Learning forgiveness from prisoners

Two weeks ago I wrote on another blog on encountering a family which had forgiven the man who had killed two members of their family. Their faith in a God who called us to love our enemies gave them the strength to forgive the killer face to face.

A week ago, in a prison in Honduras, I learned even more about forgiveness.

Sister Pat Farrell and I were facilitating a second-level workshop of the Alternatives to Violence Program on forgiveness with ten of those in prison. We had never worked on this theme before and so there was quite a lot of reworking and even improvising.

For reasons of confidentiality I will not share the stories, but I saw men who were in need of forgiveness and in need of forgiving. Many of those in prison, having suffered from abuse and violence since their youth, having never learned to deal with alcohol and drugs in a healthy way, have ended up in prison – some falsely accused.

I was surprised to hear three of the men speak of experiences of forgiveness that they had seen or experienced – persons who forgave others despite the harm suffered. It was humbling.

It was also a reminder that we are so often besieged by the stories of violence and vengeance that we do not have our ears attentive to the stories of forgiveness and reconciliation which are more common than many of us believe.

This morning, I listened to two speeches of Fr. Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest who has worked with gang members for decades. In his commencement speech at Pepperdine University this year he concluded his talk with these words:

Graduates, you go from here to the margins because that’s the only way they get erased. And you brace yourselves because the world will accuse you of wasting your time, but the prophet Jeremiah writes “in this place of which you say it is a waste there will be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness – the voices of those who sing.” Make those voices heard. For you go to the margins, not to make a difference, but that the folks at the margins make you different.

Those visits to the village and to the prison are slowly making me different.

Fr. Boyle’s 2017 Laetare Medal speech at Notre Dame can be found here.

Complex - yet simple

On the surface, life is not simple. So far, April has included a visit to El Salvador, working with workshop leaders in the prison in Gracias, training sessions for catechists and base community leaders, a meeting of the diocesan social ministry council, visits to communities, reading, planning, and more.

I have been reading a lot, partly in relation to preparing for the permanent diaconate. I finished a good yet large book of Servais Pinckaers,  The Sources of Christian Ethics. A day later I finished Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation  Amoris Laetitia. Both are significant works that offer a vision of morality rooted in the Beatitudes and the virtues, a vision that goes back to the early Fathers of the Church and St. Thomas. It's a vision that goes beyond a morality of commandments and obligation. That’s another post.

Preparation for the permanent diaconate includes getting the bishop to set a date – tentatively Saturday, June 25. It also means getting the vestments which has not been easy. Some folks at St. Thomas in Ames are having a green dalmatic and stole made. I had hoped to have a dalmatic and stole made by the Poor Clares in San Salvador but that is not possible. So I’m looking at all sorts of other possibilities. I also have to have a five day retreat which I’m consulting the bishop and looking at several options.

But pastoral ministry goes on in the parish and the diocese.

This month we had our first catechists’ workshops of the year. This year we will be working on formation, rather than just helping them work through materials for preparing children and youth for the sacraments. The first session I decided to work on faith as confidence, trust in God. Later this year, at their suggestion, we will treat the Bible and the Eucharist.

Catechists' training

This month we also had our first workshops for base community leaders. Padre German is taking the lead in this and I’m assisting with opening and closing prayers. The theme is ecclesiology: what is the church? Padre is very creative and we ended with a very interesting exercise related to rocks. We have had one; two more this coming week and one the next week.

base community leaders' training

I have been working with Franciscan Sister Pat Farrell with men in the Gracias, Lempira, prison, helping prepare for a workshop on Alternatives to Violence we hope to do jointly in May. It has been a good experience and I really appreciate the three men involved. I’m also learning how much this culture is a culture where shame is a clear concern.

I’ve been invited to be on the diocesan council of social ministry and went to the first meeting. What I found most interesting is that I was not as laid back as I sometimes am (afraid to offend) nor was I as bull-headed as I can be when I find myself in opposition. Maybe I am beginning to grow in these areas – after all I am 68 years old.

I also have gone to some communities with Padre German as well as going to two Sunday Celebrations of the Word with Communion. It is good to get to Mass when I can, even though long sermons often put me to sleep!

This year I have begun to work a little more with helping young people form youth base communities or youth groups. On Saturday, May 30, the diocese is having a meeting of youth of the whole diocese. I invited the youth to plan this. One young man took the initiative and has worked to contract a bus.

My concern was that we wouldn’t have enough people to fill the bus – which is what happened last year. But this year, because the youth are more involved in leadership we have had to turn away people. About 70 of us will be going – probably about 6 to 8 adults and more than 70 young people. I hope it’s a good experience.

Then there are the casual discussions with people whom I pass on the road. And there was the road trip to San Pedro Sula to pick up Sister Nancy, one of the Franciscan sisters, who was coming back from the US. I got a chance to make some purchases and she “paid” me with some Ghirardelli dark chocolate –always a treat.

The next two weeks are busy. Two workshops with base community leaders on Tuesday and Thursday, a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday, training for the candidates for Communion ministers, and the trip to the youth gathering. I’ll also be leaving my car at the mechanics for three or four day for a major overhaul – checking the rings.

