Three years ago, Sister Helen Prejean, a tireless advocate for abolishing the death penalty, came to speak at Coe College and stayed with us at Prairiewoods. It was an honor to both meet and spend time with Sister Helen, whom I have admired for years.
Today, following the execution of Daniel Lee by the federal government of the United States, the first federal execution in 17 years, I can’t help but reflect on Sister Helen’s work and words. In this time of pandemic and upheaval it seems we are being called to consider, or reconsider, the world we are living in and co-creating on many levels. I feel called and challenged, daily, to become more clear about who I am, who I wish to be and where I will use my voice to speak out for change.
Sister Helen’s is one of the voices that I’m listening to today to help me center and ground my own response. The following are several quotes from Sister Helen that are resonating in my heart.
“I saw the suffering and I let myself feel it: the sound of gunshots in the night, mothers calling out for their children. I saw the injustice and was compelled to do something about it. I changed from being a nun who only prayed for the suffering world to a nun with my sleeves rolled up, living my prayer …”
—Sister Helen Prejean, “Living My Prayer” essay for the NPR series This I Believe
“I guess when you’re not awake, you’re not awake. Waking up to the suffering of people who are different from us is a long process, and has a whole lot to do with what community we belong to and whose consciousness and life experiences impact our own on a daily basis. I have a hunch I’m going to be waking up until the moment I die.”
—River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey
“If we believe that murder is wrong and not admissible in our society, then it has to be wrong for everyone, not just individuals but governments as well. And I end by challenging people to ask themselves whether we can continue to allow the government, subject as it is to every imaginable form of inefficiency and corruption, to have such power to kill.”
—Dead Man Walking
“There’s no such thing as being apolitical. If we sit back and do nothing, leaving all the policy making to others, that is, in fact, a position of support for the status quo, which is a very political stance to take.”
—River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey
You can learn more about Sr. Helen and her life’s work at her website, www.SisterHelen.org. To listen to Sr. Helen reading her full “Living My Prayer” essay from NPR, go to www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17845521.
Prairiewoods welcomes people of all faiths and cultures to explore and deepen relationships with God, Earth, self and others. Our founding and sponsoring community is Franciscan. In 2018, the catechism of the Catholic Church was revised to say that “in the light of the Gospel” the death penalty is “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
—Jenifer Hanson, Prairiewoods director