pathways, APRIL 09
Sr Loretta Corrigan RSM goes to work every day with an open heart. Without judgment she listens.
People often praise her for bringing God into her workplace but she is adamant that God is already there; that with or without her, the Holy Spirit hovers.
She concedes that sometimes her chaplaincy work at the Goulburn (NSW) maximum security men's jail can be hard work.
"It can be hard to flush (the sense of God) out but it is there and the men have the spirit within them. I laugh with them. I cry with them. I just listen to them."
After a professional life-time in education followed by a Bachelor of Theology from Melbourne, Sr Loretta found herself being offered a job with the Goulburn Correctional Service, through the Archdiocese of Canberra-Goulburn, four years ago.
Although having no experience of prison ministry, she found she felt "quite at peace" and once she became accustomed to the system and the environment, "I felt I could be with those men to walk with them and to support them."
This full-time ministry is carried out in association with an Anglican chaplain. Although the jail is predominantly maximum security, it also has a minimum security and a super-max section. Any group is restricted to no more than 10.
Sr Loretta said that she had always had a yearning to do something with the poor.
"And these men are the poor because society doesn't want them. The attitude often is: Throw away the key." She comes across a lot of men with psychiatric problems and many are from low soci-economic backgrounds and/or dysfunctional families. Lack of education is a huge issue.
Through the neutrality of the prison chaplaincy, the men are given an opportunity to free themselves, inside, she said. Through her listening to the heart, they are able to "clear the mind and process how they are going".
But the giving is not a one-way street.
Among their gift to her is their courage. "Some have been there a long, long time but they can keep smiling."
Often they start questioning their lives. The request for a bible is not uncommon and, she said, the men's reflections on scripture reveal "wonderful insights".
And there are unaccountable incidents, such as that which happened one Easter.
Sr Loretta and her Anglican counterpart were conducting a hand washing ceremony on Holy Thursday when one of the men - a very scruffy fellow with long, unkempt hair - asked for the bowl so he could wash Sister's hands. His face became for her that Easter the face of the suffering Christ - particularly on Good Friday, at the Stations of the
Cross.
"When Christ is carrying the cross, there is nothing to attract you to him and that was that man ... and it was beautiful.
"Later I told him that his face had changed my life and he started to cry. You never know. I don't know what has happened to him."
And then there is the prison staff - from the woman whose daughter was murdered, to the father whose child was starting school and needed a quick refresher on the basics, to the wayward son or daughter.
From a "doer" Sr Loretta is learning to "be".
At 64, she feels that she has "come home".
"I still don't really know what that means but I feel very comfortable with what I am doing."
text and photo: Penny Edman
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