In a dim light…

On Saturday, we had the annual Catholic Feast … Christmas-themed … at the prison. Seventeen offenders and eight volunteers were in attendance.

It’s a maximum security prison, and several of those present are serving either life without parole or are under a death sentence. All are serving hard time.

Beginning at 1:00 p.m. and ending at 8:00 p.m., we ate, read scripture, acted out the infancy narratives from Luke and Matthew, sang, prayed, and ate again.

Blessing and breaking bread, liturgy of the Word, prayer, Christmas hymns, preaching the gospel message (via skits), and the Divine Presence: “I was in prison and you visited me.” [Matthew 25:36]

Father Joe was unable to make it to the event, so we didn’t have Mass. Or did we?

Tags: Catholic Church Hierarchy, death penalty, prison, prison ministry

This entry was posted on December 11, 2011 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Ministry, Preaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.