By Father Joseph "Chet" Schwab, OMI, Chaplain at Madison Correctional Institution, Madison, Florida, Director of Prison Ministry of the Diocese of Pensacola/Tallahassee, Pastor of St. Vincent de Paul, Madison and St. Margaret, Monticello.
As a young college student who had just finished a short stay in the Army Air Force I was ready to take advantage of the G. 1. Bill and I was off to Georgetown University. It was a time of study, and just enjoying college life every so often I would find myself late the evening in the chapel. I would be asking myself ... WHY?
I had grown up in a small town where we had an Oblate priest filling in, Fr. Boyd, OMI. Fr. Boyd, who later left our "touch of paradise" and went off as a missionary to the Philippines had planted a seed. While in the service I had run in to more Oblates in Belleview, where we had shared one or two of those typical seminary Sunday night suppers - cold cuts and potato salad. The talk at the table often turned to a discussion of the foreign missions where so many of the men had volunteered to serve. It sounded exciting and the seed was being nourished, and then in the quiet of that Georgetown chapel it begin to be a reality ... a priest, a foreign missionary ... the challenge.
The years passed rapidly and the day of ordination came ... what would be the assignment? ... Buffalo as a teacher and for the next 23 years, a potential foreign missionary spent his time in high school, college, and graduate school teaching. The next few years, this foreign missionary was assigned as a parish priest, first in Florida then in Tennessee ... and then back to Washington for another five years as President of the College and more teaching ... the foreign missionary kept getting farther and farther away from the mission fields.
Nine years ago the missionary began to realize the dream in his own backyard. I was assigned to pastor in rural North Florida. Here was and is an area in which they have built correctional institutions in each of the counties ... and it is here I found. my foreign mission, the mission DeMazenod had found in Aix-en-Provence as he went to the prisons ... here are the men and women who have never heard of God or having heard had lost sight of Jesus and His call to love God with their whole heart and soul and mind. Here is a "waste land", defined as a barren, uncultivated land, a desert, an ugly devastated, barely habitable place, where a way of life is spiritually and emotionally and and unsatisfying. Here in this waste land are found unbaptized and baptized ready for awaking, conversion or renewal. Christ said to his Apostles years ago "The harvest is great, but the laborers are few".
For seven years I was a volunteer at two of the Correctional Institutions, one men and one women. Some of my parishioners have joined me over the years and we have taken the Word of God through scripture reading, Eucharist and prayer to these men and women each week. Over the years other Oblate priest and laity of the North Florida Family have joined us in this work. Fr. Ed Rauf, OMI in Taylor County with a prison population soon to be 3000+; Fr. Jim MacGee with a troop of 25 lay ministers at Wakulla Correctional bring Christ in the Eucharist, Bible Studies in English and Spanish; Fr. Bob Olson, OMI, helped by his team of ministers, with a weekly Mass and a message of hope and salvation to the women of Jefferson Correctional.
The challenges which are faced are not unique to our Catholic prison ministry. The priority of the Department of Corrections is to ensure public safety by the effective custody and supervision of offenders. Security is prime but often causes inconveniences in carrying out the message of Christ. as our volunteers wait outside the barbed wire. This along with the popular view of our prisoners, "Would you hire an "ex-con" encourages a prison population of sometimes, hopeless, depressed, suicidal, angry and arrogant men and women to simply give up hope.
These men and women have been created by God to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world and for eternity. The answer we learned so many years ago when we were asked the question: "Why did God make you?" is the same for these men and women. Here is our foreign mission, here are some of the poor which Christ spoke about who need to hear and experience the Word and Presence of Jesus Christ. It is in Him that we are saved. Sorry if I sound like I am preaching, but St. Eugene seems to be crying out to us to go to the poor inside the scissor wire.
It has become for all of us Oblates a joy to take the Word to the poor. Fr. Ron Rissling, OMI is developing a Parish at Deuel Vocational Institute in Tracy, California... "We have our own Parish Bulletin listing our activities with commentaries on the Sunday's Scripture Readings. We have Lector and Altar Servers groups, trained and coordinated by inmates. Our religious book inmate lending library numbers 2,000 donated and bought books with a number of audio tapes. Every week, by attending the hour of prayer, inmates are able to experience various forms of prayer centering prayer and meditation, shared reflections, Benediction, Scriptural Rosary ... WOW!"
Fr. Gerry Bolduc, OMI, ministering to inmates at some of toughest prisons in the United States. "He found many prisoners were not bad people. Instead they were good people who had made a mistake." We are all people created by God - to know Him, love Him and serve Him.
Each day as we leave the prisons there is that wonderful feeling of God's presence in the poor and the personal rejoicing in the words: "When I was in prison, you visited me..." Jesus has visited that person, and yes he has visited us. Each day we thank God for this wonderful gift. We thank God that we may be the instruments of the Holy Spirit.
Two years ago an assistant chaplain position opened at Madison Correctional, a five minute drive from the rectory. After a good deal of prayer and some calculations along with a "time management review", I went ahead and put the application in ... if God wanted it, it would be! Personnel in 'signing me in" took one look at the birth date and wondered what I was doing starting a second career at my age? I want to be a foreign missionary!
There now are many, many stories to tell of the work of the Holy Spirit in this vineyard as I am sure there are many vineyards across the country and around the world .... A parent dies and you are there to offer some comfort to a man or woman who realize the depths of his or her neglect or rejection and that a time of personal conversion is open to them as they cry out for forgiveness.
A man cries as he realizes how far from God he has gone ... what he has done to himself, his family, his wife, his children... "Father forgive them, for they know not what they have done". And we hear the words of Jesus from the cross: "This day you will be with me in paradise."
In our comer of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee the Oblates of Mary Immaculate are carrying on the charism of St. Eugene. Our Oblates with their crews of lay ministers continue to bring the Word to the poor in our prisons... "I was in prison and you visited me."
This is the challenge and reward of prison ministry ... It is the challenge and reward that Jesus has granted to us... "come to me all you who labor and are burden ... this day you will be with me in Paradise ... how can they know the Word unless they hear it - how can they hear it, if it is not preached to them?"
A year ago the Spirit was at work again and I was asked to become the Director of Prison Ministry for the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee. There is a great need for help and direction ... a need for training and preparation for this ministry. Today we continue: to look for the night programs and the people willing to become "foreign missionaries behind the scissor wire". My prayer is that you who read these words may ask yourself "Is it I Lord?" or do I know someone who is looking to become a "foreign missionary". Today is the day to unlock the cell door of spiritual darkness.
From the Paulist Fathers Prison Ministries we have the following prayer. Here is a way for all to visit the 1,855,575 incarcerated men and women in our nation's prisons, 400,000 is the estimated number who are identified as Catholic. May their faith be renewed and nourished by our work and prayers.:
Jesus, united with the Father and the Holy Spirit, give us your compassion for those in prison. Mend in mercy the broken in mind and memory. Soften the hard of heart, the captives of anger. Free the innocent; parole the trustworthy. Awaken the repentance that restores hope. May prisoners' families persevere in their love.
Jesus, heal the victims of crimes; they live with the scars. Lift to eternal peace those who die. Grant victims' families the forgiveness that heals. Give wisdom to lawmakers and to those who judge. Instill prudence and patience in those who guard. Make those in prison ministry bearers of your light, for all of us are in need of your mercy. Amen.