For five years, I participated in a prison ministry group. Our field of evangelization was the Casa de Detenção Dutra Ladeira, a maximum security prison in great Belo Horizonte, where 900 inmates were housed.
Besides the father-priest who accompanied us, we were all lay members of the New Covenant Catholic Community. Our coordinator was a retired police delegate. Among us evangelists, there were the most diverse professions: housewives, taxi driver, hairdresser, teacher, laboratory analyst, etc.
I must confess that we all took on the mission with a dose of fear (they were dangerous people…) and superiority (these people had long fallen from the ladder of morality…). Before long, we would need to undertake serious conversion.
Behind the bars, there were people young enough to be our offspring. There were elderly people with hoary hair. But, above all, the inmates had a thirst for God. I noticed tears during our preaching. In other places, the faithful listened and would comment,
“I really liked it. It was good for me. It was gratifying…”
Not here. Here they just wept.
Occasionally, one of them would come to confession.
“If I had heard this before, I would not be here today.”
On another occasion, when Mass was about to begin, one of the “inmates” handed me a piece of paper with a name written on it.
“Can you say Mass with this intention?”
“Yes… who is he?” I asked.
“He’s the guy I killed…”
Imagine my shock! After a time of hearing and receiving the Word of God, this “villain” was now concerned with the eternal salvation of his victim…
I left the group when the Community finally handed me other missions. But I cannot forget the Wednesdays along those five years. How could I ever erase from my mind the vision of the priest who would receive confession from prisoners in the corner of the auditorium stage while we sang and preached the Gospel? In order for the penitents’ confessions not be heard by those present, the priest leaned his head close beside the prisoner, without taking into account that many of them were carriers of AIDS or tuberculosis. And Jesus Himself came so close…!
A great affinity was woven between us and them. When Marleide accepted to take on a small group in preparation for first communion, that common housewife did not imagine that it would be reduced into the space of such a narrow sacristy, surrounded by twelve murderers… I know that Jesus and the twelve apostles formed a very similar group.
Who were those prisoners? They were baptized just as we were. Adopted by the same Father. Temples of the same Spirit. We could not just hastily cast them into hellfire and pretend that they were no longer human. They were of the Church…
Ah! How distorted is our notion of the Church! We like to imagine that we are a group of refined club members and rights holders ready to claim benefits.
Meanwhile, the body of Christ bleeds, the poor groan, the prisoner despairs. And our faith calls us to go beyond our little world of conveniences.
Preferably, before the Final Judgment…
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