Somehow, in the moment, it didn’t strike me as being particularly absurd – to be wishing “Happy New Year” to each of the dozen or so men I encountered yesterday at Menard.
In the moment, you could almost forget that each of these men is doing hard time. It could be years, if not decades, before they expect to return to the free world. Indeed, some of the men I saw are sentenced to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
So, how on earth could you expect anyone to find “happiness” in that?
And yet, the light in their eyes…and the smiles on their faces…told a different story. The men were in fact happy for the most part, even though their circumstances were far from perfect.
And sure enough, after we had a chance to spend a little time together, it became clear why joy emanated from them. Each, in his own way, had managed to detect the presence of the Lord in his life. They’d each heard something like a still small voice confirming their belovedness – and they’d responded to that voice by learning to share gifts that at first they didn’t even know they possessed.
One spoke of “compassion.” Another, of “tolerance.” A third, of “the gift of instruction.” Still another, of “song, and the Word.” I noticed how each man was eager to share what little he might have – I could see it in his eyes, and in the smile that crossed his lips in the retelling of the tale.
Some inmates tend to have remarkable spiritual wisdom to share with each other…and with the free world.
Right from the start, I think, God’s holy people have been surprised to discover the bounty of such grace. We hear two such stories this week – how Samuel discovered it as a youth in the temple; and how Andrew and his companion found it in the desert: Once initially drawn to Jesus, they are delighted to be invited to dwell with him – “Come, and you will see.”
What’s more, I saw proof yesterday that this gift, the gift of presence, is one that keeps on giving. I learned that more than a thousand years after those first disciples encountered the peace of Christ near the River Jordan, an Italian hermit named Romuald eagerly embraced it in his monastic cell near Ravenna.
And a thousand years after that, we visitors from the outside caught a glimpse of this same grace at Menard – when one the inmates surprised us by passing out copies of Saint Romuald’s Brief Rule for Hermits. It reads in part,
“Sit in your cell as in paradise. Put the whole world behind you and forget it. Realize above all that you are in God’s presence, and stand there with the attitude of one who stands before the emperor.
“Empty yourself completely and sit waiting, content with the grace of God, like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother brings him.”
There’s more than a little wisdom in Romuald’s rule, it seems to me.
Wisdom…and perhaps a reason to emanate joy, even in the unlikeliest of settings.
The Brief Rule…just a little worse for the wear…
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 