Our Holy Week Retreat for Beyond These Stone Walls

Isenheim Altarpiece (1512-16), Matthias Grunewald in the Musee Unterlinden, Collmar, France

Each Holy Week since 2010 Fr Gordon MacRae has composed a special post based on the Scriptural events of the Way of the Cross. They now comprise a Holy Week retreat.

March 20, 2024 by Father Gordon MacRae

As many of our readers know, this blog began in controversy in 2009. Born out of a challenge from the late Cardinal Avery Dulles to rise above suffering and consider instead its legacy. Many posts in my long Prison Journal since 2010 have been about the injustices that I and other priests have faced. But in the weeks before his death in December 2008, Cardinal Dulles sent a series of letters to me in prison. He challenged me to dig deeper into my own passion narrative. Cardinal Dulles wrote:

“Someone might want to add a new chapter to the volume of Christian literature from those unjustly in prison. In the tradition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fr Alfred Delp, Fr Walter Ciszek, and Saint Paul, your writing, which is clear, eloquent and spiritually sound, will be a monument to your trials.”

And so in preparation for Holy Week in 2010, I began to make a concerted effort to set aside my own unjust plight to write a post about the Passion of the Christ. I compose a new Holy Week post every year since to present a different scene in the Way of the Cross. For me, this has become a sacred obligation as a priest to take part in my own unique way in the events that led to Calvary and beyond. And, yes, there IS a beyond.

Many readers, especially those who have also suffered in ways large or small, have found these posts to be inspiring. No one has been more surprised by this than me. So we have collected our Holy Week posts in the order in which they appear in the Gospel narrative to become an invitation for a personal retreat. We invite you to make these posts a part of your Holy Week and Easter observance.

If any of them touches your heart and soul in some way, or gives you a deeper understanding of the Scriptures, then please also share a link to them with others. I hear from many newer readers who first came to this blog in just that way, and then found in these pages spiritual consolation and a path to peace.

We will add a new post on Wednesday of Holy Week this year and will make the title linked here, active at that time. We will retain these links at our “Special Post” feature until Pentecost, the conclusion of the Easter Season:

The Passion of the Christ in an Age of Outrage (2020)

Overshadowing Holy Week with forced pandemic restrictions and political outrage recalls the Bar Kochba revolt of AD 132 against the Roman occupation of Jerusalem.

Satan at the Last Supper: Hours of Darkness and Light (2020)

The central figures present before the Sacrament for the Life of the World are Jesus on the eve of sacrifice and Satan on the eve of battle to restore the darkness.

Waking Up in the Garden of Gethsemane (2019)

The Agony in the Garden, the First Sorrowful Mystery, is a painful scene in the Passion of the Christ, but in each of the Synoptic Gospels the Apostles slept through it.

The Apostle Falls: Simon Peter Denies Christ (2024)

The fall of Simon Peter was a scandal of biblical proportions. His three-time denial of Jesus is recounted in every Gospel, but all is not as it first seems to be.

Behold the Man, as Pilate Washes His Hands (2014)

‘Ecce Homo,’ an 1871 painting of Christ before Pilate by Antonio Ciseri, depicts a moment woven into Salvation History and into our very souls. ‘Shall I crucify your king?’

The Chief Priests Answered, ‘We Have No King but Caesar’ (2017)

The Passion of the Christ has historical meaning on its face, but a far deeper story lies beneath where the threads of faith and history connect to awaken the soul.

Simon of Cyrene Compelled to Carry the Cross (2023)

Simon of Cyrene was just a man on his way to Jerusalem but the scourging of Jesus was so severe that Roman soldiers feared he may not live to carry his cross alone.

Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found (2012)

Who was Saint Dismas, the Penitent Thief, crucified to the right of Jesus at Calvary? His brief Passion Narrative appearance has deep meaning for Salvation.

To the Spirits in Prison: When Jesus Descended into Hell (2022)

The Apostles Creed is the oldest statement of Catholic belief and apostolic witness. Its Fifth Article, what happened to Jesus between the Cross and the Resurrection, is a mystery to be unveiled.

Mary Magdalene: Faith, Courage, and an Empty Tomb (2015)

History unjustly sullied her name without evidence, but Mary Magdalene emerges from the Gospel a faithful, courageous, and noble woman, an Apostle to the Apostles.

Before the gates there sat, On either side a formidable Shape

One of Gustave Dore’s illustrations of the epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton (Courtesy of University at Buffalo)

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

If Night Befalls Your Father, You Don’t Discard Him! You Just Don’t!

There is another scandal in the Catholic Church just under the radar. It is what happens after Father is accused, and it would never happen if he were your father.

February 28, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

Back in the summer of 2011 in Massachusetts, Independence Day brought dismal news for devoted Catholics already bent under the millstone of scandal. On that morning I turned on New England Cable News to learn that a forty-two year old Massachusetts priest ordained only six years, had taken his own life. It was heartbreaking, and I know his family must have been devastated. However, I feared that far too many in his other family — the Catholic Church — had so steeled themselves against the relentless tide of painful news that such a tragedy was just part of another news day. That was an even greater tragedy. If you have never read my article, “The Dark Night of a Priestly Soul,” about the suicide of a priest I knew, please do. I wish this priest, and his diocesan family had read it. It may have helped him to seek another way to deal with whatever immense pain brought him to this horrific act. I have been where he was in the final moments of his life. I wrote about surviving that painful day in “How Father Benedict Groeschel Entered My Darkest Night.”

I do not know the particular anguish of that young priest in 2011. He died sometime the previous Saturday night after celebrating Mass and then ministering to a family in a hospital emergency room where he was a chaplain.  When he did not show up for his Mass that Sunday morning, someone went in search of him. In between was the darkest night of his own priestly soul. Please, please pray for him. Though this was a major news story in 2011, I am sparing his family from reliving this again in 2024.

Some thirty American Catholic priests have taken their own lives since priests became a favorite target of the news media, of S.N.A.P., and of Satan himself. I have personally known eight of them, and three others who were murdered. A psychiatrist friend who has been conducting research on the priesthood told me that it is extraordinary that I have known 11 priests who were either murdered or died by their own hand. He said that I have been hanging out with the wrong crowd — or, if you read the Gospel, the right one.

