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This is awesome. What a labor of love to reach out to those hurting, you know Jesus said, "When I was in prison you visited me, when I was thirsty you gave me water, and when I was naked you clothed me."

Earl Kooperkamp, parish pastor excerpt from sermon given at St. Mary’s Manhattanville, January 22, 2006 Usually when we talk about prison ministry in the church, we go right to the 25th chapter of Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus says: ‘When I was in prison you visited me.’ And even when the righteous hear this and say, ‘When were you in prison Lord?’ Jesus goes on to say, ‘As you did it for the least of these, so you have done it for me.’ Now, I like that of course. We go to prison to find Jesus, just like Jesus says when we give food to the hungry, visit the sick, or water to those who thirst, so we have done it for Jesus as well. This is true, as Jesus tells us, for those in prison, those who are completely marginalized, demonized and easily forgotten, those of whom it is so easy to ignore their basic humanity, forgetting that each is a child of God as well and our own sister or brother. I don’t look at Matthew 25 as much nowadays as a warrant for prison ministry: I’ve begun to look much more closely at the Book of Acts. Since I started teaching at Sing Sing, I’ve seen in the book of Acts that God doesn’t want anyone in prison: every time one of Jesus’ followers gets locked up—Peter, other disciples, or Paul—God busts them out of jail. It happens over and over again, so my conclusion is God doesn’t want anybody in jail!