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The ministry of writing to prisoners,


markdohle

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The ministry of writing to prisoners,
(and how I get ministered from those I write)
 

I have never liked writing letters.  Well before I was 50, I did not like writing at all and would avoid it at all cost.  About three years ago, someone put a letter in my mailbox from a prisoner who asked to write one of the monks.  I was hesitant because letter writing is a chore for me.  Yet I decided to write.  I have not regretted it at all.  Now, I am writing a few prisoners and getting a great deal in return from the exchange.  I guess being in prison does make some of the men think deeply about their lives and how they can go about changing it.  More than one is worried that when they get out they may fall back into old patterns.  One told me that he knows he has ‘impulse control’ problems and is trying to become more centered in his faith walk so as not to repeat and come back.  Following the Lord does call us to discipline in our moral as well as intellectual lives.  We have to learn to choose the path to life instead of just flowing down the stream of life over the waterfall. 

One prisoner is in for life, for murder, that happened when he was a young man.  He was on drugs and tried to rob a convince store.   He is now near 50 and is in for life without the possibility of parole.  He knows he deserves his punishment and is trying to serve the Lord where he is at and is trying to help others as well.  He is a Catholic and belongs to a 3rd order Carmelite group.  I try to encourage him and let him know that where he is at is his world and to just embrace it.  There are days when he gets frightened because he thinks of the years he has left.  However, when we talk about how fast the time goes by, it helps him to get focused. 

Of course, I have learned that some prisoners don’t learn from being in prison and continue their ways.  So a couple have tried to take advantage and I wrote them back on what I could do for them and what I could not.  They stopped writing.  After I write for a while and get to trust them, I will send them books if they need them, or three times a year I will send them a package with snacks and other items that they need. 

I have found that the floodgates of grace open up for those in prison and some really need people who love God to write them and encourage them on their walk.  Prisons, even the best of them are often violent places and there is often not that much protection for the weak and infirm. 

In any case, all of them in prison are humans, beloved of God, even if they have yet to learn that.  One prisoner who wrote me was on death row.  I read up on the case and if guilty, which seems he is because of the overwhelming evidence, he deserves the death penalty, even though I believe it should be done away with.  He told me how hard it is on death row because he does not have the date of his execution, which could be anytime, in a week or years down the road.  In any case, after the second letter, he asked me to do something illegal with some funds that he wanted me to send another prisoner and then he would get it.  I declined and he stopped writing.  I tried one more time but got no response.  So I just continue to pray for him.  I believe that if I am caught doing something illegal, they have a network that would bar me from writing other prisoners. 

One prisoner, I am writing to, shared with me some of his insights on John’s Gospel about his teaching on light and darkness.  Below is my response to him:

Quote:  I like what you said about St. John’s Gospel.  At this time I am spending time on the ‘Last Discourse’, a very powerful part of the life of Jesus.  I did not know that a human eye could see a single candle a mile away. However, when I thought about it, if it is dark enough, yet the light goes a long away.  Perhaps that is one reason so many people find the Lord is when they are in a very deep, dark, place.  It is then that the light shines through.

Light comes from light, darkness is a lack of light.  From my own experience, each person when they start on the journey to seek God, the love of God responds according to the needs and capacity of each.  No matter where we are at in our journey towards God, we love Him to our fullest capacity, it just has to grow and mature.   He stretches our hearts through suffering and struggle, for it seems the only time we actually have to make deep choices on the road we wish to walk. 

The human heart is a deep mystery, seen and understood only by God.  Each of us is unique, but in the light of God’s love we are each known……only God is the true lover and judge of each soul, we can’t judge, not even ourselves, for only the Spirit of God sees the depths of our hearts.

People don’t often underst nd that not only is sin a rebellion against God’s love and will, it is also something that is done to us and can imprison us in ways we don’t understand until the light of God shows us.  I guess that is why so many of us have to hit ‘bottom’ before we understand our deep need for God’s love.

Our hearts are to become one with the Heart of Christ Jesus.  Here is a quote from the Diary of Sister of Faustian which I find beautiful:

“O Jesus, I understand that Your mercy is beyond all imagining, and therefore I ask You to make my heart so big that there will be room in it for the needs of all the souls living on the face of the earth.  O Jesus, my love extends beyond the world, to the souls suffering in purgatory, and I want to exercise mercy toward them by means of indulgenced prayers.  God’s mercy is unfathomable and inexhaustible, just as God Himself is unfathomable.  Even if I were to use the strongest words there are to express this mercy of God, all this would be nothing in comparison with what it is in reality.  O Jesus, make my heart sensitive to all the sufferings of my neighbor, whether of body or of soul.  O my Jesus, I know that You act toward us as we act toward our neighbor”.---Sr. Faustian Diary 692

We are each called as Christians to put on Jesus Christ, which is to be bathed totally in his light and love.  When that is forgotten, we can come across in such a way as to make it harder for others to understand God’s love for them.  There is no one outside of God’s love, yet there is the mystery of our freedom, our ability to choose.  Only God knows how that really works, but as Christians, I believe we are called to pray for all that the Lord will lead them deeper into his life.  If anyone loses their salvation, it is something that could be as hard as following Christ Jesus.  For it is true, his cross is light, we do find rest even in our struggles when we do God’s will.  When we do not, our sufferings are deeper and our lives can slowly become more chaotic and self-destructive.   As CS Lewis stated:  “Suffering is God’s wake-up call to the world”.  Most of the suffering in the world, the way it is experienced is caused by man.  When it is not caused by man, our lack of love for one another can make personal suffering worse and isolating.  --Unquote

These men, for the most part, deserve to be where they are at.  They also, those will get out, deserve a second chance.  I hope that they will take advantage of that.  In prison, it is easy to know what is right and wrong and the choices that have to be made on a daily basis or not that many.  When they get out, all of that will change.  I hope and pray they will be able to make it when they go back into society.

 

 

 

 

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