I do know this: simply casting off the most wounded among our priests has been the sin of the Church, and it is a sin that would not happen in our own families. The late Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote of this in one of his last letters to me before his death in December 2008:

“Thank you for keeping me informed about the great scandal of the failure of the Church to support her priests in their time of need.  Someday your story and that of your fellow sufferers will come to light and will be instrumental in a reform.  I am sure that in the plans of Divine Providence your ministry of suffering is part of your priestly vocation.”

No corporate bottom line would dictate whether we care for our fathers, our grandfathers, our brothers, or our sons, but lately in the Church in America, it does, and it has compounded The Scandal. Christ came into the world to call forth a community’s soul, not a corporate sole. One bishop I know wrote in a whining missive to Rome that if he helped one accused priest in his diocese he would fear an uproar. At least the bishop was honest. His response toward a brother left beaten on the side of the road was moved by fear.

The problem was strictly American back then. But it has since spread to other parts of the world where the same draconian and terminal measures have been imposed upon priests who are merely accused without due process leading to their being simply discarded — sometimes on the streets with no place to go. I fear sometimes that the Catholic Church in America is becoming far more American than Catholic. America is a disposable culture that does not abide problems, and the Church has come to reflect this ugly side of America. Not long ago, Pope Francis derided our “cancel culture,” then he proceeded to cancel the careers of many priests and bishops who did not fall immediately into his ideological plan. The stewards of our faith have capitulated to cancel culture.

For full article tap image.

Disposable Priests in a Disposable Culture

There are priests who, for various reasons, are not assigned to ministry. Under a tenet of Canon Law (Canon 1722) a bishop, with just cause, may forbid a priest from the exercise of public ministry for a period of time, but he remains a priest. For seven years before I was accused and faced trial in 1994, I was not assigned by my bishop and diocese.  For the first two years, I was director of a drug and alcoholism treatment center, and vice-president of the New Hampshire Association of Chemical Dependency Service Providers.  But I was still very much a priest living under obedience to the authority of my bishop.  I celebrated Mass and other sacraments. For the following five years I served in ministry to other priests as Director of Admissions in a residential psychological and spiritual renewal center for Catholic priests and religious.

Even now, in my 30th year in prison for a crime that I insist never took place, I witness to the Gospel and to the Mission of the Church every day in conditions that most priests cannot imagine.  That is not a boast.  Who would boast of such a thing?  I celebrate the sacraments, as you know, and I am still a priest.

A priest may also petition the Holy See for voluntary removal from the clerical state, known popularly as “laicization.” Some years ago this blog had a comment from a man who left ministry as a priest to marry. As far as the Church was concerned, he remained a priest and entered into a civil, but invalid marriage. He reported that he was only recently granted his petition for laicization so that he may now have his marriage blessed by the Church. For reasons that are both sound and prudent, the Church has never been in any hurry to return a priest to the lay state.

One of the most destructive fallouts of the sex abuse scandal in the American Church has been the reality of involuntary laicization. When enacting the 2002 Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, the US Bishops quoted a statement of Pope John Paul II in his address to American cardinals on April 23, 2002: “There is no place in the priesthood or religious life for those who would harm the young.” Some American bishops have used that statement to seek forced laicization of accused priests under Canon 290, by judicial sentence or by a special act of the Pope. Prior to the Dallas Charter, such a permanent and unappealable removal from the priesthood was exceedingly rare. After the Charter, there was a wave of involuntary laicizations, and some believe they have done irreparable harm to the very Catholic theology of priesthood.

From a practical standpoint, forced laicization — popularly but erroneously called “defrocking” in the media — might satisfy some vindictive urges in certain victim groups, but it does nothing to prevent any possible victimization. It merely discards a priest with problems, or an innocent one falsely accused, upon the dung heap of Job with no support, no supervision, and no  accountability because of claims that are decades old and often unsubstantiated. Families do not discard their fathers, sons, or brothers, and the Church should not discard her priests.

A Puritan Response to Sin

The Bishops’ Charter failed to add a qualifying statement of Pope John Paul II to the American cardinals summoned to Rome in 2002:

“At the same time . . . we cannot forget the power of Christian conversion, that radical decision to turn away from sin and back to God, which reaches to the depth of a person’s soul and can work extraordinary change.”

By omitting the most important part of the Pope’s statement, the U.S. Bishops adopted a punishment with no allowance for repentance. In an essay for Homiletic & Pastoral Review (“Sex Abuse and Anti-Catholicism“) Ryan A. MacDonald wrote:

“The Puritan founders of New England would approve of the purging of the priesthood now underway in Western Culture, for it is far more Calvinist than Catholic.”

In a landmark article in America magazine, “The Rights of Accused Priests” (June 21, 2004), the late Cardinal Avery Dulles issued a stinging rebuke of the bishops. What follows are some excerpts:

“The United States bishops have taken positions at odds with [their own] high principles.”

“Under intense pressure from various survivors’ networks, they hastily adopted, after less than two days of debate, the so-called Dallas Charter . . . ”

“In their effort to . . . restore public confidence in the Church as an institution and to protect the Church from liability suits, the bishops opted for an extreme response.”

“The dominant principle of the Charter was ‘zero tolerance’ . . . Having been so severely criticized for exercising poor judgement in the past, the bishops apparently wanted to avoid having to make any judgements in these cases.”

Cardinal Dulles went on to address the often near impossibility of judging the truth of allegations against priests without investigation, and the inherent injustice of taking actions that brand a priest as guilty before such investigation. He then outlined the rights of priests under Canon Law, and how the Charter and current policies ignore or even destroy those rights. I urge every priest and every Catholic to read Cardinal Dulles’ article.

I am not a canon lawyer, and I have only limited training in Church Law. What I have learned has been from experience, and my own experience has been a crash course in fending off what I believe is a seriously flawed and unjust process faced by many accused priests who simply did not commit the crimes.

To highlight how flawed this process is, I would like to reproduce a letter I received in 2002 from a prominent priest, canon lawyer, and professor of Canon Law at a leading Catholic University. I am printing the entire letter, but without his name since I have not asked his permission to print his name. I will let his letter speak for itself:

“Dear Father MacRae:

Don’t ever discount the real spiritual good accomplished by your words at Beyond These Stone Walls. You make people like me, with consciences dulled by repetitious prevalence of procedural abuses, face our responsibilities to protest and to act. You make it personal and compelling.

