A group of inmates form a jagged line in the exercise yard. “Strip!” shouts the guard. They remove their garb.
I avert my eyes. A strip-search is an ugly scene. And, for me, a sad spectacle. Those prisoners are my parishioners and I care for them. Yes, they committed terrible crimes, but each time they confess their sins, I hear the misery lodged in their souls.
Like penitents on the banks of the Jordan, these offenders cannot change the past. On this particular day, all they can do is stand with their hands behind their heads, their bodies naked in the sun.
I continue to the gymnasium where I will offer Mass. Pausing in the sally port, I throw a final glance across the yard and notice a new arrival.
Stern of face, the Stranger squints his eyes and surveys the sky. At His feet, a seamless robe billows in the breeze.
***
The penitentiary has no chapel or tabernacle. Yet, as a chaplain who teaches inmates a course in spiritual writing, I feel an urge to genuflect each time I collect student compositions. Why? Because, in the slant of misspelled words, I detect the mystery of the Incarnation brushing against the pages like a biblical tunic blowing across a prison yard. One writer seeks the warmth of his mother’s hand pressed against a pane of security glass; another describes the flash of a shank and the iron smell of blood pooling on a cement floor. The first piece evokes a painting of the Madonna with Child, the second, a scene fromQuo Vadis. Hence, the reflex to genuflect when my students' words dare to probe the Word-Made-Flesh. The experience makes me wonder if the hand of St. Catherine’s confessor trembled as he transcribed her dialogue with Christ. Did Blessed Stanley Rother smile as he translated the Gospel into an indigenous language from a land of mountains and mists?
The effort to articulate a divine encounter via human language is a noble endeavor. In this regard, the courage of inmates to wrestle angels on the open mat of a blank page is worth noting. Indeed, if redemptive Light can illumine the wall of a cement cell, it can be found anywhere: from country song lyrics to the verses of an undergrad poet; from the wavering voice of nursing home resident to the cooing sounds of a mother coaxing food into the mouth of a toddler; from the buzz and flash of a welder’s torch to the amber sound of chant afloat inside an ancient church.
For every preacher, teacher or parent who yearns to capture God’s mercy in words that touch the soul, the advice of Mother Teresa is paramount: Be a pencil in the hand of God. This means choosing your words with the conviction of a martyr, revering the silence of the lowly and oppressed, speaking the truth with love and, through it all, acknowledging the toll of sin—yours and the world’s—while standing naked in line next to Him.