Deacon releases book on how God has guided him through signs
Deacon Thomas Whalen, newly published author, has spent his entire adult life learning “sign language.”
That is, the sometimes-subtle, sometimes-splendid, always-awesome influence of the God who once set his colorful bow in the heavens and proclaimed:
“This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and every mortal being that is on earth,” (Genesis 9:17).
“I’ve asked God for guidance, and he’s given it to me,” said Deacon Whalen, author of a new autobiography, A Sign Driven Life — How God Has Guided My Life With Signs.
“l believe he wants to do that for everyone,” the deacon stated. “We just need to let him.”
His book is available at Amazon.com for $23.99 for hardcover, $18.99 for paperback.
It’s also available digitally for Kindle.
Deacon Whalen hopes also to make it available at bookstores in and near Jefferson City.
Everywhere a sign
Deacon Whalen, now retired, for many years assisted the pastor of St. Peter Parish in Jefferson City,
“I’ve had a lot of signs — some of them are miraculous, some of them are not,” he said. “But in a way, they are all miraculous because of how everything comes together.”
He’s convinced that openness to God’s signs enriches all people’s lives while keeping them focused on the life that is to come.
“l think a lot of people just aren’t asking for signs,’ said Deacon Whalen. “If you’re not getting them, you need to ask.”
He’s certain that God opens his arms to people in ways that are perceptible to those who pay attention.
“Being tuned into that can be a great help,” he said, “especially to people who are looking to make a change in their life, and to see all the good things that happen without us really thinking about them.”
Deacon Whalen, age 90, is a lifelong Catholic. He grew up in Hannibal, where he attended the former McCooey High School.
He served in the U.S. Navy Reserve for eight years and wound up becoming a pharmacist like his father.
He and his wife, Ceil, raised eight children, the eighth being Rebecca, a niece who came to live with them at age 18.
The family moved to Jefferson City in January 1978.
With the benefit of hindsight, Deacon Whalen began noticing a pattern of God using subtle and not-so-subtle signs to help lead him through various stages of life.
He now recognizes his parents and his grandmother, who lived with the family while he was growing up, as a sign, especially the faith-filled path his Dad followed in professional, community and family life.
Deacon Whalen asked God for a sign to lead him to a woman he could spend the rest of his life with.
Not long thereafter, an employee of the hospital where he was working as a pharmacist came to have a couple of prescriptions filled.
She and he found an immediate connection.
They got to know each other and now have been married for 64 years.
Signs and wonders
Other signs followed, including the power of the community praying the Rosary for the couple’s youngest daughter, who was able to have a tumor in her head removed without any brain damage.
“Judy is our miracle, because of the Blessed Mother’s intercession and the family participating,” Deacon Whalen wrote. “You will see Mary’s involvement in some more powerful signs I have had.”
There were personal invitations to take part in Cursillo, Teens Encounter Christ (TEC) and Residents Encounter Christ (REC) for men and women in prison.
A bout with professional jealousy, followed by revelation, remorse and repentance, wound up setting the stage for the future deacon to find a better job than he had and move with his family to Jefferson City.
There, he became drawn into the power of silent worship during weekly Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
He started with one hour, then went up to two hours every Saturday night.
“That was a life-changer,” he said. “You cannot not feel change in your life when you spend two hours a week with the Lord. It just made me a better person.”
Once while driving up U.S. 63 to pick his daughter up at Truman State University in Kirksville, Deacon Whalen turned off the radio and asked out loud whether someone like him could be saved.
“It was May and kind of rainy,” he recounted. “The rain stopped, and in this area just south of Moberly, right past where there used to be a train overpass, I hear this little ‘poof’ to my right.
“There was a little white farmhouse, and to the side of it was this rainbow,” he recalled.
It didn’t lead into the sky. It was like a wall, about 20 feet high and 60 feet across.
He kept his eye on the road, there being no place safe to pull over and stop.
“But I probably saw it for a half-mile or so,” he said. “Looking back in the mirror, I saw it some more.”
