Prison...

...and the Catholic chaplain had led a well-attended teaching session this morning, and I was busy doing some follow-up this afternoon. Using the ANCHOR programme, and it works well...it has some of the most glorious art and explores Catholic teachings by using this, and opening up the truths revealed, backed by Scripture and the Catechism...

While all this was going on, the Moslems were having a session in a neighbouring room. They have a place for ritual washing and an arrow sign pointing to Mecca.   The chaplaincy area offers space to the various groups, all the chaplains have good facilities, and prisoners help with running it all.  Mass is celebrated in a large room where the Chaplain has  placed a fine large  picture of the Divine Mercy - a print of the original Lthuanian picture, not the later one from Krakow -  Stations of the Cross, a good cruciifix etc. There is a proper and well-equipped sacristy:  for Mass, an altar is erected and everything is brought out, candles, altar cloths, missal, chalice and paten etc etc...there are also vestments and everything neccessary, all of good quality.  The room is large (needed, because numbers for Mass are substantial here) and doesn't feel prison-like...this is a modern prison and although there is a lot of security and locking and unlocking of doors etc, the place isn't as oppressive as older prisons are, and it's clean.

Religion is a big thing in prison. Catholic prisoners - and others - wear rosaries round their necks (often three or more of them). They like to have a Bible because the Moslem prisoners set great store by talking about the Koran, so Christians want to show that they know all about having a sacred book too. They like prayer cards and pictures, and Novenas and prayers to learn by heart.

The  Moslem presence is strong and confident: it offers a forthright, apparently simple, gutsy sort of solution to the why-am-I-here-everything-is-horrible feeling which must be overwhelming in prison. The Christian message soaks through at a different - deeper? - level. Certainly for some Catholic prisoners, meeting the chaplain is an opportunity to reconnect with a faith abandoned or forgotten, and some speak movingly about what it means to rediscover the Church, to go to confession, to learn or re-learn prayers, to study the Faith.

Not sure if my efforts at helping with the programme are useful...but at least a visitor shows that the world of prison hasn't been forgotten by those on the "outside". And I can keep the prisoners in my prayers and would like to think that some readers of this Blog might now do so too...