I want to pass along some bad news. You may already be aware of it, since you seem very well informed, but, if not, at least it will give you occasion to reflect. It seems that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has turned to ‘penal dismissals from the clerical state’ as a routine solution to the cases being sent by American bishops after preliminary investigations. The decrees of dismissal are not subject to appeal or review.

The procedural injustice of this practice is obvious.

In the preliminary investigation process, the accused priest has no opportunity to defend himself. The cases are sent by bishops to CDF sometimes with an expectation that they will instruct the diocese to proceed with a canonical trial for dismissal or allow the accused priest to remain [in the priesthood] in a penitential state but removed from public ministry. Instead, the CDF seems to be taking this drastic and terminal action based solely on the information provided by a bishop in the preliminary investigation — often when the priest is accused of abuse alleged to have occurred thirty years ago or more.

I don’t want to discourage you or any petitions to the Holy See on your behalf. Quite the contrary, I would urge any and all possible interventions.

Think about the implications if this shameful result should fall on you. It is really an empty juridical gesture with no practical consequences. You remain a priest. No one can take that away. You can pray, and you can celebrate the Holy Eucharist validly, absolve or anoint in emergencies, and, I presume, you  could continue your very valuable ministry of consciousness raising. What I am trying to say is please do not be discouraged or lose hope if this awful expedient is aimed at you.”

Ganging Up on the Already Down

To date, at least, that final chapter of my nightmare has not taken place. But the Church must be made aware — you must be made aware — of the inherent injustice of “piling on” that occurs when most priests are accused.

When I faced trial in 1994, I was entirely on my own against an assault on three simultaneous fronts. First, I faced a criminal trial, a highly sensationalized and problematic one that Ryan A. MacDonald recently described in these pages in “Judge Arthur Brennan Sentenced Father Gordon MacRae to Die in Prison.”

Very few priests earn a salary or have access to funds that would assure a fair trial. I certainly did not, but my diocese issued a letter to my attorneys instructing them: “To the extent he is without funds, he should contact the public defenders’ office.” The cost of my defense would have been but a tiny fraction of the cost of mediated settlements.

Secondly, simultaneous to a criminal defense and preparing for trial, I also faced civil lawsuits naming both me and my diocese as defendants. The accusers were represented by their contingency lawyers, and both they and their lawyers had a clear financial stake in the outcome. My diocese was represented by a high profile law firm seeking, from day one, the quietest path to settlement that would generate the least publicity. With my meager assets dissolved in only partial funding of a criminal defense, I was not represented at all against the civil claims. When I protested the possibility of a settlement without substantiation, my accusers and their lawyers simply dropped me as a defendant so that I would no longer have any standing in the matter.

Lastly, from the moment I was accused, I faced a trial-by-media that set an impossible boundary between me and justice. The accusers had contingency lawyers who were relentless spokespersons for their feigned “victimization.” My diocese had a spokesperson who advocated for the distance the diocese was motivated to obtain from me. As I faced trial in 1994, knowing that I maintained my innocence, and knowing that I was not represented at all as settlement negotiations ensued in the background, my bishop and diocese issued a press release stating:

“The Church has been a victim of the actions of Gordon MacRae just as these individuals. It is clear that he will never again function as a priest.”

— Press Release of the Diocese of Manchester, September 6, 1993

My attorneys protested this to deafened ears. With that public statement came the end of my civil rights to a presumption of innocence and a fair trial. Throughout the trial, the local news media cited that statement. The jurors in my trial read the statement. To pretend that this scenario represents justice requires far more skill in the art of pretense than I have ever been capable of.

And it’s even worse still, today.

The Bishop Accountability website publishes every sordid detail about every money-driven claim taking no responsibility whatsoever for whether their information is true or corroborated. The site administrators publish the names and lurid details claimed of every accused priest while removing the names of all accusers. In some instances, this amounts to aiding and abetting them in the commission of the crimes of fraud and larceny.

And now, as is clear from the canonist’s dismal letter above, if the accused priest cares anything at all about preserving his priesthood then he must also hire a canon lawyer to defend himself against yet another tier of simultaneous judicial processes: the possibility of canonical dismissal from the priesthood.

If night befalls your father, you don’t discard him! You just don’t!

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this important post. Please consider these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Exile of Father Dominic Menna and Transparency at The Boston Globe

Priests in Crisis: The Catholic University of America Study

Our Bishops Have Inflicted Grave Harm on the Priesthood

When Priests Are Falsely Accused: The Mirror of Justice Cracked

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Pornchai Moontri: A New Year of Hope Begins in Thailand

Pornchai Moontri arrived in Thailand in early 2021 during a global pandemic and after a 36-year absence. Life has been a daily struggle, but hope is on the horizon.

January 3, 2024 by Pornchai Maximilian Moontri

Editor’s Note: Pornchai Moontri is now the Asia Correspondent for Beyond These Stone Walls. The image atop this post depicts the route for a high-speed passenger and cargo rail that will have a depot in Pak Chong, Thailand where Pornchai is now living. His most recent post, which we will link to again at the end of this one, was the very moving “On the Day of Padre Pio, My Best Friend Was Stigmatized.”

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Sawasdee Kup, my friends. When Fr Gordon MacRae asked me to write the first post of 2024 at Beyond These Stone Walls, I was excited. But when I asked him what I should write about he said “Just write whatever comes to mind.” Now I am just totally nervous! This was during a phone call to Thailand from the little barred room where we once both lived in Concord, New Hampshire. Being there was supposed to be a punishment, and in many ways it lived up to that expectation. But in spite of it, there were also very special things that happened there. I learned the ways of Divine Mercy there, and was touched by it. We conversed with St. Maximilian Kolbe and our Blessed Mother there, and they answered us.

It was from there that Father G helped to win my freedom and from there that he walked with me every day through the daily torment of ICE detention and deportation. Every day for 150 days trapped in crowded ICE custody during a pandemic, I would wake up and ask the Lord if this might be the day I will be free. Then at night I would go to bed asking for the grace to cope with yet another day. Father G reminded me that this is how we live now — in union with the Suffering of Christ.

After 29 years in prison and over five months in ICE detention, I finally arrived in Thailand on February 9, 2021. I thought I would burst with excitement, but in reality, I was filled with fear. Because it was in the middle of the Covid pandemic, the Thai government required me to stay alone, with no human contact at all, in a Holiday Inn hotel room in Bangkok for fifteen days. I have to say it was a lot nicer than all my other stays in solitary confinement.