So, the answer was yes?
“l think so,” said Deacon Whalen.
Sign of peace
While still living in Hannibal, he had a friend invite him to join the first class of candidates for the Permanent Diaconate in this diocese.
Deacon Whalen prayed about it and got the distinct message, “You have seven children to worry about now.”
“So, I let it go,” he recalled.
Later on, especially during Adoration and in his weekly small-group reunions with fellow Cursillistas, he became aware that it was time to think about it again.
“l had been talking to a friend who was struggling with the call to be a deacon,” he recalled.
Driving home and still thinking about the conversation, he suddenly heard a whisper of the Holy Spirit: “How about being a deacon for Mary?’
“And then God just throws a bucket of grace on me,” Deacon Whalen recalled. “l just felt tingling from head to toe.”
“That was a wonderful sign,” he said.
Bishop Michael McAuliffe of Jefferson City, now deceased, ordained Deacon Whalen and 6 other new deacons on Sept. 21, 1996.
The first wedding Deacon Whalen officially witnessed was when his father remarried in his 90s after the death of Deacon Whalen’s mother.
Further signs led Deacon Whalen into pro-life advocacy on the sidewalk and into ministry to people in prison.
He took an interest in Pope St. John Paul Il’s then-emerging teaching that came to be known as the Theology of the Body.
This teaching holds up marriage and family as a God-given reflection of the communal nature of the Holy Trinity.
It upholds the sacredness of conjugal love between a husband and a wife and the openness to allowing God to create new life through them.
On two separate occasions, a priest helped Deacon Whalen find books that give an accessible summary to the Theology of the Body.
These helped form the basis for several homilies.
Later, Deacon Whalen was invited to give a class on that topic to men who are participating in the Intensive Therapeutic Community (ITC) at the Jefferson City Correctional Center.
ITC is a powerful, one-year, peer-led process for incarcerated men who want to help each other break free from addictions and from what they refer to as criminal thinking.
Volunteers from outside the prison help with the program, as Deacon Whalen has been doing for over 20 years.
His course on Theology of the Body is still part of the Third Stage of ITC.
Sign here
Signs helped to guide Deacon and Mrs. Whalen onto and through Catholic gatherings and pilgrimages to holy places, including the 1993 World Youth Day in Denver; a Marian conference in Wichita, Kansas; a pilgrimage with the St. Peter Parish Choir to sing in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome; and several trips to Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where apparitions of the Blessed Mother are reported to be taking place.
Not long ago, Deacon Whalen was considering whether to take a special cruise to holy sites in France,
“l wanted to go,” he recounted. “It was getting close to the deadline to make a commitment, to reserve the airline, a place to stay and so forth.”
He was getting ready for bed and offered a request to the Blessed Mother: “Please ask God to give me a sign about whether I should go on this pilgrimage to France.”
He walked by his bedroom window on the way to bed.
“l looked out into the woods, and all of a sudden, the limbs on this large oak tree had a light on them,” he said. “This was at 11:30 at night.”
“So, I took that as, ‘Yeah, let’s go for it!’”
That sign got Deacon Whalen thinking back to the many other signs God had used to help direct his life.
“l figured I ought to write all these things down and share them,” he said.
The title Deacon Whalen chose for his book is a variation on the name of Rick Warren’s bestselling The Purpose Driven Life.
“I’ve had so many signs, and they really have influenced me throughout my life,” the deacon stated. “So, the name really fits.”
He believes everyone can benefit from the stories shared in the book — some funny, some fun, some sobering and some heartbreaking.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “That’s the main reason I wrote it.”
He hopes his readers will be inspired to reflect on all the convincing ways God is working to direct their own life.
Specifically, Deacon Whalen suggests considering: “Does God give me signs? Do I need to talk to him more about what I need? Do need to do better job of listening and watching for the signs he wants to give me?”
And then, he advised, “as a reader, keep an eye out for what’s down the road.”
