San Quentin Prison Ministry: A Life-Giving Reward

Leaving a beloved ministry after many years is always hard. For me, the most painful was in 2015 as I left 16 years of volunteering in music  ministry at the Catholic Chapel at San Quentin State Prison, located just north of San Francisco, to serve the BVM community in Dubuque, Iowa.

A Chance Encounter
How did this begin? With a serendipitous encounter with Rufino Zaragoza, OFM, musician and composer, whom I met at a conference at UCLA  in summer 1999. He was happy to learn I did music ministry in a parish and was free and willing to assist at San Quentin on Sundays.

After that first visit in September 1999, I was hooked! I quickly realized I could get clearance, not just for me, but for my guitar! I began working regularly with the group of men who helped play and sing for the two Sunday services.

A Surprising Discovery
What I discovered was that most of the men serving time in San Quentin and coming to Sunday Mass in the Catholic chapel were just like  “ordinary” folks one would meet in any parish—varied ages and backgrounds, with different abilities and interests. They were all trying to make the best of their  current situation.

People in prison are grateful for “outside visitors” to share worship and fellowship. But their deeper question was really, “Will you come back?” Once they recognized that I was with them “for the long haul,” I found them to be more willing to share conversation and prayer—about life,  God, women in the church, family, their schooling, and, even, in rare instances, what brought them to prison.

I was always respected as a woman and as a religious. I was just as safe there as I could be in any other setting. I was continually impressed by  how hopeful and positive most of the men were, particularly when I was aware of some of the uglier details of the dysfunctional prison system  that deliberately stripped them of their dignity and personhood.

Many outside “free people” came regularly to worship with us in the chapel on Sundays. Good homilies, good music, good fellowship, and a  tangible sense of encountering God along with the inmates drew many there.

A Teaching Opportunity
Ministerially, I brought my years of experience in liturgical music. I taught the inmates to read and pray with the scriptures of the Sunday and  to listen with the heart. I trained them how to select from among their ever-growing repertoire of music what would assist the congregation to  be touched and to enter into prayerful worship.

A wide variety of music was able to serve many people . . . and in several different languages. I often told them any outside parish would give  anything to have such a dedicated and competent choir as they had become.

A God-Ordained Connection
Over these years, a number of men became my good friends, and I wrote a variety of letters of support on their behalf as they approached a  parole board hearing. After many hearings, some were “deemed suitable” and left the prison. Many are now completely off parole. Dwight, who played bass guitar and drums in the chapel choir, was the acknowledged leader of the choir both before and after I left. I corresponded with him for five years until his release in June 2020 after 18 years in prison. We have stayed in touch and even now share monthly Zoom calls.

The BVM Congregation assisted him with two financial grants as he started out. I arranged a Zoom meeting with nearly 20 BVMs who knew of  our support for him and his amazing “release story” in the midst of COVID-19. It allowed them to meet a “returned citizen,” to hear his story of slow transformation, and to share one man’s journey.

God really arranged how this ministry happened. I “moved out of my comfort zone” to find a kinship with men whose lives were not so very different from my own . . . but for some tragic situations and poor decisions. My housemate Maureen (Matteo) O’Brien, BVM regularly said,  “You come home happy every Sunday.” And that was so true.

This was a ministry I could not have imagined as I began my teaching career as a young religious . . . and yet I found it so life-giving. Those still  incarcerated and those now released remain in my heart.

This story was featured in:

SUMMER 2023: Home: Where Love Resides

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