Back in 2005, after several years in the prison version of solitary confinement, I was moved to an over-crowded prison in New Hampshire and many years of never, ever being alone. After that, the sudden aloneness of a Holiday Inn hotel room felt scary. But in a daily phone call, Father G walked with me through that trial as well. His contacts here arranged to have a Samsung Galaxy smart phone placed in the room before I arrived. You would laugh if you saw me trying to figure it out. I had never before seen one. It was like an alien device to me.

At the Home Page on the little screen, I typed in “Beyond These Stone Walls.” I did not expect anything to happen, but suddenly there it was! For eleven years I could only imagine what this magical blog looked like. I remember the Psalm, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” I think people on the Space Station could have seen my smile when Father G appeared on my screen and I heard him speaking.

I had stumbled upon a video documentary interview that he once told me about. But now I was seeing and hearing it. It was 2:00 AM and I was exhausted from jet lag and the 24-hour flight to Bangkok, but I wanted to hear it all. Just like old times, however, Father G put me to sleep! That was the end of day one in Thailand. You can read the rest if you want in one of the first posts I wrote from here: “Beyond These Stone Walls in Thailand.”

Photo by Diana Robinson (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED)

The Lion Kings

Then came the hard adventure of adjusting and thriving as opposed to just living. That was the challenge Father G gave me. “I don’t want you to just survive. I want you to thrive.” Well, that has been a harder challenge, easier said than done, but I haven't given up on it. Neither has Father G.

Sometimes I felt like Simba in The Lion King. Banished from the kingdom and trying to find his way in a strange land separated from all he knew, Simba could only imagine his father’s voice. For a time after my arrival in Thailand, I was living with Father John Le, SVD and some members of the Missionary Society of the Divine Word. Father John, who is now the local superior for the Thailand province of his Order, became a very good friend to both me and Father Gordon.

Father John manages a Vietnamese Refugee Project in Thailand. On my last day in hotel solitary, he showed up to pick me up. People being deported can take nothing but the clothes they are wearing, and mine were meant for Concord, New Hampshire, not Thailand where the temperature was about 114 degrees Fahrenheit and super humid.

Father G and our friend Viktor Weyand had some U.S. funds sent for me ahead of time, so Father John took me shopping for clothing more suitable to Thailand. He took me to the biggest and busiest shopping mall in Bangkok where I had a panic attack from being around so many people. I heard of this happening to other former prisoners. One day a few months later, Father G challenged me to go back to that mall. I could walk to it from Father John’s SVD house where I was living then. It was a sort of personal triumph that I went back there and just walked around for a couple of hours.

I did not buy anything, but it helped me not to panic so much around crowds of people. Language was also a problem. I look Thai and have a Thai name, but no one could understand me or why I looked so confused when they spoke to me. It was embarrassing and I could not explain the long traumatic story that led up to this moment.

Over the next few months, I had the great honor of helping Father John with food distribution when visiting the Vietnamese refugee communities he serves in Thailand. One of these visits took me to the far Northeast of Thailand about nine hours drive with Father John to the place where I was born and where my mother’s little house still stands unoccupied. I lived there with my aunt and cousins until I was eleven and was taken from Thailand. My mother was later murdered. Father G told that awful story in “Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam.” I cannot bring myself to read it, but I lived it.

On one of the refugee visit trips north, Father John and I ended up staying at that house. There were lots of memories, many of them painful. Some of my mother’s things were still in the house which was left unoccupied for over 20 years. I have traveled back there a few times to work on my mother’s house and make it habitable, but it became clearer to me that I cannot live there. I had been gone for too long. The family I thought I remembered no longer remembered me. With help from Father G and Father John, I had to accept that I no longer have the family I thought I had in Thailand.

Father G and Father John are my family now, and Chalathip, a retired teacher and benefactor of Father John’s refugee work. She also took me in. She convinced Father G that I must relearn Thai, and cannot do so while living with four priests who spoke only Vietnamese. Chalathip lived just a short walk away on the same street as Father John’s SVD Community house and she offered me an empty apartment on her second floor.

Father John and Father G speak often and Father G still calls me every morning. He calls at 6:00 PM which is at 6:00 AM for me. I never imagined that someone’s guidance would become so important to me. For much of my life, the only voice I listened to was my own. That did not always go so well. I have learned that family is not always just the blood that runs though our veins. It is where our heart is. I am blessed with the example and fatherhood of two priests who live selfless lives and work tirelessly for others. They are, to me, The Lion Kings.

Independence Day Delayed

Back in 2006 or so, at just about the time Father G and I met, I was told by two immigration officials that I would have to be deported back to Thailand when my sentence was over. I worried about this for months back then, and I could see only doomsday scenarios in my future. I settled in my mind on my imagined “Plan B.” It was built on hopelessness. My “Plan B” was to wait until my sentence was almost over, and then in the last days of it, I would destroy myself. I saw no other way and I did not know how to ask for help and, really, I believed that there was no one I could ask. God? Who’s he? I was proud then even though I had nothing in my life to be proud about.

Father G knew about my eventual deportation, and he kept wanting to help me prepare for it. I had not heard Thai spoken since I was eleven in 1985 so by twenty years later my Thai was all but gone. Through a Thai language publisher in San Francisco, Father G got some Thai instruction books and CDs donated to the prison library and he arranged with the librarian for me to go there twice a week to study Thai. I had the added handicap of never having learned to read and write Thai as a child.

People who have no hope don’t usually prepare for the future. I did not believe I had a future. I only had a past. But Father G was relentless. He began to poke around in my past and the dark corners of my mind where I never let anyone look. He managed to get the whole story of my life out of me. Then he convinced me to let him write about it. He told me that people in Thailand would see it, and someone there would reach out to help me. I told him that I did not need anyone's help. I did not want anyone's help. Father G saw right through that lie.

He saw other things as well. He became the only person who ever looked out for my best interest, so I surrendered control of my life to him, but he told me to surrender only to God. I tried that, and ended up becoming a Catholic on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2010. I could not believe the whole Divine Mercy thing at first but I believed that Father G believed it so I gave it a try. My mother was murdered by the evil man who took me from Thailand, but Father Gordon told me that the Mother of Jesus would be my Mother as well. She put me into the Hands of the Living God.

