25 February 2022
17 February 2022
16 February 2022
Setting Their Hearts Free: the Ministry of the Prison Chaplain
I begin by saying thank you. Thank you for inviting me, but even more, thank you for the work you do every day, going, as Holy Father Francis would describe it, to the margins...to the land of the forgotten.
You go there because you have read the answers to the final exam in the Gospels and you have had the good sense to seek out the face of the Lord not just in tabernacles or beautiful Churches, though he is assuredly there, but in the person who sits in a prison cell behind bars, where you gaze uon his face, and let him heal you.
So what do I have to offer you, good Catholic Chaplains who care for the marginalised from morning till night? What do I, a pastor, have to say?
I have chosen to reflect on freedom, as described by the Lord Jesus in a paraphrase of Isaiah, in a sort of mission statement for his Messianic mission: God, he says, has “anointed me to bring good news to the poor...to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound...”
To set them free: the poor, the prisoner and the sick. To set them free.
Free from Time, Free from Suffering, and Free from Getting my Own Way.
Freedom from time
Its not a coincidence that serving a prison sentence is called “doing time.” How many folks have you seen struggle with the question of how to “pass the time”?
For the prisoner time takes on new meaning...it becomes more tangible, more capable of description. My sentence might be 18 months and then I know I will get out and return to the real world. Just as a person in the hospital might (by the grace of the insurance company) require three days in the hospital and then two weeks in rehab.
When I was out in the real world, time was measured by the calendar and an appointment book. But here in this other world, outside forces have imposed their timetables on me and others determine when things end and begin.
Even my daily pattern of existence, once determined by work, by whim or by social obligations, is now regulated by forces I do not fully comprehend. When I can get out of my cell, or go for a walk or have visitors is fully regulated and I can be constantly tempted to think that me, my life and even how I pass time all belong to a warden, a guard or a judge.
Which is why Pope Saint John Paul II, in his Jubilee letter to prisoners, reminds us that “time belongs to God". And he suggests that for the prisoner, there is a unique opportunity to understand this important insight which is often too hard to grasp for those of us imprisoned by the apparent freedom of daily life.
“...those who are in detention,” the Holy Father suggests, “must not live as if their time in prison had been taken from them completely: even time in prison is God's time. As such it needs to be lived to the full; it is a time which needs to be offered to God as a occasion of truth, humility, expiation and even faith. The Jubilee serves to remind us that not only does time belong to God, but that the moments in which we succeed in "restoring" all things in Christ become for us "a time of the Lord's favor.”
I recently turned sixty-nine, and in recent years have buried my both of my parents. Such events have a way of fixing the mind on the passage of time
Sickness and the lack of liberty also focus the mind in a wonderful way as well. The great seventeenth century Poet John Donne was thrown in prison due to a political dispute. By the way, his estrangement from his wife brought forth that exquisite expression of despair: “John Donne/ Anne Donne/ Undone.”
Donne later wrote a series of reflections on suffering, including the brilliant insight that sickness an imprisonment focus the mind on the use of our time, our priorities and our spiritual condition like almost nothing else.
Time was created by God and some day will end. Like all of creation, it is given to us as a gift, to be used for God’s glory and to be filled with never-ending moments of seeking his face, loving in his name and growing closer to his Cross.
Time is our rehearsal space for an eternity of timeless praise of God in union with all the angels and saints. And whether that time is given to us in prison, a parish church, or in an ICU or a cubicle at work, in a home or a deserted space is almost irrelevant. Time is still God’s gift and when we embrace it as gift, we are set free to be the children of God that we are called to be.
Thus we are freed from the bonds of time and drawn closer to God.
Freedom from Suffering
And then there is the cross. The Cross of learning that its malignant, that you are guilty, that your old life is over, at least for a time, and that now you must enter this monastic enclosure called the House of Correction.
Like all crosses, it demands detachment: a letting go of what has been. Like all crosses, it is mounted on a Good Friday hill as the sky goes black and all seem to have turned against you. Like all crosses, it faces a vast darkly empty tomb, across which they plan to roll a great big stone to seal you in.
