From His Cell
To Theirs
b e n e d i c t i n e o b l at e s i n p r i s o n b y R eb eka h F i re s t i n e
For the most part, as men and women, we end up in prison by serving ourselves, and perhaps, our addictions. Regardless of what they were, being only focused on ‘me’ cost us our freedom along with everything else in our lives. That’s the bad news. The good news is, God is giving us special opportunity—time to lead a prayer life that will completely alter your entire being. - O b l at i o n M a n u a l f o r P r i s o n e r s From the confines of the monastery, reaching out all across the country, one monk is doing what he can to bring the Good News of the Gospel to men and women living on America’s periphery: the federal penitentiary system. Fr. Matthew Habiger has taken the reigns of the Abbey’s Prison Oblate program – an effort to spread the love of Christ to the incarcerated. “It is a challenge and I don’t have the benefit of meeting prisoners face-to-face. But it is heart-to-heart. You can imagine how correspondence goes. These men and women have to articulate what’s on their minds and hearts and handwrite it.” Listening through reading their letters has become the center of Fr. Matthew’s apostolate. With nearly twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners behind American bars, he has his work cut out for him. The history of this Oblate program is rich—filled with love and life where it seemed to be absent. Fr. Louis Kirby, OSB, as a monk of Holy Cross Abbey in Cañon City, Colorado, developed a special program for the prisoners in his diocese of Pueblo. Within a 20 mile radius of Cañon City, there are 11 prisons where monks of Holy Cross were involved in prison ministry. By taking the precepts of Benedictine Monasticism and the call of Oblates to live in the world, Fr. Louis designed a program specifically for incarcerated men and women to reclaim their dignity and to experience God’s love in the midst of serving a prison sentence. Holy Cross Abbey was closed in 2004, and Fr. Louis transferred his vow of stability to St. Benedict’s Abbey where he continued his ministry until his passing in 2013. 20
Kansas Monks
“After Fr. Louis died, the whole program fell into limbo. Two of the Oblates from Delta, Colorado, wrote me—I don’t know how they got my name,” Fr. Matthew said with a smirk, a look that conveyed total trust in God’s Providence. “They asked if there were any way to revive this program because it had done so much good in the past.” His response bore the true markings of a father, “How do you say no to that?” Fr. Matthew took the idea to heart, desiring to help in any way he could. One thing led to another and today he receives nearly 50 handwritten letters each week, all from Oblates in prisons across the country. “By its very nature, the priesthood is geared to bringing other people closer to God, but I never thought I’d be involved in this work.” He’d had his share of visiting jails, prisons and the Federal Penetentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, but his experience and knowledge of a life behind bars was limited. “Before this work I was kind of a babe in the woods! It takes time to get to know a system, but people are people. “Wherever the need is, wherever the interest is and the desire to discover their faith is, that’s where we have to respond.” But the life of an Oblate in prison is vastly disparate from the life of a monk of St. Benedict’s Abbey. Or is it? When tackling how the prisoner (or a monk for that matter) ought to spend his time in his cell, Fr. Matthew offered a simple, but provoking thought, “If a man can discern that he’s to use his time well, he can make a retreat out of his cell.” With the help of Fr. Matthew and the whole community of Oblates, led by the Holy