Then everything changed. All my problems were still there, my doubts, my mood swings, my painful past. And I was plagued with nightmares. But now there was a spark of something new. One day, Gordon sat me down and challenged me that if I want to let God in, I had to abandon all thoughts of “Plan B,” so I did.

The largest religious belief in most Southeast Asian countries is Theravada Buddhism. It began in India around the Sixth Century BC and arrived in Thailand and Cambodia in the first century AD as the primary religion and philosophy of life. Like most abandoned children in Thailand, I was handed over to a Buddhist monastery for a time as a young child. When I was taken from Thailand at age eleven, all that happened before then was forgotten. So I came to God as an empty vessel.

The Train to Singapore

After a year or so in super-hot, super-crowded Bangkok, Father John and Chalathip and Father G talked about bringing me to a property Chalathip owns in the city of Pak Chong in the mountain region of central Thailand. I have lived there since. I attend Mass at St. Nicholas Catholic Church, one of three Catholic churches right here in Pak Chong, a city of about 225,000.

There are two homes on the large property. I live in the smaller one. The picture above this section is the view from my bedroom window. Pak Chong is much cooler than Bangkok, and I see Father John often because he stops here and stays with me on his way to and from his Order’s headquarters in Nong Bua Lamphu where I was born. My greatest wish and prayer is that Father G will be free, and be able to come here and stay.

Father G recently wrote about “Thailand’s Victims of Hamas in Israel.” He explained how some 30,000 young Thai men applied for work in Israel because there are few job opportunities in Thailand since the pandemic. I have to work — even if it is without income which has been the case since I arrived in Thailand. So I landscaped the entire property in Pak Chong and now it is a sort of oasis. Chalathip decided to start a small business here and rent the large house out as a vacation rental that I can manage while living in the smaller house.

Pak Chong is just a few kilometers from the Khao Yai National Park, Thailand’s oldest and largest park and game preserve. It still has tigers and elephants in the wild. No one ever sees the tigers. They do not want to be seen. l repair the larger house as needed and as funds permit to make it ready for vacation rentals. In December 2023 I had our first guests, a small group that came here for an overnight to explore Khao Yai National Park. There is a lot still to be done before this small business is ready to run.

The economy here is only slowly opening up. The largest industry in Thailand is tourism, and that had been shut down for three years. Father G has been studying a promising development that will very much impact Pak Chong and the rest of Thailand. China, to our north, leads the world in shipping and transportation by high-speed railway, a technology developed in China and Japan. China recently signed a treaty with Laos — which is between Thailand and China — to construct a high-speed railway from the City of Kunming in the South Chinese Province of Yunnam running all the way to Vientiane, the Capital of Laos on the Laos-Thailand border.

Thailand did not want China to build and operate its railway system, so the Chinese agreed to provide the high-speed rail technology while Thailand builds it. It will stretch from Vientiane in Laos in the north all the way to Bangkok in the south. The hopeful news is that a major depot on the trade route and passenger rail is being built right here in Pak Chong. Father G had me take the photos of its construction above.

It is a 2.5-hour drive from Pak Chong to Bangkok, but the high-speed railway traveling at 240 kilometers per hour will reduce the travel time to just under one hour.This is promising news for Pak Chong which is situated right on that route, and for the Thai economy and its major industry, tourism.

Father G created a map of the route which is expected to be completed in Pak Chong in 2026. Once it reaches Bangkok, the Thai Capital, China plans to pick up completion of the railway again and extend it all the way down the Malay Peninsula. When complete, the high-speed rail will extend from Kunming, China through Laos, Thailand, and Malaysia, and finally connect with Singapore. Father G said that a major depot on the route will exist right where I have settled in Pak Chong, and that may be an act of Divine Providence. I hope so.

Umm, did I just mention “Hope?”

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We found this June 2023 article “Phase 1 of high-speed rail ready ‘by 2026’” in the Bangkok Post.

Note from Father Gordon MacRae :

Our Tool Fund Project for Pornchai and Father John Le’s Refugee Program are still active at our “Special Events” page. Pornchai, Father John and I are deeply grateful to donors who contributed this past year.

You may also like these related posts by Pornchai Moontri:

On the Day of Padre Pio, My Best Friend Was Stigmatized

Free at Last Thanks to God and You!

Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand

Imprisoned by Walls, Set Free by Wood

Father John and I caught this giant Mekong River catfish one day. I had to hold it down before it could swallow Father Jonah ... Umm, I mean Father John. We put it back in the river where it swam away after giving me a rather nasty look. I will never swim in that river again.

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Silent Night and the Shepherds Who Quaked at the Sight

The shepherds of our Nativity Story lived difficult lives in the social strata of the Ancient Near East, but they are summoned by angels to Bethlehem for a reason.

At Christmass by Fr Gordon MacRae

Editor’s Note: Posted at Christmas in 2023, this was Father MacRae’s most popular Christmas post ever. In this week in 2023 it drew some 60,000 readers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Southeast Asia.

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“Silent Night, Holy Night,
Shepherds quake at the sight.
Glories stream from heaven afar,
Heavenly hosts sing alleluia.
Christ, the Savior is born,
Christ, the Savior is born!”

— Silent Night, Verse 2

“Silent Night,” one of our most beloved and enduring Christmas hymns, was the result of an accident. It was first heard at the Christmas Midnight Mass in the little church of Saint Nicholas in Oberdorf, Upper Austria in 1818. On Christmas Eve, the church’s organ failed. So in a pinch, the young Austrian village priest, Joseph Mohr, hastily composed some verses for a simple song while organist Franz Gruber just as hastily set them to music.

They finished just in time to sing it at Midnight Mass accompanied by the soft strumming of a guitar. The congregation was mesmerized. The untitled song became known for its first words in German, “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht.” In 1839, a group of Austrian folk singers performed it for the first time in the United States where it was translated into English. “Silent Night, Holy Night” quickly became synonymous with Christmas. Just like the season itself this year, the song was written in chaos but became an enduring summons to serenity and the real meaning of Christmas.

As I began to write this post, I was mentally about as far as anyone could be from “All is calm, all is bright,” and “sleeping in heavenly peace.” It is a challenge to write an uplifting Christmas post from my current location, and an even greater challenge to write it in the aftermath of all that has gone on in the Church and the world during Advent this year. It was all the subject of my Christmas post this year entitled “Christmas for Those Bowed Down by the Fatigue of This World.”

