WOODSIDE — Lent, the period of reflection and repentance as Catholics prepare for the coming of Easter, is also known as a season of change. Deacon Dan Maher, of Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians Church in Woodside, could probably tell you a lot about change.

Deacon Maher has turned his life around several times, including enlisting in the military, then joining the NYPD, and later becoming a teacher. 

And, most importantly, he changed his life again when he was ordained as a deacon in 2023.

“There was no lightning bolt,” he said of his decision to become a deacon. “I’m jealous of those people who say, ‘I found Jesus. One day, I was laying in the hospital and saw the light.’ I didn’t have that. God gave me a slow burn. But one day you turn around and you’re in vestments and you’re elevating a chalice on the altar.”

Father Christopher O’Connor, pastor of Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians Church, praised Deacon Maher’s dedication to service.

“Deacon Dan has consistently shown a desire to serve and help lead others to Christ,” he said. “Throughout his life, as a soldier and as a police officer, Dan has lived a life of service.”

Dan Maher grew up in Douglaston and attended St. Anastasia School, where he got into a lot of fights. “I found out years later that people thought I was a bully,” he recalled, still sounding surprised.

It was at Xavier High School in Manhattan where he first became intrigued by the idea of military service. He learned about the Jr. ROTC program there and it planted a seed.

Maher attended St. John’s University for a while, “but it didn’t work out,” he recalled. In his young adulthood, he spent a great deal of time in bars with his buddies. “Guys in New York City work hard, play hard, go to bars and drink hard and talk tough and I liked that. I enjoyed it,” he said.

He would not go into detail about his various adventures from those days, other than to say, “I was using lots of different things that would take me away from God.”

He enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves and served in the Operation Desert Shield in the early 1990s.

Serving his country also spurred him to reassess his life. “If you’re in an Army reserve unit, you get a phone call saying that they were doing something called Desert Shield. So, I shipped out. And now I was in a different state of mind, thinking more about my faith and spirituality,” he recalled.

As a result, Maher started to make an effort to attend Mass wherever he was stationed at the time — and found that it was not easy. 

“I found a Mass to go to every month, maybe twice a month. But it was like a floating crap game. I can remember taking a band of soldiers to go find the Catholic Mass on Easter Sunday during the first Gulf War,” he recalled.

When he returned home, he brought his newfound commitment to his Catholic faith with him. “I started attending daily Mass at St. Anastasia. And people saw a change in me before I saw a change in myself,” he said. 

Maher joined the NYPD in 2000 and was assigned to the 114th Precinct in Astoria. He was there during 9/11. “I spent a lot of time at ground zero,” he explained.

He was transferred to a North Brooklyn unit that investigated street gangs and later served in a Highway Patrol unit. 

But his military service wasn’t finished. Still in the reserves, he was deployed in 2004 to serve in the Iraq War. Following his service, he returned to the NYPD.

His life took yet another turn after his retirement from the NYPD in 2017, when he began to teach ROTC students at Fordham University.

Along the way, he met his wife Ann Marie, who was from Woodside. After their marriage, they moved there, where they started attending Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians Church. Slowly but surely, he started becoming active in the church, eventually serving as a lector and a parish trustee. 

He also began teaching catechumens in the church’s Order of Christian Initiation for Adults program.

Maher’s most recent change in a life full of changes is perhaps his most profound. 

It came a few years ago, when his wife turned to him one day and asked him if he had heard of something called the diaconate and whether he would be interested in serving as a deacon. He completed the training and was ordained in 2023.

“He now offers his life to God by serving God and the church as a deacon,” Father O’Connor said.