Chaplaincy at Ford Prison
By Dominic Dring
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:40
My concern for the ‘least of these’ goes back a long way. Growing up in a strong, loving and socially active Catholic family gave me an insight into the reality of poverty and social justice / injustice. I remember the work that priests in our Diocese had been doing in Peru (including at a later time my own brother, Fr Kevin Dring). My father was a criminal lawyer and so we grew up immersed in the reality that
‘swollen’!) my heart for those who, like the Prodigal Son (Luke
there were those who have and those
15:11-32), get lost and find themselves on their face. Fortunately for
who have not, there were victims and
me I had parents, who like the Father in the story, were desperate to
offenders.
have me home. Many of us can identify a moment or an event when
Through my late teens, growing up in
we could say we really came to know God. My ‘home coming’ at that
Brighton, I become exposed to
time was such a moment for me. I came to know God in the tender,
homelessness and drug and alcohol
unconditionally loving and forgiving embrace of the parent, my
abuse. I had my own difficulties at this
parents.
time which, in hindsight, only served to inflame (‘on fire’ rather than
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