On the Birth of the Messiah

There has been a lot of controversy this Christmas about the removal of faithful shepherds whom many of us have come to know and admire. This has happened while apparently less than stellar shepherds have been elevated before our eyes. To be a shepherd was once a difficult life that has become a vocation. There is a lot of attention on the qualities of the Church’s shepherds right now. Let’s go back to the beginning.

Accounts of the infancy and childhood of Jesus appear in only two of the canonical Gospels: Matthew (1:18 – 2:23) and Luke (1:5 – 2:52). The two accounts have only the most basic elements of the story in common: Mary’s virginal conception, and the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. The Gospel of Matthew alone contains the story of the Magi, the threat posed by Herod, and the Flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. The Gospel of Luke alone has the Angel of the Lord summoning shepherds to witness the newborn King.

Some scholars propose that the Gospel’s Infancy Narratives were added later and were of little interest to the early Church. I take the opposite view. Other accounts in the Apocryphal (meaning “hidden”) Gospels arose out of the first two centuries of the Church. They are not included in the canon of inspired Scripture, but they reveal the Early Church’s fascination with the Birth and childhood of Jesus. Their stories were sometimes embellished, but traditions from the earliest times of the Church cling to some of their accounts.

The Apocryphal Gospel of James, preserved in Greek from no later than the early Second Century, is the sole source of the names of Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anna. It is also the only source of the story of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, and a more detailed account of the fears of suspicion about her pregnancy.

The Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, of unknown origin, is a later compilation of earlier oral traditions none of which can be measured against history. It has an expanded account of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt from the Gospel of Matthew. It also presents a story only vaguely recalled about the Holy Family’s encounter in the desert with Dismas and Gestas, the names given by Tradition to the two criminals who were later crucified with Jesus. It’s a story I included in “Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found.”

The History of Joseph the Carpenter, of Egyptian origin in the first few centuries, AD, contains stories of the life of Joseph which are not reflected in any of the Gospel narratives. They include an expanded account of the Flight into Egypt and a popular story about his soul being removed by an angel at the time of his death in the presence of Jesus and Mary. These sources and others reflect the popular fascination of early Christians with the Birth of the Messiah and the legitimacy of the accounts that found their way into the Gospels of Matthew and Luke writing from two different traditions. In the Gospel of Luke, for example, it has long been believed that Luke’s source for the story of the Birth of the Messiah was Mary herself.

Moses [when he was a shepherd] Defends Jethro’s Daughters by James Jacques Joseph Tissot. Courtesy of Jewish Museum.

The Biblical Shepherds

Sheep herding was a profession of the common man — or woman — in the ancient world. For the most orthodox Jews in the time of Jesus, it was a position with low social rank and often disdained. It has always plagued the faithful that some religious leaders can become oblivious to the tenets of their own faith. Shepherds were looked down upon even as God Himself was seen as the Shepherd of Israel (Genesis 49:24 and Psalm 80:1). The most popular Scriptural identification of God as shepherd is in Psalm 23:

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. In verdant pastures He gives me repose. Beside restful waters He leads me. He restores my soul.”

— Ps. 23: 1-2

There are 123 references to shepherds in Sacred Scripture, beginning with one of the most ancient accounts, the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis (Chapter 4). Scripture depicts an age-old tension between shepherds and those who till the land. Each regarded the other as antagonistic to his interests. Clearing land for farming in the Ancient Near East meant that shepherds had to travel far and wide to find land suitable for grazing. In contrast, the pasturing of flocks damaged both land and crops.

With severe limits in both land and water, this forced shepherds into a nomadic life, and an economic rivalry with agriculture. Sheep had to be led from pasture to pasture as changing seasons required migration over vast distances. Shepherds had to find not only suitable and available grazing, but a water supply. Shepherds had to shelter their flocks in inclement weather and protect them from wild beasts and disgruntled farmers. Scripture is filled with wolf and sheep allegories.

The Prophet Amos was a shepherd, but some Prophetic voices present some shepherds as “unfaithful” (Ezekiel 34:2-10), as “simple-minded” (Jeremiah 10:21), as letting their flocks scatter:

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the flock of my pasture—oracle of the LORD.

Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds.”

—Jeremiah 23:1-2.

The Scriptural references continue portraying some shepherds: as “leading people astray” (Jeremiah 50:6), as “lacking in grace or understanding” (Isaiah 56:11ff). In our time, some of our most outstanding shepherds are themselves left to wander.

Despite the fact that shepherds were socially frowned upon, God showed favor to many shepherds throughout Scripture, calling them to heroic and pivotal missions. The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis (4:2 and following) has Cain tilling the earth while Abel is a sheepherder, aka, shepherd. When it came time to offer their gifts in sacrifice, Abel’s gift was found to be more pleasing to God resulting in humanity’s first homicide. Many generations later, Jacob, grandson of Abraham, described in a plea to Laban his life as a shepherd:

“It was like this with me: by day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sheep fled from my eyes.”

— Genesis 31:40

Joseph, the Joseph who was the main focus of Genesis chapters 37 to 50, was the youngest of his brothers and a shepherd. Jealous of their father’s favoritism toward him, his brothers sold him to slave traders who took him to Egypt. He later assured their salvation, saving their lives in a time of famine in Israel.

In Egypt, Jews came to be identified as nomadic shepherds and shepherding came to be seen by the Egyptians as an abominable life (Genesis 43:32). Moses, called by God to receive the Covenant, was first a shepherd. Saint Luke’s account of the shepherds called to Bethlehem has an echo of Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai as he received the Commandments:

“And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an Angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear”

— Luke 2:8-9

Adoration of the Shepherds by Bartolome Esteban Murillo. Courtesy of Museo del Prado.

Come to Bethlehem

Many generations later still after Moses, David, a shepherd, boasted of having killed lions with his bare hands when they attacked his father’s flocks. The Birth narrative in the Gospel of Luke also has an echo of King David’s humble origin as a shepherd (1 Samuel 16:1-23). St Luke presents an image of the call of the Shepherds by an Angel of the Lord as being privileged with a vision of King David’s successor. It is presented in language highly reminiscent of a king descended from David:

“Be not afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Then suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts saying, ‘Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace to men with whom he is pleased.”’

