By Father Charles Fuld
On the day before Christmas last year, Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica “to invite everyone to an intense experience of the love of God that awakens in hearts the sure hope of salvation in Christ.”
Two days later, he opened another Holy Door in the chapel of Rebbibia, Rome’s largest prison, as a sign to the inmates that there is hope in the world, even for them, prisoners for life or less. Yes, even there they could find love and understanding and even forgiveness. There are photographs published worldwide of Pope Francis washing and kissing the feet of prisoners, as he did to mark the Lord’s Supper earlier that year, also at a prison.
I have never spent time in prisons, but I have heard thousands of confessions in my 39 years as a priest. I have heard confessions from countless men and women who left the Church in the conviction that they had messed up so badly that they could not possibly be forgiven by God or His Church.
Just as I absolved them in God’s name, how many of them wondered if they were truly forgiven and able to reclaim the life of goodness to which God called them when they were first received in His Church?
As a priest, I have to tell you, I get the greatest joy in seeing them back in our midst Sunday after Sunday thereafter.
Yes, we are our worst enemies at times. And we often measure God’s love by our own modest standards.
Think of the effect these people have on their family members when they finally relent and go to confession.
The same may be said of the example they provide for their fellow “jailmates” as they launch a new life of hope, trusting our loving God. The commonality could well be expressed as, “Yes, I have sinned, but I have been given a new pathway to life, a life full of hope for me, too.”
What gives me hope as a priest?
That I have been able to help God with His work of helping my fellow human beings become people of hope — and that, when my time of judgment comes, my efforts will be remembered, as will all the prayers I have offered for them throughout these many years.
Father Charles Fuld is editor emeritus of The Southern Cross.
