Gratitude Lives and Inspires!
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April 3, 2024I find that in our world today, discourse is often angry, judgmental, rude and ignorant in many ways. However, recently, we Redemptorists at St. Teresa’s had an experience, where the virtue of gratitude rose above the negative din that fills our times.
Let me give a little context. For the past number of years, Gerry Phelan, the lay Roman Catholic Chaplain at the largest provincial prison in Newfoundland - called “His Majesty’s Penitentiary” or HMP for short, – located in St. John’s, offers a beautiful Christmas project for the inmates. He obtains a supply of recordable Christmas stories, where someone can read the story out loud and their voice is recorded in the book itself.
The chaplain told me that many inmates participate in this program so that their children can receive a book at Christmas and hear ‘daddy’ read them a Christmas story. The chaplain then sends the book to the inmate’s children, so they can hear their father’s voice read a Christmas story on Christmas Eve.
It is a deeply touching program of enormous pastoral significance, that has a positive affect not only on the family that receives the book, but on the inmate who partakes in the project. The chaplain told me that more than one inmate sits in his office and cries telling him how much this means to them.
As you can imagine, such a program has costs. The RC Chaplain’s budget is small, too small to fund this program. Several years ago, the Redemptorist community at St. Teresa’s decided to fund this program in its entirely at a cost of $500.00. 2023 was our third year helping to make this good program happen. Several weeks ago, I was at the prison to hear the confession of an inmate.
While waiting for the inmate to arrive in the Chaplain’s office, the Chaplain spoke to me about one inmate who wanted to thank those who made this program possible by making a gift. Gerry then showed me the gift; a basket made from 450 wooden forks (the kind inmates use to eat their meals) and is lined with a piece of bed sheet (the kind used on the bunks in the inmates’ cells).
The basket is held together by a type of glue the inmate made by mixing together toothpaste and powdered milk. Later in the week, the Chaplain dropped it off to us at the rectory. We as a community were and still are deeply moved by this gesture of gratitude! We have placed it on the sideboard in our dining room. We wanted to share with you the words of the Chaplain, who is speaking on behalf of the inmate who wanted to offer his thanks. Included are some pictures of this gift of gratitude. We hope it warms your heart, as it did ours:
“He had recorded a Christmas book for his five-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter. His story stands out because their mom had agreed that his present fiancé deliver the book to the children. I remember thinking what a blessing it must be to have that kind of peace and cooperation in what most would consider a broken family.
The family is not broken. The book allowed the dad to be in his children's home that Christmas morning. "At Christmas and Always I Love You" was likely the Hallmark title, but what matters is the book spelled L-O-V-E.
And so, a few months later, the man asks to see the Catholic chaplain again, and walks in carrying this huge basket. It is empty, but full of thanks, and memories and love. It is made of 450 wooden forks, the kind the inmates use to eat their food. And glued together with toothpaste and powdered milk. The skilled craftsman carried the gift to me, escorted by a corrections officer who was also suitably impressed by the handiwork.
Picture the thoughts that ran through his mind over the hours that he put this together, fork after fork, piece after piece; perhaps glances of what could have been if his Christmas had been outside and not in the dungeon called prison. How grateful he must feel to have used his 'time' to mold something so symbolic for people he considered so special.
There were not a lot of words, just please express my thanks to those responsible for such a wonderful gift for my family. And it does. More than words can say.
"Humbling. From the heart.” – Gerry Phelan, RC Chaplain , HMP