— Luke 2 10-14

As mentioned above, elements of Saint Luke’s Gospel account suggest that Mary was herself the source of this information. When the shepherds came to Bethlehem that night and found her with Joseph and the Christ-child just as the angel had said, Mary heard the account of their encounter with the angels and the heavenly hosts in the darkness. When the New Testament speaks of darkness, we cannot really imagine it. With the total absence of any artificial light, their darkness was dark indeed. “But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

The Christmas Proclamation traditionally proclaimed from the Roman Martyrology on the Vigil of Christmas begins with creation and connects the birth of the Lord with the major events of both sacred and secular history. The Proclamation reveals something of crucial importance for our time.

Abraham, our Father in Faith, came out of Ur of the Chaldees to encounter God who forged a covenant with Him in the 21st Century before the Birth of Christ. We now live in the 21st Century after His birth. This places Christ the King at the very center of Salvation History from our perspective. It is no mystery that the time in which we live now is so tumultuous, with Earthly Powers vying with Heaven for the souls of humankind. Christ now stands equidistant in time between God’s covenant with Abraham and our present.

We must come to understand the cosmic importance of the time in which we live and the battle for souls being waged here. We must hope and pray that the shepherds of our time come to understand that as well, and live — not just speak, but live — faithfully and courageously, the Gospel we profess.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: There are plenty of voices in this secular culture trying to suppress the real meaning of Christmas. Please share this post with others. If you are alone at Christmas, or know anyone who is, you and they are invited to spend some time with us. The first of our links below is our annual Christmas post filled with music, videos, and the Christmas Proclamation. We also invite you to Saint Maximilian Kolbe’s Eucharistic Adoration Chapel linked below.

Christmas for Those Bowed Down by the Fatigue of this World

Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah

Joseph’s Second Dream: The Slaughter of the Innocents

Upon a Midnight Not so Clear, Some Wise Men from the East Appear

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The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

The Music of Eric Genuis Inspired Advent Hope

A prison concert by composer Eric Genuis and his outstanding musicians made Advent spirits soar for a prisoner priest and an old friend whom you have come to know.

December 13, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae

“Music is a language with the profound ability to stir the heart, inspire the mind, and awaken the soul .”

— Pianist and Composer Eric Genuis

Note from the Editor: The above image shows Eric Genuis and his ensemble performing his composition The Butterfly at a Concert of Hope in Ft. Collins, CO.

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I have, over time and of necessity, become somewhat attuned to signs and wonders here at Beyond These Stone Walls. As Advent loomed, there was no shortage of them and little time to ponder them. The wonders began in the weeks before Advent began. I was descending the multiple flights of stairs from the prison law library where I work as a clerk when, at the bottom, I heard someone call my name.

It was the Director of the prison’s Recreation Department who stopped me. He asked if I know a music composer named Eric Genuis. I said that I did not, but that I had heard of him. “Well, he has heard of you, too,” said the Director adding, “We are scheduling a music concert with him next month, and he emailed me to ask if you might be able to attend.” It was suggested that I keep an eye out for the notice and then sign up if I want to go. Weeks later, I saw a poster advertising the concert. There would be two performances in the prison gymnasium, one at 8:30 AM and the other at 1:00 PM. I signed up for the earlier one thinking that it might be less crowded.

When I arrived for the concert that day, all the front rows were filled with prisoners anticipating something very special. Like a good Catholic, I took a seat at the end of an empty row of seats at the rear. Then someone came over to me, pointing out Eric Genuis conversing with some of his musicians off to one side. I got up and walked over to them. Eric spun around and vigorously shook my hand. “This is Father MacRae, the priest and writer I told you about,” he said to the others. I wanted to sink back into my seat and disappear. Eric spoke of it being an honor to meet me and said that he is a reader of Beyond These Stone Walls. Others in the small group also shook my hand and commented that they appreciated my recent post “Pell Contra Mundum.”

Thirty years in prison have not exactly left me accustomed to recognition, or even basic human respect for that matter. Being where I am, I do not have a sense of the impact of anything I write or of who reads it. When we finished our greetings, Eric asked me for a blessing. Every eye in the huge room was riveted to this scene as I made my way back to the seat I had just vacated. I will get back to this in a moment.

The Memorare

By longstanding tradition at Beyond These Stone Walls, but with occasional exceptions, we publish one post per week on Wednesday mornings. The tradition was born out of the limits of prison writing. As described here recently, this blog has to contend with many obstacles to appear in print. With no computer and just an old fashioned standard Smith Corona typewriter, I count on postal mail — sometimes in vain — to get my completed post from New Hampshire to New York each week. However, one particular post did not cooperate. It was “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Some Older Songs.”

Fourteen days after mailing it, that post still had not arrived for scanning and editing. So we had to do the unthinkable. At the behest of our editor who does all the hard work, I had to dictate my new post word for word over the telephone while our editor typed it one character at a time. She was a paradigm of patience while I imagined little clouds filled with expletives hovering about my head like in the comic books while she typed.

Adding to the frustration, just about every phone call from prison is dropped multiple times and has to be reconnected. Writing like this leaves me feeling a bit like Saint Paul in the middle of his shipwreck (2 Corinthians 11:25). So here we are in the middle of the Second Week of Advent, and I struggle to decide what I will write about in this post. Advent is a most difficult time for a Catholic writer who can publish only once per week.

The reasons may not be so obvious. Just two days after my Wednesday post of last week, the Church honored the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, a most important Marian Feast that I cannot let pass by without notice. She is central to Advent, and there is no Christian hope at all without her Fiat, her “Be it done to me according to Thy Word.” I wrote of her during a past Advent in “Saint Gabriel the Archangel: When the Dawn from On High Broke Upon Us.” (We will link to it again at the end of this post.)

Then, just a few days later in Advent is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a very special Catholic observance for me because she appeared to me as well. Hmmm — I should modify that a little. She did not appear as she did to Saint Juan Diego on Tepayac Hill in Mexico in 1531. She came to me quite differently, and it could easily be dismissed as coincidence, but it wasn’t. You had to be there to see and feel the impact of it, but no one was there except me. Ten years ago, in 2013, I was leaving my job in the prison law library for the day late in an afternoon.

