by Jim Castello, MBA, MA, BCC

   I spent over 35 years earning a living to support my family of five daughters and one wife as a marketing executive for Johnson Wax in Racine, WI, and L&F Products in Montvale, NJ. I liked the work, but I knew it was not why I was put on this earth.
   Following a disastrous career move to Japan, I was very depressed upon returning to the states to a position I had years earlier. At a men’s retreat in the Milwaukee archdiocese seminary, I asked for the key to the seminary’s pool to swim in the morning. I arrived at 4:30 a.m. to find a dark, Olympic-sized pool, but I was unable to find the light switch. I started to swim very carefully when I felt a visceral presence of God. It would not go away, so I stopped and asked Him what He wanted. A very clear answer came: “I have something very special for you to do, but I can’t tell you what it is because you couldn't handle it right now.” Twenty years later, I understood what the message meant.
   My first son-in-law died of a rare brain tumor in 1996, and the experience of setting up a hospice for the last five weeks of his life touched something deep within me. I did not know what it was, but since my wife was in her third unit of CPE (she is now an NACC-certified hospice chaplain), I thought maybe chaplaincy was something I should look into. I signed up the basic unit of CPE, and after three more units was eventually hired as a chaplain at Hackensack University Medical Center, where I worked for the next eight years.
   Shortly after being hired in 1998, I visited a patient who was dying and had asked to see a chaplain. It took three visits to make a connection with this patient, and when I finally was able to talk to him, I asked him fairly directly how he felt about what was about to happen. He told me he was afraid, and I asked him what was he afraid of. He said he was afraid God did not love him. As a rather new chaplain, this was the first time I had ever heard this from a patient, but far from the last. My inclination would be to reflect on that a moment, but I found my lips moving and uttering an absolutely preposterous statement: “Suppose I could prove to you tonight that God loves you?” To which the patient (and I) said, “Oh yeah, how are you going to do that?” Before I could think of an answer, out of my mouth came the following words: “I was born 56 years ago to be here tonight to assure you that God loves you.” Frank melted in front of me, we prayed together, and he died later that night. Driving home after work, I realized that the message I had received was not just for Frank, but also for me in response to a vision in a pool 20 years earlier.
   Talk about mystery, meaning, and movement in the Spirit! I have loved the ministry of being a hospital chaplain since day one and am currently looking to return to this wonderful ministry after taking a break from it as a director of pastoral care and as a parish pastoral associate.