My Experience With The Diocese of San Jose’s Restorative Justice Effort I joined our Diocese’s volunteer group for Restorative Justice over a year ago. We go to our local jails and either hold Bible Study or hold distribution of Holy Communion and a celebration of the Word. I was led into this work after being summoned to jury duty and subsequently thinking about the men, women and children in our jails. My final push came after reading Pope Francis’ call to go out to the edges of our community.
So I called our Diocese and was put through to Sister Maryann Cantlon. Sister Maryann leads, trains, and coordinates all the volunteers in our Diocese in this Restorative Justice work. She is an incredible educator, coach, and manager. She was able to gently encourage the timid ones of us to progress from “this is WAY beyond me” to looking forward to each opportunity we have to serve. She herself goes to visit our jails daily, and work with the Sheriff Office to smooth our work.
By the way, she will be the Spirituality Tuesday speaker on April 24th at St Albert the Great. I do hope you’ll come to listen to her work and her experience.
After training from Sister Maryann, and getting FBI clearance, we “newbies” started with several visits accompanying an experienced volunteer, and then we started going by ourselves. The first few times on my own, I was very nervous. Not for my safety. The service takes place in rooms that are all glass for the upper half, so highly visible to the Correctional Officers, who in any case make sure that the visit only starts when everything and everyone are in their proper place. No, I was nervous because I did not know what I could say to a group of strangers. I did not know what would resonate, what would bore. But after a few monthly visits, my stage fright disappeared. Firstly, I am bringing to the men the greatest treasure there is, the consecrated Host. I also bring in the Readings from the Sunday Mass. These I photocopy so that the men who can easily read English can take turns being Lectors, and those who cannot may follow more easily with the written word. As a Lector myself, I know how it focuses our thoughts to be reading the scripture aloud to the congregation. Finally, I realized that I just needed to be there as a means to provide the men this time, this space, to pray with and for each other. Often, the prayers the men offer up include asking God to help a cell mate with his court appearance, or for someone about to be released to go straight this time, or for a younger brother to not fall in to bad influence.
The need is great, indeed, so I’m deeply glad to have the opportunity to serve, as one of more than a hundred volunteers in our diocese.
Hong-Ha Vuong (Frei)
Please contact me if you have any questions.
[email protected]