“I was in prison, and you came to me …”

GREENSBURG – The Advent and Christmas seasons can be a lonely time for those who are without family, those who have suffered loss, those who are infirmed, and those who are forgotten. The forgotten are often people we don’t even think about during the hustle and bustle — those who are incarcerated.

In the Parable of the Sheep and Goats, Jesus tells us to show acts of compassion, including visiting those in prison. Before he became Parochial Vicar and then administrator of Saint Bruno and Saint Paul parishes in Greensburg, Father Andrew J. Hamilton served the parishes of Southern Fayette County. During that time,
he ministered and visited those in prison.

For those behind bars, Christmas is always a difficult time, away from family and loved ones.

After celebrating Christmas Day Masses for his parishes, Father Hamilton would hop in his car and head to the prison. Meantime, at his rectory, his family would gather to begin preparations for a family Christmas dinner. For Father Hamilton, Christmas dinner plans would have to be put on hold for a few hours while he tended to the flock behind the walls of the State Correctional Institution at Fayette, a maximum-security state prison in
La Belle, Fayette County.

“It was so moving for me while celebrating the Eucharist there with them because in a way, this is their family,” Father Hamilton said. “It’s what they know right now, and how much it meant to them that I was there with them, sacrificing something else and treating them with great dignity and providing them with sacraments.”

Father Hamilton says going into prison
is very much like one would expect.
There are long hallways that lead into additional security hubs. Once past the hubs, Father Hamilton would move onto the Education Department where the Chaplaincy is located.

“On a typical Sunday, I would have Mass in the morning followed by confessions or whatever the guys needed, then I would have a couple of hours of visiting, doing rounds at places like rehabilitation housing units, which is considered solitary confinement,” he said. His visits continued
with prisoners who were infirmed or facing other health problems or undergoing
physical therapy.

Father Hamilton focused his prison ministry on the redemption of the human person because the entirety of our faith is about our own redemption.

“Nobody is beyond salvation and nobody is beyond returning to the Lord and actually making a conversion of life,” Father Hamilton said. “Maybe they are there for heinous crimes or whatever it might be, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t come to a full recognition of the crime they committed or the people that they have harmed and ask for God’s forgiveness in that place, to go from being a sinner to being a saint, as all of us seek to bring the Lord into our life and transform us.”

Inside the prison walls, Father Hamilton says it’s a relationship of mutual respect between him, the guards and the incarcerated.

“I think on a basic level, prisoners are just looking for someone to listen to them and respect them and from there you form a relationship that helps them in their spiritual needs,” he said.

He also helped many who looked for information about the Catholic faith.

“It could be the first time they have heard Christ preached,” Father Hamilton said. “One gentleman
that I worked with for a time loved praying the rosary.
Once he got a rosary and he was able to learn the prayers, he told me how would go around the yard and it relaxed him and helped him meditate on who Jesus is through the eyes of Mary. He was moved by that devotional practice of the Church.”

He also treated the Catholic community in prison like a parish by giving them a normal parish experience.

“We would pray the rosary together; we would pray the Stations of the Cross. It gave them a feel of community in the midst of prison because that’s what guys are looking for — an authentic good community in the midst of a difficult situation,” Father Hamilton said.

He was even able to bring a Lenten fish fry into the
prison courtesy of the volunteers at of Saint Peter Parish
in Brownsville.

Father Hamilton is grateful that he was able to help, especially those getting ready to leave the facility and return to society.

“I remember one inmate. It was his last week with us there. We said special prayers of blessing and protection over him and that God go with him and really support him. How hard could it be from being in prison for many years and then going back into the world, not the world that you know. Not to be fearful of that but to trust Christ to lead you,” Father Hamilton said

“It was really a beautiful way that I could have a priestly ministry that sent him forth into the world to be an image of Christ and an image of redemption. That’s the ultimate, because no matter how low you are, Christ will pick you up from that place and set you up again and you can do good in the world.”

For those who complain about the length of a Mass, trying to get from the pew to the parking lot to move onto other things during this busy season, Father Hamilton said the prisoners he shepherded had a different perspective, treating Mass like a liberation or freedom.

“They waited one week just for that one hour that they could spend together praying with me as the priest,” he said. “We should reflect upon one of the great gifts that we are given in this world that we take for granted. Things like the sacraments that we have readily available, our parish communities, our freedom of movement.”

It’s something, along with corporal works of mercy, that Father Hamilton encourages the faithful to think about as they focus on these gifts during the season of Advent as we wait to celebrate the greatest gift of all.