Souls Set Free in Jail
Ernie Abrahamsen works so the Light can shine in the darkness
By Rich Reece
For Ernie Abrahamsen, there are far worse things than being in jail. Driving to the New Hanover County Jail, where he has ministered for seven years, he explains. “Prison,” he says, “is a dark place where the light shines. The outside may seem like a place of light, but many of the people there are living in darkness.”
Raised in the Bronx in New York, Abrahamsen arrived in Charlotte, NC, in 1957 and began a career in broadcasting. Growing up in the pre-Vatican II Church, Abrahamsen, like most Catholics of the time, had little experience reading the Bible. In his 40s, however, as a parishioner of St. Mark’s in Wilmington, he volunteered as a lector. “And reading the Bible, I started listening to its message for the first time in my life, instead of just worrying about doing the right and wrong things. And I started trying to live it. I’m not saying that I always succeeded, but I tried.”
That effort led to his prison apostolate. In 2001, at the direction of his pastor, Msgr. Matthew Hendrick, he reported to the New Hanover County Jail and announced his purpose. The warden greeted him enthusiastically. “Where have you Catholics been?” he said. “We’ve been waiting for you!” At the time, Abrahamsen was the only prison minister at the jail. Then, in 2006, a new jail facility opened, and worship space was offered to ministers of various faiths. It was a non-Catholic guard, Abrahamsen recalls, who told him, “Ernie! You can have Mass now!”
“The guard’s girlfriend was Catholic, so he knew about the importance of the Mass to our faith,” Abrahamsen explains. “So last September, Father Marcos Leon celebrated the first Mass ever in the jail. Today we bring the Mass, we bring the sacraments, and we have four people ministering. And the youth in our parish are involved. They design cards for the inmates at Christmas and Easter, and there are plans for the group to actually visit the jail. Jesus visited the houses of outcasts, the kids learn, and we must do the same. Jesus loved everyone, and so must we. So the prison has become almost a mission church of our parish.”
On a typical visit, Abrahamsen wheels a cart full of spiritual reading material (much of it contributed by parishes in the Diocese) into one of the men’s or women’s “pods,” or cell blocks. He also brings his own letter, a bimonthly compilation of Scripture, humor and reflection. “I don’t preach to them in the letter,” he says. “I want them to think. So I tell stories about everyday life and tie them in to the Bible, so they can see how the Bible really mirrors life today. They can ask themselves, ‘Do I want to be a Saul or a Paul? A Cain or an Abel?’”
In the pod, the inmates will gather in a common area to hear Abrahamsen, Bible in hand, tell them that their situation need not be a disaster -- it can be an opportunity. “Prison,” he says, “is a place to stop and listen. Ironically, prison can set you free, while many who are free are living in prisons of their own making – prisons like greed, hatred, addiction.” He asks them to think about the actions that resulted in their incarceration, and the impact those actions have had on their families and loved ones. “That’s usually when the tears come,” he says later.
“When you read the Bible or the other literature I’ve brought,” he tells the prisoners, “think of three words: Listen, Learn, Live. Listen to what the words say, learn what they teach, and live them in your interactions with each other.”
When Abrahamsen is through speaking, he and the prisoners form a circle and join hands for prayer. Afterwards they can sign a prayer list, while Abrahamsen distributes the reading material and speaks with the inmates individually. “I don’t come for the Catholics only,” he says, “although I hope all the inmates will learn more about our faith.” It’s clear from the attention with which they listen and the eagerness with which they approach Abrahamsen that his words have an impact.
“I don’t think everyone looks at prisons the way I do,” Abrahamsen says. “So many of the prisoners I visit are good people who made stupid mistakes. Still because of those mistakes they now have a chance to listen to the Lord --- something they never bothered to do when they were outside.
“I think jail is the place where I sense God the most.”
“I See Miracles”
Jacqueline Bonk knows firsthand that the unborn are not the only ones affected by the tragedy of abortion. She is the Raleigh director of Project Rachel, a ministry that assists women and men who have been wounded by abortion and seek truth and healing. “The profound thing about this ministry,” she says, “is that it crosses so many demographics. We see women and men, ranging in age from 16-75.”
The details of every story are unique. A 45-year old mother, now an “empty nester,” has kept a sad secret for decades and suddenly can’t hold it in anymore. An elderly man becomes a widower; he and his wife had never talked about the abortion they agreed upon as young people, but now the weight is too much to bear alone.
“People involved in an abortion typically feel guilt and shame,” Bonk explains. “The guilt can be healed [by contrition and the Sacrament of Penance] but the shame often remains. Project Rachel helps people deal spiritually and psychologically with their actions in a loving, non-judgmental, hopeful context. The goal is reconciliation – with oneself, God, family and the aborted child.
“The ministry takes perhaps the worst thing that has happened to someone and allows God to turn it into healing.” Clients of Project Rachel go through all the classic stages of grief: denial at first, and eventually acceptance. “We don’t argue or judge,” Bonk says. “Our clients were distanced from God, but through our ministry they discover that God is pursuing them, that He wants to reconnect with them and reconnect them with their child.”
Bonk acknowledges that there are many tears in this process. “But when you’re able to participate in a ministry where you see miracles, it’s not a service, it’s a gift.”
For more information go to www.projectrachelnc.org, or call 919-852-1021, or e-mail projectrachel@nc.rr.com. All contacts are strictly confidential. For the next Retreat Weekend, 6 pm Friday, May 16 – 2 pm Sunday, May 18, register by May 7.
“Our Lives Are Treasure”
Former auto executive Lee Iacocca, in a Forbes magazine article called “How I Flunked Retirement,” wrote, “No one helped me to understand who I am when I don’t have anything to do.” Sr. Adria Connors, CSC, has dedicated herself to facilitating that understanding for those facing the changes associated with growing older.
Sister Adria, along with Sr. Mary Margaret Weber, CSC, ministers by counseling and retreats through Wellsprings of Wisdom in Raleigh. The mission of Wellsprings is “to offer men and women the opportunity to embrace the aging process as a time of positive transformation and expansion of horizons.”
Years ago, as a Director of Catechesis in Florida, Sister Adria lived in a senior housing development, and was struck by the pervasiveness of depression, alcoholism and isolation among her neighbors. She began conducting focus groups in parishes to find out just what seniors were thinking about. Eventually, she developed a program to teach seniors a new paradigm of the aging process, a way to “thrive, not just exist.”
Today, in a variety of retreats, Sister Adria talks about the flawed cultural expectations of aging, expectations which omit ongoing spiritual and human development. She urges retreatants to think about the ways their life experiences have shaped who they are today. “What values, what aspects of my faith, have seen me through?” she asks.
“We have all had incredible lives,” she says. “Our experience is our treasure, given to us by the grace of God.” Mining the meaning of one’s experiences and claiming the values by which one has lived allow one to live, at last, “from the inside – our spiritual core – to the outside. Not, as when we were younger, from the outside – material expectations of ‘success’ – to the inside.”
Once we have claimed that spiritual center, we are called by our Baptism to mission. “We are summoned at every age, and especially as we grow older,” Sister Adria explains, “to proclaim justice, to see the holy in the everyday, and to gift future generations with the treasure of our lives.”
To learn about the programs at Wellsprings of Wisdom, call 919-846-3578 or go to
www.womengather.org.