Inmates at Elmira Correctional and Reception Center bow their heads in prayer March 10 after taking Communion during weekly Mass in the prison chapel. Image by Mike Crupi/Catholic Courier: NPPA
Shannon, over at Finding Grace Within, writes from inside the walls as a prison chaplain. I always learn when I see how the scriptures speak in venues outside my own experience. When I used to volunteer at a prison some years ago, I would celebrate on Wednesday afternoon the Mass of the coming Sunday since a priest was often not available on the Lord's Day. In this way I'd preach on the Sunday scriptures inside the walls on Wednesday and outside on Sunday. The two experiences enriched me as a preacher, especially in what I read and heard and preached in the scriptures in the home of the incarcerated.
Read Shannon's take on this past Sunday's scriptures: "the story of the woman caught in adultery... or the men caught in their BS, though I rarely hear it referred to in that way...)
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In a history of the church I am reading that I got at our last Faith Festival, I learned this quite wonderful story. Pope John XXIII became the first pope since 1870 to make pastoral visits in his diocese of Rome. On December 25, 1958, he visited two hospitals, one to visit victims of polio. The following day he went to the Regina Coeli prison, where he told the prisoners "You couldn't come to me, so I came to you." He moved among the prisoners embracing them, calling them "brothers." When he approached one, the man shrank back and said, "I am a murderer." Pope John embraced him. The prisoner said, "This is the happiest day of my life." Pope John said, "It is the happiest of mine too."
ReplyDeleteWhat a gift to the Church Blessed John XXIII was. What a gift to the world he was.
Rosemary