Life is complicated – but that’s the reality.

Yet underneath there’s something simple – How can I serve God, the Reign of God, and God’s people? How can I love?

Mercy: principle and works

Last week the clergy of the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán had a retreat with the theme of mercy, preach by Father Antonio Rivero, LC. There was a lot of information and I felt overwhelmed by the torrent of words on mercy. Thanks be to God I had the chance one night to visit the sick.

At the instigation of Padre German Navarro, whom I work with, I began reading Jon Sobrino’s El Principio – Misericordia, which I had read in English in 1994.

It is slow reading but I also came across an essay of Jon Sobrino, SJ, (in Christine Bochen’s  The Way of Mercy, p..65-66 )where he notes:

Mercy is a basic attitude toward the suffering of another, whereby one reacts to eradicate that suffering for the sole reason that it exists, and in the conviction that, in this reaction to the ought-not-be of another’s suffering, one’s own being, without any possibility of subterfuge, hangs in the balance. 

But mercy is more than the works of mercy. Note again the words of Jon Sobrino (p, 74): 

When mercy is taken seriously as the first and the last, it becomes conflictive. No one is thrown in prison or persecuted simply for having practiced works of mercy. Not even Jesus would have been persecuted and put to death, had his mercy been mere mercy— without being mercy as the first and the last. But when mercy becomes the first and the last, then it subverts society’s ultimate values, and society reacts.

I think of this as I recall the death of two indigenous activists this month in Intibucá - Berta Cáceres and Nelson García. 

But the past few days I have had two occasions to practice the corporal works of mercy.

When I got back from the retreat on Friday, I was approached by the mayor of Concepción to see if I could house the leaders of the medical brigade which was seeing people in our municipality, Concepción.

The two leaders stayed with me. I helped translate on Saturday and Monday when the brigade was in the nearby Candelaria clinic.

The lines early on Monday at the Candelaria clinic

This was an amazing experience – hearing the people explain their ills and watching the doctors respond carefully and respectfully to their needs. I noted a deep concern for the doctors for several seriously ill persons. But mostly I heard a lot of concern for gastritis and blood-pressure (low and high) and saw a number of people being nebulized for asthma. The brigade examined more than 200 in Quebraditas on Friday, more than 300 in Candelaria on Friday, and probably between 400 and 500 on Monday. (I had to leave before they were finished.)

I also was called on to speak with a man who was in deep anguish – or was it trauma? A son had been brutally murdered a few months ago and he is still grieving. We talked for a while and I promised to visit him during Holy Week.

On Monday, after translating for most of the day, I headed to Gracias where I assisted Sister Pat Farrell in working with several persons in the Gracias jail to prepare for a May workshop on Alternatives to Violence. These people had participated in two previous training sessions; we are helping them prepare to be co-leaders of future workshops in prison.

What impressed me this time was the sense of initiative of the two men in prison as well as the sharing of one of them on his former life. I feel blessed to have been a part of this process.

I returned to Plan Grande on Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday I spent almost the whole day preparing the parish Stations of the Cross which we celebrated on Friday. I had to finish them so that I could get photocopies in Santa Rosa on Thursday.

And so I have been blessed with the chance to shelter the two leaders of the medical brigade, visit the sick and listen to the sick visiting the doctors, comfort the afflicted, and more.

But more than anything else I feel myself sheltered in mercy – by all the people who surround me and help me try to be merciful.

Graced embrace

Last night I got home after three days in the prison in Gracias, Lempira.

I had been there twice before for Alternatives to Violence workshops, but this time I was a participant, not a facilitator.

I stayed with the Dubuque Franciscan sisters in Gracias, which is always a blessing and a chance for reviving spirits. It also helped that Brenda had medication for the amoebas I picked up somewhere and that caused me immense problems last Saturday.

Before heading to the jail, I spent a short time in the sisters’ chapel, before the Eucharist, praying and reading the scriptures. Monday’s Gospel was Matthew 25: 31-46, where Jesus identifies himself with the imprisoned, or, as they like to say here, those deprived of liberty.

I was imprisoned and you visited me.

I was surprised when I entered the prison and a number of those who had been in previous workshops came up to me and gave me warm hugs.

I felt “graced by the embrace.”

During my time there, several shared very openly with me. I feel overwhelmed by the confidence they placed in me. Part of this was due to the workshop, but not all. I was really overwhelmed by how I was treated and by how open several were with me. I wonder if they see me as a “grandfather” type.

The workshop was only three days and I will return occasionally to help with workshops as well as with helping them in their efforts to be facilitators.

I hope that we might be able to begin something like this in the Santa Rosa prison. Sister Pat and I will be looking at ways to do this with the help of folks in Santa Rosa, especially those in prison ministry.

These workshops have offered the participants a chance to begin to explore alternatives to violence. But they have also opened spaces where they could speak and be listened to – something those in prison seldom experience.

I am glad that we have begun this and I hope we can continue, expand, and deepen these experiences – in prison and without.

Today I feel a great sense of gratitude, having been graced by my time in prison.