Sister Helen Prejean

               
It would be interesting to me to know how many folks on the street know the name, Helen Prejean.  I have known about her for a long time.  I have met and talked with her, heard her talk a few times and have admired who she is and what she does.  She is both an inspiration and a challenge for me, as well as for countless others.  Recently, she published a book, River of Fire.  It is an autobiography of her life and ministry.  I can well imagine she will one day be canonized and become a saint.  In a sense the book tells her story, which I think may be anyone’s story who wants to be obedient to what God wants.

My friend, Franciscan Dan Horan, has written a review of her book and I find the review helpful in introducing me to her book.  I share Dan’s takeaways as a lure for you, too, to read her book.  And if you don’t, Dan’s words can inspire in their own right.  I know he has helped me see the next step I want to take.

Sister Helen, if I may, was born in 1939 in Baton Rouge.  She joined the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1957, which seems frighteningly young to me.  I know I was not ready at age eighteen for such a momentous decision about my life.  I also note she joined a Catholic Order just before Vatican II.  Maybe God knew what was up; I suspect she had little clue.  I would guess she was joining a fairly traditional convent and had opted for all that tradition would mean. 

She became a teacher and was involved in religious education at a local Catholic parish.  That is fairly traditional for a nun at the time.  Then she moved into the St. Thomas Housing Project in New Orleans in order to work among the poor.  Again, this would not have been that unusual.  During this time, she began to correspond with some individuals who were in prison.  At some point, a few of those prisoners were executed.  Sister Helen Prejean witnessed some of these. 

And out of that witness emerged her own witness against the death penalty.  Her website biography describes executing prisoner a “lethal ritual.”  She felt called to witness against it because she was convinced it was contrary to what God would desire and contrary to the gospel.  In order to heighten public awareness, she wrote the famous book, Dead Man Walking.  Many of us have seen the movie.  This became her ministry. Now let’s turn to Dan Horan’s perspective on the more recent writing of the good nun.

An important point Dan makes is how significant her early training as a nun was for what became her life and ministry.  In the convent that would have been called spiritual formation.  He tells us it would be easy to “overlook the spiritual foundation that undergirds the difficult ministry she has performed for the last 40 years.  Such oversight is understandable because accompanying prisoners on death row, testifying in court and before legislators, speaking in public venues, and being portrayed in an Oscar-winning role gets more attention.  The years of religious formation, hours in chapel, time for meditation and reflection, reading, and study of theology go unacknowledged; these things are neither flashy nor easily seen.”

The good news for all of who are not monks and nuns is we, too, can be spiritually formed.  In fact, if we are on a spiritual journey, we already have been formed to some degree.  I have been formed by things I have read, by people who took an interest in me and helped me learn and grow.  And I can continue to be intentional about my formation.  It will be the bedrock of who I am and the ministry I do.

Another interesting point Dan makes is most of us, including Sister Helen, experience ongoing conversion.  He rightly sees that conversion probably happens over and over.  We grow and are converted again into a new, deeper person---more committed and more ready for the ministry God wants from each of us.  He says about Helen Prejean, she was a “devout schoolteacher and aspiring mystic (who) grew into her vocation…”  In the process, as Dan tell us, it is particularly noteworthy that she recognized how important two things were: “openness about her own humanness, and commitment to a life of prayer.”  You and I could take on these two features of our life.

It requires that we want this for our lives.  As long as we are driven by our own ego agenda, we certainly don’t need or want God in our lives---or actively involved in our lives.  Dan puts it well when he comments, “Oftentimes, we are completely oblivious to how the Spirit is at work in real time, but we can train ourselves to be more attentive to the Spirit's promptings.”  Training ourselves is actually a quality of spiritual formation. 

It is an inspiration and a challenge.  I will never be Sister Helen Prejean, nor even Dan Horan.  I won’t be a Sister of St Joseph nor a Franciscan friar.  I can only be me---the one God created uniquely and the disciple God fervently wants to be active in the world.

The next step is wanting to and, then, doing it.