What does it mean to love and serve? The recent Plymouth Catholic Diocese gathering in Plymouth Pavilions took as its theme a quotation from Pope Benedict’s homily given last year in Westminster Cathedral when, in inviting us to think of all the love we are meant to receive and give, he concluded that we are Made for Love. This Plymouth gathering, presided over by Bishop Christopher, took that thought as its theme, bringing together prayer, music and drama
The keynote address was given by Sr Helen Prejean, an American nun whose book, Dead Man Walking, describes her spiritual journey as she becomes prompted by the Spirit to minister to some of those awaiting execution in American jails.
Love, it seems, comes in very different forms. The Catholic theatre company, Ten Ten, presented a story based upon the bewilderment of a child (Nate) who is evacuated from London’s east end at the beginning of the Second World War. Nate’s mother packs him off to somewhere called the West Country, without any clear explanation as to why and without so much as a tear or a backward glance. Nate spends weeks wondering - why did she do that? What did I do? Only when he absconds from his lodgings and returns to his bombed out home does he discover her reason for sending him away and learns that once his train had begun its journey west, his distressed mother had dissolved in tears.
The day was interspersed with prayer, a brief video presentation and with enthusiastic singing, led by Jo Boyce and the band, CJM. But its highlight was Sr Helen’s address. Born into a wealthy Catholic family in Louisiana, she began to question the reasons for the poverty that she saw around her. This prompted her to begin working with poor people, soon becoming familiar with some of the social problems that many of her neighbours had to contend with. Beginning in a small way, she developed her work and, through the Spirit’s prompting, eventually became involved with working with offenders and prison in-mates. Her address presented something of a critique of some aspects of the American political and criminal justice systems and in particular, some current attitudes towards capital punishment.
It began in a small way. She was asked to write a letter to a prisoner. Not a big task, she thought, so she did. But he wrote back and a relationship developed, along with her ministry. Then, in 1982, she was asked by a Catholic prisoner on Death Row whether she would become his spiritual adviser. They corresponded regularly and eventually, Sr Helen was able to arrange a meeting with him. In that meeting, she shared something of his fear and sense of isolation. But she admitted being later challenged by also having to confront the feelings of his victim’s relatives. Sr Helen was present at the man’s execution in a Louisiana jail. In her words, she wanted to be ‘the face of Christ’ for him at the end.
Sr Helen’s moving address was very warmly received by her audience. Reflecting on how her experiences had grown, she wondered whether there might be a need for a new ‘Theology of the Sneakiness of God’. When she set out, she had begun doing just little things. But down the years she had, perhaps without realising it, been nudged along by the Spirit to attempt more and more challenging things, often doing things in which she did not feel comfortable. In his summing up of the day, Bishop Christopher suggested that in doing small things, we can all do great things; that we are all meant to know Christ and that each one of us has a mission to proclaim the Gospel, as our own response to the prompting of the Spirit.
And so, we in the audience of nearly fifteen hundred from across the Plymouth Diocese, had a day that was in turns, prayerful, thought-provoking and uplifting. Sr Helen published her account of her experiences in a best selling book, Dead Man Walking, which in 1996, was made into an Oscar- nominated film, starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon.
