The Prisoner and the Potato Tosser

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them, humanity cannot survive.~ Dalai Lama XIV

 In 2009, John J. McNeill psychotherapist, theologian, and Catholic priest received New Ways Ministry’s Bridge Building Award. The award annually honors those individuals who by their scholarship, leadership, or witness have promoted discussion, understanding, and reconciliation between the LGBT community and the Catholic Church. In his acceptance speech, after expressing gratitude, McNeill told the audience, “I would like to reflect with you on some dramatic moments in my life and ministry when the action of the Holy Spirit was palpable and express my debt of gratitude and hope that you will search for parallel moments in your life.”

One of those formative experiences occurred when McNeill was just 18. He recounts it in these words:

“Having enlisted in the army when I was 17, I went into combat with General Patton’s third army on the border of Germany. My infantry unit managed to cross the border. The German army counterattacked. My unit found itself surrounded by German tanks. I remember taking off my T-shirt to signal my surrender. A German soldier was assigned to march me back to a prisoner collection point. I was certain that the guard intended to shoot me. . .  I remember making an act of contrition. And then saying: ‘Lord I am only 18; I am too young to die!’”

He continues:

“The next event occurred while I was a kriegsgefangenen (prisoner of war). The Germans starved the American prisoners. I went down to 90 lbs and looked like a skeleton. One day we were sent out to a farm to chop wood where the SS were raising mink. A slave laborer from eastern Europe was mixing a mash of vegetables for the animals. I could not take my eyes off the food. While the guard’s back was turned the slave laborer took a potato from the mash and threw it to me. The guard would have killed him if he saw him feed a prisoner. I made a gesture of thanks and the slave laborer’s response was to make the sign of the cross. That action was like a flash of lightning on a dark night. I date my vocation to religious life to that moment. Here was a man who had the courage to risk his life to feed a total stranger. And he found that courage in his faith and trust in Jesus Christ. I wanted to be able to imitate that man. My prayer from that moment to this is: Lord, grant me the grace to know what your will for me is and grant me the courage to be able to do it.”

~ John J. McNeill