Easter Greetings from the president

Easter Greetings from the president

Today on the 7th of April we are between the two Easters, the first was the last weekend and our Orthodox colleagues are in the Holy Week right now.

Throughout the “IPCA World” prison chaplains help inmates celebrate Easter, sometimes two. Curious on their fellow inmates’ traditions or simply because something is happening, that puts a halt in the boredom of prison life.

That is all good, because what we do, both in IPCA as an organization and in our work as chaplains, is to unite within the diversity. As prison chaplains we stand in the middle of this and are to be proud doing the work we do.

Most prisons are filled with inmates from different traditions – both local and national, different Christian traditions and other religious beliefs. But we also need to think of the inmates’ own traditions, that they cannot uphold due to their incarceration.  Now they need to figure out new traditions together with other inmates and the chaplain. Or maybe they have been transferred from one prison to another and the traditions in the last prison are not the same in the new one. Totally natural, but not always easy to cope with.

I have been a full-time prison- and remand centre chaplain for almost 16 years and I can recall many inmates returning to the prison, asking if this and that is going to happen this year as well.  And continued by telling stories about what had happened at the block before and after the Easter service. It has often struck me that it was important times for those persons. Memories that somehow survived a life of drugs and abuse, because it stood out as something natural and at the same time so very different to their own lives.

Easter is – as we very well know – the story of death to life. Not life and death which is the way we are used to think. Jesus defeated death, both metaphorically and literally. There are so many stories of how inmates find comfort in this, relating to the metaphorical part in his or her own lives. They can see how their life was less life, more filled with darkness and when life finally sprung, they could see things within themselves they had no idea existed.

Realizing they are not stupid as they have been told growing up, seeing that somebody choses to put some trust in them, being told they are loved by God and forgiven for what has been. Defeating death within themselves and finding a new chapter in their life.

That is a part of the gospel we need to add within us, because we are the tools for this work of God.

Fellow prison chaplain!

Be proud of your calling and the work you do in the name of Jesus Christ.

Marie-Louise Norozi

President IPCA