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8/30/15

Meet a Change Agent ( He Makes It 'Happen ')



Will you love  the 'you' you hide if  I but call your name ?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same ?
Will you use the faith you've found to reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound
In you and you in me
( from a Scottish traditional hymn; text by John L. Bell, tune by Kelvin Grove )


By  Robert R. Schwarz


     He says he's retired but chances are it'll  never happen . And he appears to have a love affair  with making good things happen .
     It's all about change. "I like to be where there is change, " he says in  a calm voice that belies the daily buzzing of his work  agenda. "If something needs to happen," he says, "I make it happen ,  then get out. "  ( Like a baseball pinch hitter ? )
 Jim Bannon refers to his mission as being a "change agent " , a sort of consultant  who often  implements what he advises people to do. For several years and while at his at the  St. James church  in Arlington Heights, Illinois ,  he used his skills being a  senior vice president of the largest publicly held investment  trust  in the U.S. , and later as director of a real estate investment and service company, then as director of operations for a large church parish in Inverness ,  Illinois.
     Today , at 58, he's still on a fast track,  but this time to bring about spiritual changes as  deacon at  his  St. James parish.   "I've made a career out of being good at analyzing situations and making connections and  plans  to get things done."
       Our conversation took place at a  kitchen table in Bannon's  modest and tidy  suburban home with a backyard populated with trees  he himself planted years ago.  Though  a  mild-mannered man who speaks softly and    weighs words  with the  same precision  as with  the occasional homily  he delivers at St. James,  you sense  a man  committed to a plan whose  goal he will  pursue aggressively  if necessary ; there is no disconnect between his  spirit of change agent  and the deacon's pin—the " fire of the Holy Spirit "— he wore on his  shirt when we talked.
        He daily looks forward to  "encountering Christ through  the people of God,"  he said. He explained: " A  good way to see God is through  the people of God   in my work . It can be a rational or emotional experience. " As an example, he recalled a Sunday Mass when,  during the communion , a girl approached  him at the altar. "I looked at her face and it was like a miraculous experience. "  At other times, he added, he  may be looking at how hard people work, like the  volunteers helping overnight  with the homeless in the church basement.
Jim in second grade
While  performing his deacon duties, Bannon  said he feels  the Spirit of Christ when  he        "opens " his heart . "A lot of times it’s being vulnerable…and putting down your guard and opening yourself  to humility. I think this is where you see the Spirit at work. "  Did he mean not being fearful of  "showing one's warts" ?    Yes, he said.   In a quiet moment  of the day , he often asks "where was God in my work today ?"   
     His favorite Bible verse is from James 2:18: Indeed someone may say  ' you have faith and I have works. ' Demonstrate your faith to me without works , and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.   As for what he'd like as his  tombstone's epitaph, Bannon paused  before replying with  another verse  from Holy Scripture (Matthew 25:21 ) :  Well done , my  good and faithful servant…Come , share your Master's joy.
A Major Decision Sparked by a " Shadow "
What moved him to leave the secularized business world and undergo a year of discernment followed by careful screening —shared with his  wife  Laura—and three years of training by the archdiocese?  " I say it was a progression of moving deeper into the faith. "   Perhaps the defining moment of his decision ( and that of his wife and church  ) was after he mother had died and Bannon , along with a  former St. James priest and a current deacon ,  went on a pilgrimage to Ireland seven years ago.  During  his pilgrimage ,  he learned  much about the diaconate  from  these two men . Then at an old Irish graveyard, Bannon gazed upon  a Celtic High Cross ,  which was casting a long shadow across the ground.  " The shadow looked a lot like a human being , "  he recalled , and that his own shadow now  appeared next to  this other  shadow.     " And I said to myself, so what are you  going to do with the rest of your life ? " 
       He was officially ordained a deacon in May, 2013, when the late Cardinal Francis George laid hands upon him .
   
With wife Laura at Disney World circa 2005
His life, he said , has had no "aha !" moments , yet  has been shaped much by  marriage , friends and family, and life at St. James.  He could not recall any major challenges  beyond "the ordinary of suburban life of raising  children and trying to hold down a job. "  He and Laura  were college sweethearts and married in 1980. They have four children ,  all of whom attended the St. James school , and two grandchildren.  Bannon performed one of the marriages of his three children.  
     Bannon's goals are to grown in his spirituality and the  depth of his relationship  with God;  to become a better minister for the people, to be a better parent and grandparent; and "to help people experience more of the divine in their life through the sacraments and my preaching."
Stumbling Blocks He Sees  for Christians
        We talked about  the stumbling blocks which sincere Christians experience.  " Well,  everyone is looking for meaning and worth in life , but we often spend  lot of  time looking in the wrong places. " He listed some of those places as  sex, power, drugs, gambling , and possession of material things.  Bannon said he also has observed a "restlessness in everyone for God  "  and then quoted St. Augustine's reflection about our hearts remaining  restless until they rest in God. 
     Many of the young people who come to him in preparation for marriage   are fairly un-churched, he said.   " But I am always impressed  on how they see God through each other. I always learn something from them. I see their hunger for reaching beyond the banal and  the ordinary and the secular  , even if their families   were not particularly religious or church-going."  Asked for his opinion of  the new pope,  Bannon said: " He has set a very good tone for people  , and I think his message about mercy and forgiveness has been   welcomed. "
      As for recreation, Bannon will watch sports events on television, " Duck Dynasty " and  "Pawn Stars " . He doesn't see many movies. His favorite food is his wife's lasagna .   For sheer fund and relaxation,  this deacon fishes for bass  on a small southern  Wisconsin lake , where the Bannons have a lake house they visit weekly—time permitting.  He's also made happy by being with people of "all types" , solving problems for them, and helping churches with financial problems  "so they can better work on spiritual problems. "  Sadness comes to Bannon at  funeral Masses  but,  he says, they  can also be  joyful occasions to know that the deceased will " join Christ in heaven. "  He  is also saddened by " God being made irrelevant today  in our two-dimensional  society , which has moved far way from acknowledging or appreciating the spiritual or the divine."
     
Those shadows in the Irish graveyard
Nowadays Bannon is applying his change agent skills  to the 11-session ,  church-sponsored " Alpha Program."   He calls it " Christianity 101 "  for adults, young or old;  it  focuses on the meaning of life and explores common questions like who's God ?  or why did Jesus die for us ?  "It's not apologetics.  It  tries to open the heart. "
            "Lay people can do a lot in the church, " Bannon concluded. Part of his role as deacon, he                explained ,  is " to live in  that world between the laity and the clerical."

THE END

All comments are welcome.
© 2015 Robert R. Schwarz

                                                       





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