Doing my apostolate in the Quezon City Jail helps me to understand more the missionary life. While I am still struggling with the Tagalog Language, I wonder how I can help the prisoners when I have limited time to stay with them. Imagine how challenging could be this experience!
During this time, I realize that I am learning more than what I can offer to them. This experience makes me not only to reflect about human dignity and suffering but also to question how effective my service is. I can say that this apostolate is for me an instrument to experience the love of God in these persons. Every Sunday, whenever I visit the prisoners, I see at the entrance gate many women and children who are waiting to visit and give food to their relatives who are in Jail. However, among the prisoners, some of them are abandoned by their families that never pay visit to them. This, creates in them the fear of reintegration in the society once they are released. That is why some prisoners prefer to remain in jail than to go back to their places of origin. Some of their questions can reveal their inner struggle when they are about to regain their freedom. Will my family take me back? Will the community accept me? Will the people trust me and give me an opportunity to work? Do I still have a future, etc?
Furthermore, during the Eucharistic celebration, everybody can realize their deep sense of reverence. During the mass especially at the moment of the penitential acts, glory, homily, and our father, I experience with them a moment of grace with sincere heart asking forgiveness by recognizing the presence of God in their lives. These expressions are source of hope, faith, and trust in God. During the homily, Fr. Tony Moreno, S.J. gives them message of hope which make them feel that they are important and still loved as people of God. The preaching helps them to feel that they still have human dignity in spite of living in bad conditions (lack of enough food, water, and the space for sleeping.)
In my service, brother Sutatno and I help the priest to distribute the communion, and sometimes we have the opportunity to attend Bible sharing, and talk to some and make them feel that there is hope even if sometimes they do not experience it. This time of being with them is for me a providential moment to experience God’s love through them.
I often tell them that “the experience of God helps us to grow even if we feel that we are not worthy to approach God.” In this sense, I can notice that this encounter with God helps them to rebuild their lives and regain hope.
Finally, in my weekly sharing of God’s love with the prisoners, I can say that this apostolate is an opportunity to experience the manifestation of God in these people. Therefore, our encounter with God should be an opportunity of sharing God’s unconditional love with others by testifying how God is waiting for us and ready to welcome us back like the story of the prodigal son.
