Watching for the Light
On this rainy morning as I debated whether to stay close to home or venture out to one of the year’s most beautiful church services, I did my morning email scan. One inbox entry was a complete surprise – a mystery, really. I can’t say how it landed on my screen. In a time of dismal bumbling and criminal negligence within the Catholic Church, I found this story a witness to the other stories that exist in all times and places alongside the abuse and arrogance of power.
A perfect Advent story, and so, in lieu of one of my own today, I share it with you.
Vatican Releases 2018 Christmas Stamps
Designed by Inmate of Opera Prison in Milan
Those who are in prison are often abandoned and given less consideration, but they have always been close to the heart of Pope Francis who has spoken numerous times about their situation. And this year on inmate has received the opportunity to literally makes his mark on Christmas.
The theme of prison inmates is important also for the Philatelic Office of Vatican City, especially in recent years, through its participation in philatelic initiatives taking place at the Opera prison in Milan, Italy. A participant in that initiative, inmate Marcello D’Agata, designed this year’s series of Vatican commemorative postage stamps for Christmas.
“The inmates are serving a sentence, a sentence for a mistake they have made,” Pope Francis said. “But let us not forget that for punishment to be fruitful there must be a horizon of hope; otherwise it remains closed in on itself and is simply an instrument of torture; it is not fruitful. Punishment with hope, so it is fruitful.”
During his homily for Midnight Mass last December 24, Pope Francis spoke again about them: “In the Child of Bethlehem, God comes to meet us and make us active sharers in the life around us. He offers himself to us so that we can take him into our arms, lift him and embrace him. So that in him we will not be afraid to take into our arms, raise up and embrace the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned (cf. Mt 25:35-36)”.
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