December 26, 2012

By Rachel Daly
Contributing Writer

The story of my faith is a beautiful one. When I look back, it’s hard not to see the hand of God at work in it all, always drawing me closer to Himself.

Like Saint Augustine, who looked back on his life after his conversion and saw all of the ways in which God was acting in it before he even knew it, I too, in looking back, feel as if on some level, I am able to see how all the small details have been a part of God’s plan to do great things in my life.

It began where it all begins—in a loving family.

My father is a person of strong integrity and remarkable sincerity, and my mother has the unmistakably gentle hand of a nurturer.

One of the most important things they taught me was to always think about others, not only myself. They taught me this in simple, everyday ways, but the effect was that I learned to see that my life and my actions extend beyond myself, and that I am part of a much bigger family than I ever realized.

I could never thank my family enough for all of the seeds of goodness that they first planted in me. My first experience of faith came when I was a fourth grader at St. Augustine’s School in Peru. Every Lent, we would put on a Passion Play, and the fourth graders always played the part of the crowd who demanded Jesus’ crucifixion. For some reason, fourth grade me found it both powerful and distressing to clamor for the death of the Lord, and I think something of the reality that we are the ones who crucified Him sank in during that experience. From then on, I prayed almost every day that when I was a sixth grader, I would play the part of Jesus and be the one to walk the Way of the Cross instead.

In some ways, it was a ridiculous prayer—why would they ever have a girl play the part of Jesus? But by the time I reached sixth grade, all but two of the boys in my class had transferred out, and by some action of grace, I was given the part of Jesus. I remember feeling very close to Him at the part where He falls beneath the weight of the cross. At the time, I didn’t know how to understand it, and even now I still marvel at what an impression it made on me.

Shortly afterward, my parents gave me the choice of whether I’d like to go to Catholic school or public school when I finished sixth grade at St. Augustine’s, and I had the distinct feeling that God would like me to go to Catholic school. That was the beginning—the first “yes” through which God took up permanent residence at the center of my life.

Since then, I have been blessed with a flood of experiences that have taken me on a journey I could never have imagined. I have stood in the middle of a crowd of two million Catholics at World Youth Day, completely overcome with joy, and I have stood in the middle of the Managua city dump in Nicaragua, overwhelmed by the destitution and poverty. I have prayed with the pope and the cardinals, and I have prayed with homeless men on the streets of the Bronx. I have stayed up all night studying St. Thomas Aquinas until my brain throbbed and I’ve stayed up all night (or so it seemed) doing all manner of crazy and fun things as a counselor at Camp Guggenheim. I’ve prayed at the tombs of the saints and I’ve prayed outside the Dallas abortion clinics, tombs of a different sort. Through it all, I can say that living the faith has been so gritty, so rich, and so totally the adventure of a lifetime.

As St. Augustine once said, “To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; to seek Him, the greatest adventure; to find Him, the greatest human achievement.”

When sixth grade me made the decision to believe in God, to trust Him, and to follow Him, I desired all of these things, but I had no idea that I could really find them in Him. But so far, God has fulfilled all of these desires and more, and my life is still only just beginning. I hold nothing but hope and excitement for what the rest of my life will bring.

Rachel Daly is shown with Cardinal Timothy Dolan. The young woman was studying in Rome when the New York archbishop became a cardinal.