The gift of a coin with no monetary value leads to wealth of moments touched by God
The two-fold message of the front side and the back side of a coin is one that has been shared with friends and strangers alike by Pat Maher, a member of SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral Parish of Indianapolis. (Photo courtesy of Mary Shaughnessy)
By John Shaughnessy
The idea began in one of the most fearful times in the history of the United States.
The idea involves a simple gift of a coin—a coin that has no monetary value yet has had an extraordinary impact on some people’s lives.
The front side of the coin is inscribed with the words, “Be not afraid.”
The back side of the coin reads, “Jesus, I trust in you.”
For the past four years, Pat Maher has given two of these coins to nearly everyone he meets, telling them to keep one and then inviting them to give the second coin to someone whom they believe could benefit from that two-fold message.
It’s a gift that has led to a wealth of touching moments and remarkable stories that have reminded people that, in times of fear, anxiety and worry in their lives, there is a source who offers hope, comfort and strength.
As a taste of the impact of this gift, Maher shares an e-mail from one of the people he has given two coins, a woman who was going through a tough time in her life, a woman who shared her second coin with someone who was also suffering.
“I was divorced almost two years ago after being married for 18 years to someone I thought I knew but definitely didn’t,” the woman wrote to Maher earlier this year. “I have since met a wonderful man who I have been dating, and he and his family have been such a light in my life. His father was in Vietnam, and as the result of Agent Orange exposure and being at Camp Lejeune and being exposed to the contaminated water, he developed aplastic anemia.
“After losing my dad tragically when I was 7, other than my grandfather, I have not had someone in my life that truly filled the void of ‘dad.’ But this man definitely did. His love was something I haven’t felt in such a long time. His faith and strength were incredibly inspiring. He passed away last year, and my boyfriend and his older brother have really struggled with grief over his passing. We all have.
“His brother is not a strong believer and had really turned away from God. The day you gave me the coins, he called and asked if he could come over and talk to us. The conversation quickly turned to us telling him we would really like for him to go to church with us, and that God was the only one that could heal him from the grief he’s experiencing. I talked with him about the loss and traumas I’ve experienced in life, and that without God, I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today.
“I gave him my second coin that night, and it brought him to tears. My boyfriend was with him several days later, and he pulled the coin out of his pocket and told him how much it meant to him. So, thank you. You are doing such a beautiful thing, and it is really touching lives farther than you probably even realize. Last night, they went to a grief counseling group, at church, together. God is so good!”
From fear to trust
Maher’s idea for the gift of the two coins developed from the uncertainty and fear surrounding the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that erupted in March of 2020.
“We were in the midst of one of the scariest times in the United States that I know in my lifetime,” says the 69-year-old Maher, a member of SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral Parish in Indianapolis. “We had COVID, and no one knew where that was going in March of 2020.”
At the start of the pandemic, Maher was reading the book The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, by Father Michael Gaitley, about the lives of three Polish saints: St. John Paul II, St. Maximillian Kolbe and St. Faustina. As he reached the bottom of page 87, Maher came across a passage that intrigued him:
“John Paul’s last words, together with some of his first words, provide fitting ‘bookends’ to the second greatest story ever told,” Father Gaitley wrote.
“The first bookend is based on the key words of his first papal homily: ‘Be not afraid.’ The last bookend is drawn from the key words of his final message: ‘Jesus, I trust in you!’ Mixing metaphors, here, you might say these are really two sides of the same coin. How are we to ‘be not afraid’? The answer is simple: Trust in Jesus. ‘Jesus, I trust in you.’ ”
Those two bookend messages kept filling Maher’s thoughts for the next several months. So did the image of two sides of a coin capturing those messages. Finally, on a late Friday night in September of 2020, Maher searched the internet trying to find a company that could create a special coin that would have the message “Be not afraid” on one side and “Jesus, I trust in you” on the other.
By December of 2020, he had the first order of 300 coins in his possession, coins he had blessed by his friend, Father Todd Riebe, then the pastor of Christ the King Parish in Indianapolis.
Within the first month, Maher shared the coins with 100 people, leading to some stunning moments that made Maher order more. Since then, he has given away nearly 2,000 of these coins—coins that he gives freely to friends and strangers alike, hoping to remind them that in moments of personal crisis, God is there with them.
“What is fear?” Maher says. “Well, fear is when you’re being chased by a lion or a bear. That’s true fear. The kind of fear that we face today is anxiety, worry. We’re all afraid, but how do you address that? It’s easy enough to say to people, ‘Be not afraid.’ But how do we do that?”
While the flip side of the coin is a reminder that the answer to that question comes by drawing closer to Christ, Maher insists that the sharing of the coins also has a way of bringing the giver and the receiver closer together.
‘Hey, I’ve got something for you’
“The coin starts the conversation. It’s such a great icebreaker. We all need a way to open the door to talk to people about their faith and things. And people like free stuff,” Maher says with a smile. “You’ll be talking to someone about their kids and stuff, and you say, ‘Hey, I’ve got something for you.’ You can get so intimate with people pretty quickly when you say that. They may talk about something in their life.
