Pierre Raphael's God Behind Bars:
A Prison Chaplain Reflects on the Lord's Prayer
Page 2 of 5 NYCHS excerpts presentation pages.

Images above and below are from the NYCHS webmaster's 2006 photos
of Rikers' closed penitentiary (aka JATC) inmate chapel. They do not appear
in the book but are added in this presentation because the book mentions the chapel.

. . . . On Rikers Island, where more than twenty thousand men and women are imprisoned, father is often a curse word.

How many families’ stories I have heard there, stories of fathers that can be summed up in broken hopes:

“It was my father who had put me in prison.”

“My father left; I never knew him.”

“I have just found my father here in prison. I had not seen him since I was eighteen.”

“I love blood and brawls. I never had a father to teach me to live.”


Inmate painted copy of Creation of Man?

Above is a 2006 photo of the rear wall of the closed inmate chapel in the James A. Thomas Center, formerly the Rikers Island Penitentiary. The photo, taken by the NYCHS webmaster, shows the wall dominated by a large copy of The Creation of Man detail from the Sistine Chapel ceiling originally done by Michaelangelo circa 1508 - 1512.

The scene has been called one of the most overwhelming visions in the history of art. Whether the Rikers copy was painted by an inmate artist is unknown. Below it are what appear to be Stations of the Cross. Whether they were done by an inmate artist also is unknown.

For more about the Creation of Man and other Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoe details, click the image to access the Vatican Museums On-Line virtual tour.

How is it possible, under such conditions, to proclaim and offer the blessed words, “heavenly Father,” when even the most tenuous relationship to a father is missing; when the sons and daughters of this prison world have no one to listen to, to follow, to thank?

How is it possible to make the leap from these cages and these wounds to a God who wants to be close to us and make known the joy He has in store for us? . . . .

The first word, Our, of the Our Father raises us out of the depths.

We are no longer alone, wrapped in the solitude of death.

This Our binds me to the plural, the blessed plural of the communal dimension.

If I want to turn to God and honor His fatherhood and motherhood, I cannot bypass the brotherhood and sisterhood, the faith community that has chosen Jesus as its teacher and Lord. . . . .

Today, when people are forcibly marginalized, on Rikers Island and elsewhere; today, when many are sick because they have lost their identity or are isolated and. spiritually frigid, the light of the Our Father restores warmth.

There are, then, no longer any hermetically sealed borders or degrading exclusions. . . .

 

The above excerpts are from Pages 12 and 13.

. . . . What Jesus offers when we pray and acknowledge his Father WHO ART IN HEAVEN is a broad and expansive understanding of heaven. It is not a material place; it is beyond everything and contains everything because it is God himself. The reality of God is called heaven. The fullness of life is there, far fuller life than on earth. . . .

The God who comes to heal our wounds comes even in the face of the worst situation.

We don’t need much experience to realize that there are situations in which everything conspires to make us lose heart; living at Rikers is one of them.


Another 2006 view of closed JATC inmate chapel.

Above is another 2006 photo of the rear wall of the closed inmate chapel in the James A. Thomas Center, formerly the Rikers Island Penitentiary.

The photo, taken by the NYCHS webmaster, shows the lower left corner of the large copy of The Creation of Man detail from the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Below it are what appear to be Stations of the Cross. Whether they were done by an inmate artist is unknown.

Below them are stacked materials for repairs to the landmark island penitentiary opened in the mid-1930s. Although no longer used for inmate housing the facility includes various administrative and inmate service offices. Also visible are the rows of wooden seats.

Living twenty-three hours a day in a tiny cell, being subjected to a degrading routine of suspicion and control, no longer knowing what the words dialogue and human dignity mean—these experiences seemingly leave room only for nothingness or animality, the sort I witnessed one day in a cell block when an inmate was stabbed twelve times.

I do not excuse real guilt by exercising the easy freedom of a passerby giving no thought to a brutal act. I do not forget the many victims of crimes - or the wicked, who make prisons necessary.

But more than once I was struck by something else. So often I have sensed vast questions behind an affected confidence or a broken hope:

“I have done and experienced everything, and nothing lasts.”

“Mv father has already spent eleven years in prison and has just gone back in. My mother is on _ drugs and cannot help herself. And here I am on Rikers _ Island.”

“I cannot read in the cell block. It’s too dangerous for me. I have too many enemies here. I must always keep my eyes open and be off guard."

“I am suffering more in prison than I did in Vietnam.”

. . . . In the hell that can be ours on earth, we lose our bearings. But the Father in heaven seeks union with us here on earth and is ready to help. The important word to remember is union. Without it. we are alone, each of us hopelessly struggling. Jesus invites us to seek union with the Father and each other. We are brothers and sisters. the children of our Father.

As a priest friend of mine used to say: “A psychologist can define a loving person. But he cannot explain people loving one another.”

In other words, our very desire for union and mutual love is a revelation, a gift of God . . . .

 

The above excerpts are from Pages 19, 20 and 21.

. . . . I remeniber a Rikers prisoner coming to ask. “Father, can you pray tor my daughter?”

“Yes,” I assured him, “but what is her name?”

“I forget,” he said.

Naturally I felt sorrv for the man and his daughter, yet that incident has often made me reflect with gratitude on how God never forgets any of our names.


Another 2006 view of closed JATC inmate chapel.

Above is another 2006 photo of the closed inmate chapel in the James A. Thomas Center, formerly the Rikers Island Penitentiary.

Seen at a distance is the left side of the front of the chapel.

It is the front closest the window facing the main doorway. It is also the front side furthest from that main doorway from which the photo was taken by the NYCHS webmaster.

Although not clearly defined in the image, that front side features a montage of scenes from the New Testament narratives. Whether they were painted by an inmate artist is unknown.

In prison names are replaced by numbers. Anonymity and a faceless mass are the rules.

A person's official identification is a number. Because of this, nicknames abound:

“Little,” “Fat,” “Shorty,” “Hollywood and so on.

As in all caricatures, individuals are known by their most obvious traits and, alas, those most lacking in “spirit.”

The final tragedy is to die on Rikers Island, having given the authorities an alias.

These men have no identity and are totally unknown; the authorities cannot inform anyone outside about the death.

To a false name and false address is added the oblivion of burial in Potters Field on Hart Island, New York; the loss in human terms is now complete.

All that is left is God’s remembrance and mercy. For in his sight there is no incomplete file, no unidentified soul. . . . .

....His Name says it all as we can read the poster in the chapel of the House of Detention for Men [JATC] at Rikers:

I was regretting the past
And fearing the future.
Suddenly my Lord was speaking:
“My Name is I AM.”
He paused. I waited. He continued:
When you live in the past
With its mistakes and regrets
It is hard. I am not there.
My Name is not “I was.”
When you live in the future
With its problems and fears,
It is hard. I am not there.
My Name is not “I will be.”
When you live in this moment
It is not hard. I AM here.
My Name is I AM.”

 

The above excerpts are from Pages 28, 35 and 36.

NYCHS presents these text excerpts from Pierre Raphael's God Behind Bars: A Prison Chaplain Reflects on the Lord's Prayer by permission of its author and its publisher, which retains the copyright © and reserves all rights thereunder. For more about the book, contact Fr. Raphael at Abraham House where he is spiritual director, visit Paulist Press, Amazon.Com, or Barnes and Noble, or Google Book Search.
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Rev. Jared Curtis
First Prison
Chaplain
in the U.S.
Auburn:
The Prison and
the Theological
Seminary
1869 NYS Prison
Chaplain Reports:
Auburn, Sing
Sing, Clinton
Finding the
'Lost Chapel'
of
Rikers Island