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| Home||Benedictine Sisters of Erie||Catalogue||Joan in the News||Contact Benetvision Fund for Prisoners||Retreats||About Benetvision||Ideas in Passing Benetvision • 355 East Ninth Street • Erie, PA 16503-1107 • Phone 814-459-5994 benetvision@benetvision.org • Fax 814-459-8066 Copyrighted © 2007 Benedictine Sisters of Erie, PA |
Dear Friends,
Here’s what’s going on that you need to know about: This year, with the publication of my book The Monastery of the Heart, a
contemporary interpretation of the 6th century Rule of Benedict, whole new possibilities exist for the development of small
monastic groups among prisoners.
And it’s important for you to know about it because it’s all about you. If it succeeds, it will be because of you. How can I be so sure?
Because I get the proof of it every day.
How I wish that you could read my mail. There is no way on earth that I can begin to explain to you how important you have become
to so many.
I don’t begin to have the words to describe the feelings of hope I hear from the prisoners because of the spiritual materials you
provide for them.
I don’t know how to convey the sense of new found dignity that comes from those whose human dignity has been reduced to
nothing when someone like you thinks enough of them to send them beauty.
There are no words of mine ringing enough to plumb the quality of the spirituality I hear in letters from prisoners who have begun to
rely on you for the gentle and realistic discussions of the different kind of life your gifts of spirit bring to them.
You know what I’m trying to say. You know what I’ve come again to ask. You and I have started something important together. Please
don’t stop supporting this program. Please help us keep it going. For so many, it’s all they have.
The fact of the matter is that they write the letters to me but it’s really you that all these prisoners, thousands of them, are trying
to reach. They know, of course, that the sisters and I and the staff are responsible for the organization of the Fund for Prisoners
and the distribution of the materials. But they know, as I do, that you are really the people who are making it possible, making it
real, making it happen.
Without your help, 3,800 prisoners will not receive The Monastic Way next month. They also know that the 90 chaplains who lead
them through these discussion groups will find themselves with little or nothing around which they can develop spirituality programs.
And all of that is only half of what is happening now.
By using The Monastery of the Heart as its basic formation program for lay people and by following the prayer experiences, lectio,
and community exercises provided there, small monastic communities can be formed in prison populations. By using the website
(monasteriesoftheheart.org), prison chaplains will have at their disposal all the materials that people across the country are now
using to form their own monasteries of the heart in their own communities and neighborhoods.
We already have letters being written and plans made to introduce the concepts of stability, community, prayer, silence,
stewardship and listening into the lives of prisoners for whom the thought of meaningless routine, uncomfortable schedules, and
obedience could be transformed into sacred awareness, silence, and the developmental effect of stability of place on self-knowledge
and interior development.
More than that, this program does what we all say we want to have happen in the penal system. It presents another way to live,
another reason to be alive, another kind of human heart to strive for at a time when the people who need those things are most
demoralized, most depressed, most alienated from society.
I am grateful for your commitment and generosity to the Joan Chittister Fund for Prisoners. It is both a reminder and a witness.
It demonstrates to the prisoners and to the world that being Christian means that like Jesus, we don’t give up on anybody.
It provides for all of us a real way of giving back in gratitude to God for all the second chances we ourselves have been given in life.
It fulfills that most unlikely of all the Corporal Works of Mercy in which we were trained: to visit the prisoner. And maybe most of all,
it makes one of the Beatitudes real in our own lives. The one that says: Blessed are the merciful–for they shall receive mercy.
Please give what you can. With great gratitude for all you’ve already done for the nameless, the invisible, the poorest of the poor.
Here’s what’s going on that you need to know about: This year, with the publication of my book The Monastery of the Heart, a
contemporary interpretation of the 6th century Rule of Benedict, whole new possibilities exist for the development of small
monastic groups among prisoners.
And it’s important for you to know about it because it’s all about you. If it succeeds, it will be because of you. How can I be so sure?
Because I get the proof of it every day.
How I wish that you could read my mail. There is no way on earth that I can begin to explain to you how important you have become
to so many.
I don’t begin to have the words to describe the feelings of hope I hear from the prisoners because of the spiritual materials you
provide for them.
I don’t know how to convey the sense of new found dignity that comes from those whose human dignity has been reduced to
nothing when someone like you thinks enough of them to send them beauty.
There are no words of mine ringing enough to plumb the quality of the spirituality I hear in letters from prisoners who have begun to
rely on you for the gentle and realistic discussions of the different kind of life your gifts of spirit bring to them.
You know what I’m trying to say. You know what I’ve come again to ask. You and I have started something important together. Please
don’t stop supporting this program. Please help us keep it going. For so many, it’s all they have.
The fact of the matter is that they write the letters to me but it’s really you that all these prisoners, thousands of them, are trying
to reach. They know, of course, that the sisters and I and the staff are responsible for the organization of the Fund for Prisoners
and the distribution of the materials. But they know, as I do, that you are really the people who are making it possible, making it
real, making it happen.
Without your help, 3,800 prisoners will not receive The Monastic Way next month. They also know that the 90 chaplains who lead
them through these discussion groups will find themselves with little or nothing around which they can develop spirituality programs.
And all of that is only half of what is happening now.
By using The Monastery of the Heart as its basic formation program for lay people and by following the prayer experiences, lectio,
and community exercises provided there, small monastic communities can be formed in prison populations. By using the website
(monasteriesoftheheart.org), prison chaplains will have at their disposal all the materials that people across the country are now
using to form their own monasteries of the heart in their own communities and neighborhoods.
We already have letters being written and plans made to introduce the concepts of stability, community, prayer, silence,
stewardship and listening into the lives of prisoners for whom the thought of meaningless routine, uncomfortable schedules, and
obedience could be transformed into sacred awareness, silence, and the developmental effect of stability of place on self-knowledge
and interior development.
More than that, this program does what we all say we want to have happen in the penal system. It presents another way to live,
another reason to be alive, another kind of human heart to strive for at a time when the people who need those things are most
demoralized, most depressed, most alienated from society.
I am grateful for your commitment and generosity to the Joan Chittister Fund for Prisoners. It is both a reminder and a witness.
It demonstrates to the prisoners and to the world that being Christian means that like Jesus, we don’t give up on anybody.
It provides for all of us a real way of giving back in gratitude to God for all the second chances we ourselves have been given in life.
It fulfills that most unlikely of all the Corporal Works of Mercy in which we were trained: to visit the prisoner. And maybe most of all,
it makes one of the Beatitudes real in our own lives. The one that says: Blessed are the merciful–for they shall receive mercy.
Please give what you can. With great gratitude for all you’ve already done for the nameless, the invisible, the poorest of the poor.
For a donation of
only $12.00 we will
send a one-year
subscription to The
Monastic Way to a
prisoner.
CLICK HERE
only $12.00 we will
send a one-year
subscription to The
Monastic Way to a
prisoner.
CLICK HERE
| Imagine what could happen to the loud, harsh, inhuman environment of a prison if prisoners and their chaplains took the monastic life seriously. |