strong that it was Christ standing there that it has never left me. This was the real turning point. Because Christ was alive and I had been in His presence I could say with certainty that what the Gospel said about the crucifixion of the prophet of Galilee was true, and the centurion was right when he said, “truly he is the Son of God.”
It’s getting late brother, I have much more I could write, but I’ll save it for another time. Thank you once again for your parting gift to us. Time is flying and God willing, I will see you soon. I’ll sign off with one of my favorite quotes from Pope Benedict XVI, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but ‘the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.’”
Love you,
Jack
Photo by Emine Kamaci on Shutterstock