And like all crosses, there are two ways it can be approached: as a captive or a free man. As a captive, I go to the gallows bound and gagged, never gently into that good night, but fighting for my life. Alternatively, I choose to receive the cross with open arms in imitation of the one who taught me how to mount the tree and accept every cross as a participation in his. The first is coerced.
The second is the act of a free man whose life has been endowed with meaning.
But its hard to be a free man and to accept the suffering as they drive the nails into your wrists. Our every instinct is to struggle to get away. Only faith opens our arms. Only faith makes us free.
Saint Theresa of Calcutta, Doctor of fruitful suffering, once reflected:
Today the passion of Christ is being relived in all the lives of those who suffer. To accept that suffering is a gift of God. Suffering is not a punishment. God does not punish. Suffering is a gift. Though like all gifts, It depends on how we receive it. And that is why we need a pure heart- to see the hand of God, to feel the hand of God, to recognize the gift of God in our suffering. Suffering is not a punishment. Jesus does not punish. Suffering is a sign-a sign that we have come so close to Jesus on the cross, that He can kiss us, show that He is in love with us by giving us an opportunity to share in His passion. In our home for the dying it is so beautiful to see people who are joyful, people who are lovable, people who are at peace, in spite of terrible suffering. Suffering is not a punishment, not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world.
Or, as Saint Josemaria Escriva once wrote:
If we join our own little things, those insignificant or big difficulties of ours, to the great sufferings of Our Lord, the Victim (He is the only Victim!), their value will increase. They will become a treasure, and then we will take up the Cross of Christ gladly and with style. And then every suffering will soon be overcome: nobody, nothing at all, will be able to take away our peace and our cheerfulness.
Thus are we freed from the bonds of suffering and drawn closer to God.
Freedom from Getting My Own Way
No one plans to get sick, just as no one aspires to go to prison. So there is a certain element of surprise in the life of each of your clients.
And I suppose a bit part of the sorrow experienced by the man in the cell is that this is not what I had planned! And what makes it even worse if that if this is not what I had planned...what’s next?! I have lost all control, all ability to steer my life. My life is no longer my own.
Which is why I suspect that if the Lord had a bit more time to write his sermon on the mount, he would have included prisoners. For like the poor, the broken hearted and those despised for the sake of his Holy Name, the prisoner has just been rather rudely awakened to the news that they are no longer in control of their life.
And that is why he is blessed...for unlike you and me, who go about incessantly trying to prove to ourselves that we are in control, he has been given the great good news that he’ not!
And that, believe it or not, is good news! For God’s plan is the whole reason we were made, and the sooner we let go of our way and embrace his, the happier we will be! Now, of course, for those he really loves, God’s way leads to the Cross. When he holds us close to his heart, we are given a full portion of sacrificial suffering to go along with it. But once we recognize His embrace, even that suffering turns to pure joy.
But we gotta let go first.
I always loved the story told by Somerset Maugham about the janitor at St. Peter's Church in London. It seems that once the vicar found out the old man was illiterate he threw him out on the street. However, the resourceful fellow took the little bit of money he had saved and bought a tobacco stand, which was so successful that he opened a shop, and then another one and another one, until he had amassed a fortune of several thousand pounds. One day the man’s banker asked him, "You've done well for an old illiterate, but where would you be if you could read and write?" "Well," he thoughtfully replied, "I'd be janitor of St. Peter's Church in Neville Square."
Think back on your own life. How many times did you face failure or ignominy and run right smack into a brick wall, convinced that God had made one first class mess of your life...and then it happens...once you’ve let go of all your presuppositions and glorious plans, God shows you the way he had planned...more glorious than anything you could have dreamt up in your wildest dreams.
And so it is with the person lying on a bed of pain, convinced that God is just toying with them or perversely punishing them for some long forgotten sin. But then if they accept the cross, open their arms upon it, they suddenly discover there is always meaning in suffering, and hope in pain. Good Friday never passes without the Easter morn.
Thus are we freed from the bonds of our brilliant plans and drawn closer to God.
