Thursday, December 16, 2010

Celebrating Christ in prison

Last night was our annual Christmas party for the St. Peter Catholic Community at Rayburn Prison. For me, this is the second time I have attended this event. It is part of our weekly Wednesday night ministry at the prison. I read my post of last year to see how it may have compared to this year. I wanted to see if maybe I felt differently since last night would not be the first time I would be present for this event. While last year was special, last night was no less special.

The lay team that works so hard at Rayburn, Mike, John & Jimmy, prepared beautifully. They brought generous helpings of sandwiches, salad, chicken strips, fruit cake, donuts, egg nog and ice cream. What a treat for our community. We sang Christmas carols and prayed and reminded one another that wherever we are, yes even in prison, we await with great joy the coming of Jesus!

What a joy to have Jimmy back with us from our team, as he as battled illness this year and has not been able to come to Rayburn most of this past year. And what a joy that I brought company; newly ordained Deacon Norbert, who did his clinical training here with me some time back. The men who remembered Norbert were thrilled to see him and congratulated him on his ordination. Deacon Norbert gave the community the final blessing of the night's events. And then we departed singing Silent Night.

For the second year in a row, I left Rayburn on a spiritual high.

Thank God for my ministry!

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