What is prison ministry like?
I get asked this a lot and, like any other ministry, if you have the demeaner for it is a phenomenal ministry.
I remember the first time I went to jail about twelve years ago. I was nervous, and completely out of my element because I’d never been in jail before and although I’ve seen jails on television and in movies, it’s just not the same as the real thing. The deacon, the priest and I walked into the common room of the cell block and began setting up for mass.
The priest with us that day was a retired man named Father Joe who was preparing to celebrate Mass in the cell that day.
Father Joe was wearing his alb (pronounced “all-buh” – a white robe worn by the priest during Mass) so you could not see his Roman collar. Soon, the prisoners began filing in one by one. The deacon and I shook each man’s hand and greeted them as they entered. I especially recall one inmate. He was dressed in prison orange (as they all were), and he had a big bushy full beard and mustache and was about 6’5” or 6’6” tall and weighed around 300 pounds (you could say that he stood out).Now, Father Joe was the epitome of “laid back”. He’d “been there and done that”, no matter where “there” was and what “that” had been. After the last man filed in, Father stood up and said, “Well men, my name is Joe and we’re gonna go ahead and get this thing started up” (as I said, he was laid back).
At that point, the big guy stood up (while pounding his fist on the table) and said “hold on, hold on, are you a priest, a deacon, a lay minister…(he paused)… what are you?” In all honesty, I must admit that at this point I was scared and was looking for a quick way out of that cell. Fr. Joe just walked slowly over to him, looked him in the eye and said, “I’m Father Joe, the senior priest for the county”. The man stuck his finger in Father’s face and said “OK… but before you start mass, I have to have confession before I have communion”.
“Wait…what did he just say?” I thought.
In the Catholic church, reception of communion is restricted (in compliance with scripture according to 1Cor 11:27-30). In fact, not only are non-Catholics denied communion, but even Catholics who are not properly disposed (due to unconfessed sin or the like); and here was one such Catholic. He was, in essence, stopping the celebration of mass until he could receive absolution. Needless to say, that man changed how I looked at jail ministry and at confession. I’ve lost tack of how many times I’ve seen men – grown men – openly weep after receiving the eucharist. It is both beautiful and deeply moving.
On a separate occasion, I was doing prison ministry one day and we had a new arrival. It was a woman in her mid to upper thirties who, honestly, looked pretty rough. Slouched over, hair falling out, blotchy skin, etc. After talking to her, I found out that she had been incarcerated just the night before for using heroin and, in fact, she had been an addict for over fourteen years. Heroin is a particularly difficult addiction to overcome. In rehab they generally take a person down slowly to lessen the withdrawal symptoms.
Treatment in a rehab facility can take 30, 60, 90 days or even longer, but that is just the start of the detox process and it can take many months for the person to be completely free of the physical effects. However, this wasn’t rehab, this was prison and she was cut off, cold turkey and she was showing it. Body aches, sleeplessness, sweating, cramping she was in full blown withdrawal and was hurting badly. “I don’t even know why I’m here” she said when I welcomed her to our service. “I can’t sleep and there’s nothing else to do” she said. I offered to pray with her and she accepted. I prayed for healing and for deliverance from any spirits of addiction that were plaguing her. As I prayed, you could tell that the Holy Spirit was touching her. Her demeaner began to soften and she became more focused.
Two weeks later I saw her again. The transformation was incredible. Her whole countenance had changed. She had good color in her face and she said that she slept like a baby that very night that she’d received prayer. Even more amazing she said “I have no withdrawal symptoms at all. In fact, I don’t even think of heroin.” God did in minutes what should have taken months or years to heal.
I kept track of this amazing woman throughout her seven-month sentence. Beginning that second time I saw her, she was never without a Bible in her hand. In fact, she even started a Bible study group in the prison and after seven months she was like a new person. The skin condition she’d had most of her life also was healed and her hair even grew back.
These are but two of the dozens of stories I could relate to you, and I often wonder who benefits more. Suffice to say, not only has prison ministry allowed me to change the lives of hundreds of people, but it has also changed my life by encountering them.
(If you are thinking about prison ministry, why not reach out through your church and ask if you can join their program)