Holy Week stories resonate with prisoners and those who minister to them
A piece of wood atop a bathtub forms the altar for Sunday worship services at the Sing Sing men’s maximum-security prison in Ossining, New York. But on Easter, the wood is removed and the bathtub becomes a font where prisoners — typically identified only by number — are called by name and baptized by immersion.
“It was very powerful for me to see these men who have done terrible things in their lives … and all of a sudden they want to be born again,” recalled the Rev. Canon Petero Sabune, who baptized more than 100 inmates during seven years as Protestant chaplain there. In May, Sabune became Africa partnership officer for the Episcopal Church.
Holy Week’s Gospel accounts of Jesus’ arrest, imprisonment, trial and execution and the Easter triumph of his resurrection resonate with inmates who can relate the stories to their own experiences, say Episcopal prison ministers. About 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States according to the Justice Department.
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