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Thank you for your prayers

November 22, 2008, 10:11 pm
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I want to take a moment to extend thanks to the members of the DotCommonweal community who agreed to pray for the candidates at the Kairos retreat that was held over the weekend of November 7-10.

The retreat was held in the prison gymnasium, a very large (and also very drab) place.  Over the course of the weekend, we hung paper hands, the prayer scroll with your names on it, and other artwork and posters made by people and groups around the world who were praying for the men.  The men were amazed that so many people who did not even know them would care enough to take the time to pray for them.

One man–a man who will likely never leave the prison–said that the weekend had made him realize that he had cut himself off from other people.  “There was a poet who said ‘no man is an island’ and that is what I had become.  I don’t think we’re supposed to be islands.”

If you want to read a few more comments from the candidates, click here.

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Comments

  1. Frances Rossi 11/22/2008 - 10:34 pm  subscriber

    It certainly rings to the Gospel I heard as I participated in our Vigil liturgy a few hours ago.

    Another thing that struck me was the comment from the man who felt like he had cut himself off. In my sacraments class we spent a lot of time discussing reconciliation and how misunderstood it is as a sacrament… When one re-frames it in the context of coming back into the community, it is a very different thing indeed.

    Thank you for doing what you do and for giving us a chance to participate with you.

  2. gene palumbo 11/23/2008 - 2:24 am

    Peter:

    I went to the website you offered us, to read more comments from the men who participated in the retreat. When I read this one

    I was a member of First Ministry Baptist Church and then I lost sight of God. There is a story of a young man who leaves home and does not call or communicate with his family. He forgets where he lives, but remembers that his home is next to a cemetery with a huge cross. He goes to the town and asks where the cemetery and cross are located and when he finds it he finds home. I have found my cross.

    I was reminded of this part of Steve Privett’s talk at his inauguration as president of the University of San Francisco:

    Anne Lamott, in her autobiographical work Traveling Mercies, relates the story of her best friend who got lost one day when she was only 7 years old. Anne writes:

    “The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big town where they lived but she couldn’t find a single landmark. She was very frightened. Finally a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the passenger seat of his car and they drove around until she finally saw her church. She pointed it out to the policeman, and then she told him very firmly, ‘you could let me out now. That is my church, and I can always find my way home from there.’”

    This church in which we are assembled, with its twin spires and spacious dome, dominates the local landscape and, for many, symbolizes the University of San Francisco. For the lost child in the story, the church was not “home” but the place from which she could always find her way home. For me, church is a metaphor for all those “landmarks” — wise and compassionate mentors; challenging human experiences; a revealing book or movie; an inspiring talk or a touching story — all those things that point our lives in the right direction and send us home.

    Thanks for your work as a member of the retreat team.

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