At the recent Paschal Eucharist Mass, as the church in Sydney welcomed a cathedral full of proud new Catholics, one Campbelltown father of three stood proudest.
Danial Fardon’s conversion to the Catholic faith began when he was a curious but hyperactive child, not baptised into the faith, but with a deep desire to encounter Jesus after learning about him in Scripture class in primary school.
Keen to attend church, his grandmother, the only Catholic in his family, refused to take him as she was fearful his hyperactivity would prove too much of a disruption.
“She thought I would just run around, making a ruckus, so I never got the opportunity to encounter Christ, apart from these weekly classes,” Danial recalls.
The church remained “that place up the hill that I couldn’t go to.”
It wasn’t until his late teens that a real opportunity arose for Danial to satisfy his curiosity.
“My mate at the time was an islander. His family invited me to church,” he says.
“People were lining up for the pastor, who would put his hand on their head, and they’d fall to the floor. I was so eager to try it myself. But when he put his hand on my head, nothing happened,” he recalls, a hint of pain in his voice.
“Did Jesus want me too?” Danial wondered.
But despite the lingering sense of emptiness, he didn’t give up.
“I still believed in him. I still wanted to know him.”
Divine intervention can often come where least expected. For Danial, his unexpected refuge would come in the form of a series of four-minute clips on You Tube called Disciple Diaries.
“I was on You Tube watching some clips of street preachers, and I came across ‘Disciple Diaries’ a video series made by the Archdiocese of Sydney, featuring stories of conversion and reversion. And just to hear about people’s experiences with the Lord, it made me want to be closer and reconnect with Jesus,” Danial recalls.
It led him down a faith-filled rabbit hole, exploring all kinds of Christian content.
Here he found more testimonies of conversion that would inspire him to keep searching and documentaries digging into the stories of the Bible. “It made the Bible very real for me,” he says.
Then one evening Danial turned his search inward and had what he calls his first real conversation with Jesus.
“I was laying down and I did the Sign of the Cross and I said, ‘Sorry for my sins.’ And sincerely I said, ‘Jesus, I want to have a relationship with you. I meant it with my heart. And it was like, instantly, he sent the Holy Spirit to my heart.”
Danial found himself uncontrollably crying “tears of joy.”
“I could envision my heart melting, like gold. It was a vision like a volcano shooting gold lava everywhere. It was just an unreal experience. And it was beautiful, I felt new again, like I was born again.”
Danial breaks down in tears recalling this profound and transformative encounter.
“And that’s the first time I felt the love of Jesus. That I was worthy of that love,” Danial recalls.
It set off a chain of events that would see him enrol in the RCIA program at his local parish, All Saints in Liverpool.
“It gave me all I needed to come into the church. It led me to me getting baptised this year.”
Today he can see his journey coming full circle, as his own story is now part of the ‘Disciple Diaries’ series.
“I think Jesus will always have his plan. And when you’re ready, he’ll show you the way,” he says.
