Listening to the Gospel

Most weekends, I say Mass in one of our local prisons. Usually, about 10 to 15 percent of prisoners come to Mass, which is much more than you would expect. They divide roughly into three groups: the first are the ‘cradle Catholics’, the people who are meant to be there and the only ones who ever give any trouble; the second are members of various reformed traditions who didn’t make it out of bed in time for the Anglican service; the third are people who look like they may never have been inside a church in their lives. Maybe the third group come out of curiosity, just to have something to do. They have no idea where they are or how to behave, but they are also the ones who listen the hardest.

I used to wonder why until one of them, Kolo, a Ghanaian, said to me,
‘Father, coming into prison is a pretty clear sign in anyone’s life that Plan A isn’t really working. And if you have a Plan B that might work, they may or may not believe you, they may or may not agree with you, but they’ll always give you a fair hearing.’ That’s the moment when I thought to myself, ‘Yes, that’s why I got up this morning. I knew there was a reason.’ There is something very humbling in knowing that the people you are preaching to may well be hearing the Gospel for the very first time.

The men’s task, no different from our own, is to be the presence of Christ within the place they live and work. I do not think there is any Church that could not learn something from the Catholic Christian communities of the ‘inside’.

Paul O’Reilly SJ, Hope in All Things