The family lived in the Dorchester section of Boston. Their other boy was Jimmy. The dad died young of a heart attack, and Mary was left to raise the two boys, nine-year-old Jimmy and seven-year-old Danny. To pay the rent she scrubbed floors at a chronic care hospital.
Jimmy took good care of Danny. Dan felt at home with all the kids because no one told him he was different. Then one day, as they were boarding a trackless trolley, some strange kids shouted, “No morons on the bus!” That was the day Jimmy Hickey learned to fight. It was also the day Jimmy decided to be a priest. Little Danny attended the Kennedy school in Brighton and eventually obtained a job.
In 1991, Mary Teresa Hickey died at age ninety-one after showering her sons with unyielding love all their lives. Father Jim Hickey had been a priest for thirty years. In every parish to which he was assigned, Danny went along with him. The people were favored with both men.
In October 1997, Danny was in the hospital. His fifty-two year old body was failing. One night when ordinary people were eating supper, watching a ballgame or going to a movie, a simple story of brotherly love played itself out at the bedside of a man who never felt sorry for himself or thought he was different.
Father Jim held his brother and asked, “Do you trust me, Danny?”
“I trust you.”
“You’re going to be OK.”
“I be OK.”
Eight hundred people stood in line at his wake. Parishioners packed the church for his funeral. They sang and cried and prayed. Later that day, Daniel Jeremiah Hickey was gently laid beside his parents at New Calvary cemetery. The granite headstone bore his name and the inscription: “God’s Chosen.”
What touched YOU the most about this story?
YOU DON’T HAVE TO AUDITION FOR JESUS. JESUS HAS ALREADY CHOSEN YOU!
My Commentary:
This beautiful story is not really about limitation — it is about love in its purest, most convincing form. From the very beginning, when Mary Teresa held her child and called him “God’s chosen one,” she set the truth that would define Danny’s life. The world may have been tempted to label him differently, but a mother’s faith named him correctly.
What follows is a quiet witness to the power of that love. A widowed mother scrubbing floors. A brother who becomes protector, then priest. A man who never saw himself as less, because he was never treated as less. In a world quick to measure worth by achievement, Danny’s life reminds us that dignity is not earned — it is given by God and recognized by love.
The painful moment at the trolley stop reveals the cruelty that can exist in the human heart, but it also becomes the turning point of grace. Out of that wound came a vocation. Jimmy did not just learn to fight — he learned to stand, to protect, and ultimately to serve. Sometimes God plants a calling in the soil of suffering.
And then, at the end, we are given one of the most tender scenes imaginable: “Do you trust me?” “I trust you.” In those simple words is the entire Gospel. Trust in the face of weakness. Peace in the face of death. Love that does not argue or analyze, but simply rests.
Eight hundred people came to honor a man the world might have overlooked. Why? Because they had encountered something rare in him — a purity of heart, a lack of self-pity, a quiet joy. He did not try to be extraordinary. He simply was who he was, fully and freely.
“God’s Chosen.” The inscription is not sentimental — it is theological. It tells us something not only about Danny, but about all of us. The difference is that Danny lived as if it were true.
And perhaps that is the final grace of his life: he reminds us who we are, if only we had the courage — and the faith — to believe it.
Do you have a hard time watching the News? I do! Most people do. That is why I wrote WHAT MAKES AMERICA AMERICA. From beginning to end it is a very positive book.
I have 62 short Chapters that look at every aspect of life in America, from the Baseball to Affordability. Here is the link https://a.co/d/00Lyqe1C that will connect you with my Amazon page. Click READ SAMPLE and you can read the First Two Chapters of the book for FREE.