“Before I give them the coins, I tell the story of how the idea came about. When I started this, I’d give people a coin, and occasionally someone would say, ‘I know who I’m going to give this to.’ That’s when I came up with the second coin. I’d say, ‘No, I want you to keep that coin, but I’m going to give you a second coin. And this one is for that person that I can almost guarantee that within the next 30 days, you’ll meet someone, or you already know someone who needs this.’ ”
The gift has led to wondrous interactions for Maher, including one on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon while he and his wife Ginny were on vacation.
“We started walking it, but there’s so much ground to cover, and we wanted to see a lot. So, we started waiting for the shuttle to come. We’re sitting there, and this guy sits down next to me, and we started talking,” Maher recalls. “He was telling me that his mom had died recently, and he had inherited her car, and he decided he was going to drive around the United States. After we talked awhile, I said, ‘I got something for you.’
“I gave him the two coins. So, we get on the shuttle, and as we get off, he comes up and says, ‘I’ve got something for you.’ He handed us his 9-year sobriety coin. It really touched me that someone would do that. As he went off, it made me wonder who he would give his other coin to.”
Maher smiles as he shares a memorable moment during the National Eucharistic Congress in downtown Indianapolis in July.
“Ginny made a comment that she’d love to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I was standing near there, and this homeless guy walks up to me. I’m thinking, ‘How am I going to tell him I’m not going to give him any money?’ It occurred to me that St. Peter had the great response, ‘Silver and gold I have not, but what I have I’ll give to you.’ I handed him one of these coins.
“After I told him the story, he said, ‘Would you mind if I drilled a hole in it so I could put it on a chain so I can wear it around my neck?’ His name was Matthew, and I said, ‘Matthew, it is yours. You can do anything you want with it. And here’s a second one. I know you have some friends out here that maybe you’d like to share this message with.’ He said yes. He never asked me for money, but he did ask me for a blessing. I said, ‘I’m not real good at this,’ but we prayed together.”
Maher continues to smile as he shares another story, this one from his near-daily routine of having coffee with friends at a bagel shop.
A question for everyone to consider
“I gave them to the guys at coffee one time,” he says. “A good friend of mine, Dan, believes in God, but does not believe in religion. He got two coins. He went home and gave his other one to his wife, Martha. He said that afternoon she was kind of worried about something. He told me, ‘I went up to her and said, “Martha, be not afraid. Don’t worry, just trust in God.” ’
“I’ve given him 25. He said, ‘I run into people, and we start talking, and I say, “Oh, he can use a coin. So, I give him a coin.” ’ This guy is becoming an evangelist, and he doesn’t even believe in religion.”
The stories keep flowing from Maher, turning next to a friend named Johannes from Germany who came to Indiana for a job for several years before returning to his home.
“Johannes went on the El Camino,” Maher says about the walking pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. “I gave him 25 to take with him to pass out. He sent me pictures. This one guy had imbedded his coin on the top of his cane. ‘Be not afraid.’
“When Johannes got done with the El Camino, he went back to Germany. He said, ‘I need some more.’ When I sent them to him, he said, ‘Would it be OK if I had some of these made in German?’ I said, ‘You can do that, Johannes, I don’t have a copyright on the Bible.’ ”
As the gift has spread to other countries, Maher keeps sharing it at home.
“There’s a guy at Christ the King, and it was at one of the Friday fish fries. I hadn’t seen him in a while. I just happened to have some coins with me. I told him, ‘I got something for you,’ and gave him my explanation. When I handed it to him, he started sobbing. I didn’t know what was going on, but he said thanks. Before he left the fish fry, he came over and thanked me again. I don’t know how it touched him, but there was something there.
“Another friend, John, his sister Katie had breast cancer. He gave her his second coin. He said, ‘I was talking to her on the phone, and she goes, “John, I got my rosary in my right hand and my coin in my left hand.” ’
A priest friend has told Maher he keeps his coin on his dresser, so he sees it every day. Another friend has connected her coin to her key chain. And when Maher sees people whom he has given a coin, it’s not unusual for them to smile, reach into their pocket and show him their coin—which is what one of the students he tutors at St. Anthony School in Indianapolis has done.
And for everyone who has one of his coins, whether he knows them or not, Maher prays for them as he recites the rosary daily.
“It’s kind of a game I play with God, ‘OK, you get it to somebody, and I’ll pray for them without knowing who they are.’ ”
What Maher is sure of is the power and the history of the two-fold message, “Be not afraid. Jesus, I trust in you.”
“When the angel Gabriel came to Mary, he said, ‘Be not afraid.’ When Gabriel came to Joseph, the message was, ‘Be not afraid.’ When the angels came to the shepherds, they said, ‘Be not afraid.’ These are three of the main people of our faith, and they’re getting this same message. So, for a small actor like me or my friends, that goes for us, too.”
Maher slides two coins across the table—one to keep, one to share. He leaves open this question:
Who would get your second coin? †