The Roman Missal
Such sentiments are succinctly expressed in the prayers of the new Roman Missal in the Mass for those in Prison. Take a look, for just a moment, at the prayer for those in Prison:
Almighty and merciful God,
to whom alone the secrets of the heart lie open,
who recognize the just and make righteous the guilty,
hear our prayers for your servants held in prison,
and grant that through patience and hope
they may find relief in their affliction
and soon return unhindered to their own.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
“to whom alone the secrets of the heart lie open”
God alone is omniscient and only he, not the lawyer, not the judge, and sometimes not even the prisoner, know the whole truth. Only God, just judge and all merciful, knows and loves the heart of every prisoner.
“who recognize the just and make righteous the guilty”
What a curious turn of phrase! Right after we speak of God as omniscient, in a prayer for the imprisoned, we would think to hear something about guilt. But no, God is the one who recognizes the innocent, the just man, and “makes righteous the guilty.” For us, wrapped up in all our needs for vengeance, determining guilt ”beyond a reasonable doubt” is what’s important. But God is all about redemption. Desiring not the death of the sinner, but that he might live: his goal is the making righteous of all who are guilty!
“hear our prayers for your servants held in prison”
They are not called prisoners, or captives or the guilty...no, they’re called famuli tui, your servants. For that is what they are: members of the household of God, those at the margins whom the Good Shepherd goes out to find, to redeem and to carry home on his shoulders.
“and grant that through patience and hope they may find relief in their affliction and soon return unhindered to their own.”
How do they find redemption? Through patience and hope. Through giving over all their sufferings and all their plans to God. Only then will their affliction, their guilt, their imprisonment and their sorrow be relieved, that their might return unhindered, unchained and freed “to their own,” to those who they love.
Conclusion
We need prisoners, just as we need the sick.
Despite what all those folks say about how good you are to be a chaplain, about how the beatitudes were written about you, going the jail with self-sacrificing love and going to heaven soon thereafter....despite your training, your expertise and all the background checks...it's really not you who are there for the prisoner: it is the prisoner in that cell who is there for you.
Those of you who have been doing this for a long time know how true that is. Your salvation is worked out not because you are dispensing an act of charity, but because you have a job which lets you gaze on the face of Christ every day. Like the cloistered nun before the blessed Sacrament, you see him...and he sees you.
Not a bad job. Because such work with prisoners transforms you. It makes you look like him.
It’s not unlike looking into the face of Pope Saint John Paul II in those last years of his life. Remember how stooped and broken he was, his hands shaking, his words slurred. But more powerfully than any sermon he ever preached, more eloquently than any Encyclical he ever promulgated, he reflected in those days the face of Christ in his suffering, his imprisonment and his dying.
He reminded me that this voice you have been listening to will grow weak in not so many years and this mind will grow dim. These hands will begin to shake and sometime this heart will cease to beat. In the end, this body will stop working entirely. And I, who spend most of my waking moments in denial, need to be with sick people and prisoners who remind me “of the essential or higher things. By their witness, by the liminality of their condition, they show that our mortal life must be redeemed through the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection.”
They teach me how to join my sufferings to the Cross of Christ.
They teach me what it is like to stand at the foot of the cross, like the great Mother of God.
They teach me that sickness and lack of freedom, a natural part of human life, is just around the corner.
But that with the grace of the children of God, even from time, from suffering, and from my own brilliant plans, I can be free.
And so can they.
14 February 2022
05 February 2022
Class Three: Questions and Some Answers
SOME REFERENCES
Two interviews with Monsignor Moroney on Traditiones Custodes.
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CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE HARROWING OF HELL
635 Christ went down into the depths of death so that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” (Jn 5:25; cf. Mt 12:40; Rom 10:7; Eph 4:9) Jesus, "the Author of life", by dying destroyed "him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.”(Heb 2:14-15; cf. Acts 3:15) Henceforth the risen Christ holds "the keys of Death and Hades", so that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” (Rev 1:18; Phil 2:10)
Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him - He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . "I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.” (Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday: PG 43, 440A, 452C; LH, Holy Saturday, OR.)