There is a computer at my desk there containing the Law Library database that I must use daily. As I was shutting everything down for the day, I had the sudden inkling to change the background image on the screen. I had never done so before, so when I went to the listings of thousands of background photos to choose from, I could see only identifying numbers but no text or titles or descriptions. I had but minutes left. So I randomly chose one of them only by number from among the thousands of numbers on the screen. I could not see it. Then I shut down the computer.

My next work day that year was December 12, but I was not even conscious of the date. I arrived at my desk at the usual time on that morning and booted up the computer. I opened drawers to pull out files I had to work on, and when I looked back at the screen, I gasped. There was no one I could tell because no one here would understand it and the few who might understand it also might not have believed it. So I told no one except my friends Father Michael Gaitley and Father George David Byers who both took it in agonizing stride.

On my screen that day was a brilliant painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe as she appeared to Juan Diego on Tepayac Hill. In the background is the modern day Basilica of Our Lady, all painted on a canvas in Mexico City. Then, as if tasered, I noted the date this happened. It was December 12, 2013 — ten years ago on the Feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. My friend Father George David Byers found a grainy copy of the same image which is posted above, but it does not do justice to what is on my screen.

Two other things happened in the months preceding this. Two persons who had been my friends in prison also became my family. It was mostly by default because none of the three of us had one. December 2013 was the most trying month of my entire, and entirely unjust, imprisonment. It was also the month that Pornchai Moontri and I, with profound reluctance at first, signed up for a six-week program that would end in our Consecration to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That story is told on the Marian Fathers own website in “Behold Your Son! Behold Your Mother!”

Then, in that same month, our other family-friend, Alberto Ramos, was suddenly transferred from New Hampshire to a Florida prison from where we would likely never see each other again. “Likely,” however, does not always get the last word.

Now back to 2023 and the Eric Genuis concert ... .

The Measure by Which You Measure

After Eric and his musical entourage asked for a blessing, I made my way back to my seat — only now there was someone else sitting in it. To my utter shock and surprise, it was Alberto Ramos who ten years earlier had been moved to another state to serve out his sentence. Discounting that anything positive can come from any association between prisoners, most states do not allow them to communicate with each other. So for ten years there was nothing but silence from or about Alberto who was sentenced to 30 years in prison at age 14. He is now 44, and has never known any other life.

I wrote of Alberto’s life, and his offense at age 14, in a post many years ago entitled, “Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being.” In 2022, after ten years in distant silence, I wrote of him again in “The Measure by Which You Measure: Prisoners of a Captive Past.” Here is an excerpt from that post:

“Alberto was 14 years old when the knife in his hand severed the artery of an 18-year-old with whom he struggled. It was a vicious end to a late night drug deal gone very bad in a dark Manchester, New Hampshire alley. It happened in 1994, the same year that I was sent to this prison. It seemed a flip of a coin which combatant would die that night and which would survive only to wake up in prison. At age 14, Alberto had won the battle but lost himself. Sentenced to a prison term of 30 years to life, he spent his first few years in solitary confinement. The experience extracted from him, as it also did from Pornchai Moontri, any light in his heart, any spark of optimism or hope in his eyes.

“Then, when finally age 18, Alberto was allowed to live in the prison’s general population where the art of war is honed in daily physical and spiritual battle. It is a rare day that a City of Concord Fire Department ambulance doesn’t enter these prison walls shutting down all activity while some young man is taken to a local hospital after a beating or a stabbing or a headlong flight down some concrete stairs. The catalyst for such events is the same here as it was in the alley that sent Alberto here. There is no honor in any of it. It is just about drugs and gangs and money.

“Alberto’s path to prison seemed inevitable. Abandoned by his father, he was raised by a single mother who lost all control over him by age 12. Drugs and money and avoiding the law were the dominant themes of his childhood. By age 14, he was a child of the streets and nowhere else, but the streets make for the worst possible parents. In ‘Big Prison’ it was discovered that there is more to Alberto than the violence of his childhood. Alberto was 22 when he earned his high school diploma here. He will soon be released after having spent more than two-thirds of his life behind bars.”

The photo atop this section is that of his graduation class at Granite State High School within the New Hampshire State Prison. I wish today that I could have made a movie clip of that graduation. Pornchai Moontri was the class valedictorian so he had to give a speech. Alberto, who is just over Pornchai’s shoulder to the right, snickered when Pornchai momentarily lost his place, but quickly recovered.

Back to the concert again. When Alberto was brought back to New Hampshire from prison in another state to prepare for his upcoming release on parole, he was housed in a different unit than the one I am in. When he saw a poster for the Eric Genuis concert, he signed up hoping that he might see me there. It is for Alberto and Pornchai and thousands like them in prisons across America that Eric Genuis so gracefully and generously shares his God-given gifts.

It is very difficult to describe in words. Eric Genuis is a world class classical pianist and a composer of the most stirring music I have ever heard. Eric’s piano, along with accompaniment from a cello, a violin and the angelic voice of a vocalist reached deeply into our souls. After the ensemble’s rendition of “Panis Angelicus,” an original composition by Eric Genuis with words composed by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Alberto turned to me with a look of awe. “I have never heard anything like this before,” he whispered with tears in his eyes. For the next two hours, we and others in that gym were lifted up and out of prison into a melodious visit to the lower heavens. I began to fear that we might all get charged with attempted escape.

Just a few days later, Alberto was gone again — this time to a minimum security prison unit outside these walls where he can prepare to reconstruct his broken life. Divine Mercy is real, and because it is real, Mrs. Rose Emerson read of Alberto in these pages. She is the mother of the young man Alberto killed all those years ago at age 14. She contacted me asking me to convey to Alberto her forgiveness of him, and her wish to help him when he is ready for parole and release.

On the evening after the concert, I called Pornchai Moontri in Thailand. I told him that Alberto was back, and that we had spent two hours together in a magnificent concert by Eric Genuis. I told Pornchai that we had very little by way of Advent hope going for us this year. Just little snippets of fleeting hope that we cling to on dark winter days in prison. Eric Genuis set that fleeting hope to music, and then set it ablaze.

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Notes from Fr. Gordon MacRae:

Please visit the music of Eric Genuis at www.ericgenuis.com. His cds would be a gift of hope in any Christmas stocking.

Albums — Buy them here.

You may also like these related links:

Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being

Saint Gabriel the Archangel: When the Dawn from On High Broke Upon Us

The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God

Our Lady of Guadalupe Led Pornchai Moontri from His Prisons

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The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”