Free to be children of God, Kairos Prison Ministry
Prison ministry opens eyes, changes hearts
For the most isolated members of society, there are few reminders of home.
Cookies are one of them. And like everything else in Kairos Prison Ministry, they are given with love.
Cookies are the calling card for Kairos, a weekend retreat ministry patterned after Cursillo and aimed at the prison population. For the past month, team member Br. Kenn Beetz has solicited home-baked cookies through Roger Bacon High School and St. Clement and St. Francis Seraph parishes. They came through in a big way. Thursday, Kenn loaded 180 dozen bagged cookies into the bed of his Ford truck and drove to Warren Correctional Institution in Lebanon.
The retreat he attended last weekend was geared toward 30 inmates who are respectfully referred to as “residents”. But when Kairos comes around, everyone at the prison gets cookies, including the guards.
Like 29 other members of his team, Kenn spent the past three months preparing for the three-day retreat, an ecumenical course in fostering faith behind bars. Kairos is built around talks, music and sharing at five “table families” that include residents, volunteers and an ordained clergyman. Even for a veteran – this was Kenn’s second retreat – the atmosphere and experience are hard to describe. A pledge of “Hear it here, keep it here” is made by the team to protect participants.
No questions asked
Because of the setting, there are ground rules:
No. 1: “You can never accept anything from them or give them anything, not even a prayer card,” according to Kenn.
No. 2: “No proselytizing or putting down another’s religion.”
You are there, he says, “not to ask questions, but to listen and encourage. A lot of them [residents] have had pretty rough lives. One guy sitting next to me was wrongfully convicted” of a crime and spent 10 years behind bars before UC’s Innocence Project took up his cause. Most were “relatively young”, in their 20s or 30s, but a few were “lifers” with no hope of parole. All would receive a personal note of encouragement from each member of the retreat team.
An assistant table leader, guitarist Kenn was also part of the music ministry – “that to me is the most fulfilling” – and led a guided meditation on “the sufferings of Christ compared to being a prisoner.”
Along with grace, love and mercy, “One of the big themes is forgiveness” of yourself and others, he says. During a “forgiveness ceremony”, residents were encouraged to list and absolve those who had failed or disappointed them – family members, lawyers, even the judge who passed sentence.
Saturday, Kenn and a fellow volunteer distributed cookies in their assigned “pod” or cell block, handing each inmate a bag of two dozen cookies with the greeting, “Cookies from Kairos. God bless you.” Without exception, “Everybody said, ‘Thank you’ or ‘God bless you’ back.”
A journey begins
At Sunday’s emotional closing, to which pre-approved guests were invited, a designated resident from each table spoke on behalf of his group. Kenn found it “very moving; I felt uplifted.” With encouragement from Kairos, some of the alumni will continue their faith journey after the retreat.
“It’s a ministry that’s very fulfilling,” says Kenn, who was reminded of his lucky lot in life. “I personally feel blessed that I was born when I was born and raised when I was raised. ‘There but for the grace of God go I’.”
At the end of the long weekend he climbed into his truck and did something a few of the residents at Warren will never be able to do. He went home.
(To learn more about Kairos Prison Ministry, visit http://kpmifoundation.org/index.php.)
This story was originally published in the SJB NewsNotes, May 8, 2015.
Posted in: Missions, Prayer, Saint Francis