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SECOND READIG FROM THE OFFICE OF READINGS FOR HOLY SATURDAY
From an ancient homily on Holy Saturday
(PG 43, 439, 451, 462-463)
The Lord descends into hell
Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.
He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.
For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.
See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.
I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.
Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.
03 February 2022
Class Three Quiz: The Liturgical Renewal of Vatican II
A QUICK QUIZ
ON VATICAN II AND THE LITURGY
ANSWER KEY AT THE END OF THIS POST
1. The response and with your spirit” refers to
A. the spirit the priest recievd in Baptism
B. the spirit the priest received in Ordination
C. the spirit the priest received in Confirmation
D. none of the above.
2. The words of consecration, when pronounced by the priest at Mass before the Second Vatican Council were
A. said in a loud voice
B. said in an inaudible voice
C. sung
D. none of the above
3. In planning the celebration of Mass, the priest should bear in mind
A. the common spiritual good of the people of God
B. the rubrics assigned to a particular Mass
C. his own inclinations
D. none of the above
4. In order that the rites of the Mass be easily understood, they should exhibit a “noble simplicty,” meaning they exhibit
A. evident brevity
B. without pointless repetitions
C. adapted to the understanding of the faithful
D. all of the above
5. How did the amount of Bible texts read before and after the Council differ?
A. Before 1% of the new Testament was read, now 14% is read
B. Before 16% of the New Testament was read, now 72% is read
C. Before, the New Testament was not read. Now all of the New Testamen is read.
6. The translations used at Mass are prepared by
A. The Holy See
B. The Bishops of a Country
C. Each individual Bishop
7 The three major elements of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council are the Communal Nature of the Liturgy, Participation in the Liturgy and Maintaining a sense of Reverence.
TRUE
FALSE
8 The two major elements of the liturgical reform of the Council of Trent were maintaining doctrinal integrirty and unity of practice in the Roman Rite.
TRUE
FALSE
9 Before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council the role of the people (posture, acclamations, etc.) was determined by the Roman Missal.
TRUE
FALSE
10 Before the Second Vatican Council the homily was not a part of the Mass.
TRUE
FALSE
1 B
2 B
3 A
4 D
5 B
6 B
7 F
8 T
9 F
10 T
02 February 2022
A Quick Quiz on Class Two
Here's a quick quiz on the second session of Introduction to the Liturgy. An answer key can be found at the end of the post.
A QUICK QUIZ
ON CLASS TWO
1. Before the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council, most of the responses were spoken by:
A. The Deacon
B. The Server
C. The Cantor
2. We know that the Roman Canon existed in a recognizable form by the time of:
A. Pope Linus
B. Pope Silvanus
C. Pope Gregory
3. The list of Saints referenced in the first half of the Roman Canon lists in the second group of Saints: “Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius.” These saints were also:
A. Apostles
B. Popes
C. Deacon Martyrs
4. A prime example of inculturation in the early Church involves the influence of:
Ancinet Greece on Confirmation
A. The Holy Land on Holy Week
B. Ancient Gaul on the form of bread
C. Druid spirituality on the Book of Genesis
5. An example of the influence of Imperial court ceremonial on the early Liturgy is the Bishop’s:
A. Cathedra
B. Mitre
C. Ring
D. All of the above
6. One of the impediments to people being able to see what was happening at the Altar in the later Middle Ages was the:
A. Fact that they faced the other way
B. The Rood Screen
C. Candlelight
D. All of the above
7. By the fifteenth century, almost all the prayers at Mass were in:
A. Greek
B. Latin
C. Aramaic
D. the language of the people
8. The liturgical renewal of the Council of Trent sought to unify practice and belief in the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
TRUE
FALSE
9. The Creed was proclaimed after the Homily in the Ordo Romanus I.
TRUE
FALSE
10. The earliest languages in which we know the Liturgy was celebrated were Aramaic, Greek and Latin.
TRUE
FALSE
1. B
2. C
3. B
4. A
5. D
6. B
7. B
8. T
9. F
10.T
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