SI math teacher Carole Quattrin delivered this moving talk today at the prayer service.
Also, students saw this video that SITV premiered last year:
The Grace to Hold Each Person in Deep Reverence
By Carol Quattrin
I want to start by thanking the liturgy group for the music that they're inviting us to share in today. Music in worship is where this story starts. When I was in college, I played the flute at mass at the small Newman Center Catholic campus ministry at San Francisco State. The Archdiocese invited our music group to play monthly at the Catholic Chapel at San Quentin Prison, and then visit with the inmates afterward. The prison chapel typically had mass without music if we weren't there. As long as I can remember, music has deepened my worship experience more than any other aspect of the liturgy. So, perhaps naïvely, I said yes... and continued to be part of that monthly music group for several years, even after I graduated.
I learned a lot about this large but well-hidden part of our society, and saw the tragedy of young lives changed forever. I also was able to challenge myself to have cura personalis for those inmates. How can people care deeply for others who are guilty of violent crimes? Because although it is entirely appropriate for convicted felons to be separated from society for a period of time, they are still human beings, created in the image of God, just like you and I are. We are called to respect, to hold in reverence, that sacred essential quality in each person. We are called to desire the grace to hold each person in deep reverence. Through conversations and playing music with them, I came to know the inmates as individuals, not just statistics from the California Department of Corrections.
A few of the inmates I visited with wanted to write to me (you know, actual letters with stamps). It was either because it was the '80s and I was super hot like Madonna... or it was because young men in prison don't get to see very many young women. My parents were pretty worried that an inmate might be released and come to our house, but the Archdiocese arranged for inmates to write to visitors through their offices, so I felt safe. Of the dozens of inmates I met in those years, one has stayed my friend for over three decades.
Roberto was 24 when I met him. He was sentenced to 17 years to life for a 2nd degree murder conviction when he was with a friend who killed a man in an L.A. gang bar fight. For several reasons, (not the least of which was lack of sufficient resources for legal assistance), he served 34 years. At first, he was just one among the inmates who attended the Catholic Mass, but time after time, I ended up talking and listening to him more than with the others. He told me about his seven sisters, another sister who did not survive childhood, his mother, and his father, who died a few years into Roberto's sentence. They had all emigrated from Guatemala, walking over the border in Calexico in the '70s. Some of his sisters later became U.S. citizens. I arranged to meet some of his sisters once when I was in Southern California.
After a few years, he was transferred to California State Prison, Solano, in Vacaville. He asked me if I would come visit him there. Little by little, we had learned to trust each other, so I was ready to do that.
We continued to write to each other, and I usually visited him once a year, mostly after he moved to Soledad prison near Salinas. In the visiting room, I had the privilege of meeting more sisters, other relatives and his mother. He says he had a heart of stone when he was convicted, yet I believe God saw more. I saw him make every effort over the years to maintain healthy relationships with his family, to go to self-help groups offered in the system, and I saw his disappointments after meeting with the Board of Prison Terms. He in turn heard about my teaching job, my marriage and family, and my vacations. We grew to have a true friendship in which we both gave without expecting anything in return.
Over the years, I had friends that asked me, "Why visit criminals? What about their victims? Why not visit the elderly in nursing homes?" I responded that though no one of us can do everything, as Christians, yes we should as a community also visit the elderly, support victims, care for the sick and give to the poor. We try to live out the gospel imperative individually and collectively. I focused on prison ministry for a time, and you may focus on service to the poor. But we have in common that we have a reverence for our brothers and sisters in Christ. As we heard in the reading from Isaiah this morning, God calls each of us by name.
The grace to hold each person in deep reverence is a gift freely given by God, to help us accomplish that. But what if there is someone for whom you don't feel that grace? Maybe there is someone you think doesn't like you. Or maybe difficulties like a parent's divorce and remarriage make it hard for you to have deep reverence for someone. I invite you to pray for that desire, to try to get to know the people you feel separated from, and to look for others who can be an example to you.
I saw examples of that grace among the visiting families of inmates: They regularly make sacrifices of their time and money to help prisoners do their time and get ready for release back into society. They bear long drives to the prison, the clanging gates locking the visitors in, and the protective eye of the guards that can also feel invasive. In spite of the very real and accepted racial divide among inmates that would shock most of us on the outside, their families help each other out across those racial divisions in the visitor lines and processing. A complete stranger even gave me money once in line when she saw that I was inexperienced and didn't know that buying snacks for the inmate you're visiting is a must.
I saw that grace of reverence in Father Jack O'Neill, the first San Quentin chaplain I met. He had a wonderful rapport with the inmates, and I found out years later that he is Mr. DeBenedetti's cousin.
I saw that grace of reverence in some men from my own parish who participate in a retreat that they offer inmates at San Quentin. That retreat is called... Kairos (!), and those men dedicate hours and hours to bring inside those bars the message that God calls each of us by name.
I saw that grace when Roberto was continually forgiving about how long I took to answer his letters, or when I arrived to visit without letting him know ahead of time, and he had to hurry back from a prison yard soccer game to the visiting room. I saw that grace when he told me about speaking from the bottom of his heart to a group of troubled youth who visited the prison, telling them that they need to be careful who they associate with. He wants young people to know that you can have fun anywhere – it doesn't have to involve drinking or drugs. He doesn't want to see others go through the same things he went through.
As I mentioned, ministry is a community endeavor, a network of grace connecting to more grace. My husband, Dr. Quattrin, and our daughter, Joanna, forged ahead through discomfort with the idea of entering a prison, and came with me to meet Roberto shortly before he was released last year. Later when we were invited to come see him in Guatemala, we agreed that Joanna and I would go, and Dr. Quattrin would stay home and take care of all of my cats. Por eso, la primavera pasada, yo traté de aprender español en la clase de Señora Bricker. Muchas gracias a ella y a sus estudiantes.
When we got to Guatemala, Roberto kept saying, "Pinch me. I can't believe you are really here." We had an awesome week seeing the sights of Guatemala, including the 1700-yr-old Mayan temples of Tikal, and of course my daughter and I met more sisters, nieces and friends. When Roberto and I met in 1983, neither of us could have imagined that our friendship would bring us to this point.
Undoubtedly, some of you sitting here today have relatives or friends who are incarcerated. Maybe it's an aunt or cousin; maybe it's a brother or father. Maybe you feel blessed with the grace to hold that person in reverence, or maybe right now you need to rely on other people in the Body of Christ to do it for you. You can still pray for the desire for that grace. I invite you to come talk to me if you'd like to.
I will close with a passage from the Gospel of Matthew, which I hope is familiar to all of you.
Matthew 25:34-40
34 "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance.... 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37 "Then [they] will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40 "The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'