Episcopal Life Online Daybook -- Today is Friday, July 20, 2007. The Church calendar remembers Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriett Ross Tubman.
* Today in Scripture:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm * Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm * Today in History: On this day in 2000, James L. Duncan, the first Bishop of Southeast Florida, died at The Floridean in Miami.
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MULTIMEDIA
A conversation about prison ministry with Petero Sabune "Why are we doing this? We do it because Jesus said so."
By Neva Rae Fox
[Episcopal News Service] Prayer. Study. Action. Reflection.
The Rev. Canon Petero Sabune believes that prison ministry is based on those four steps. Once the fourth step of reflection is reached, it's important to start over with the first.
He has based his lifelong vocation to prison ministry on that process.
Sabune is the pastor chaplain at Sing Sing Prison, a maximum security facility in Ossining, New York, about an hour's drive north of New York City. Most Americans know it simply as "Sing Sing "--a bleak and hard place depicted regularly in popular TV shows and movies.
But Sabune, 55 years old, sees beyond the bleakness of Sing Sing. That's because Sabune is more than just a priest who works in a prison. He is a laborer for the Lord, doing his work in places where people tend to recoil in fear. He sees the face of the Lord in the prisoners with whom he interacts every day.
In 25 years of ordained ministry, Sabune has been called to small struggling parishes as well as large, "tony" NYC churches. He has worked in street ministry, served as a cathedral dean, and has stood twice for election as a bishop. But no matter where or what his calling, prison ministry remains the backbone of his life's work.
Pointing to his ever-present Bible, he inquired, "Why are we doing this? We do it because Jesus said so."
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_88287_ENG_HTM.htm
A video stream of Sabune's interview is available at: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81231_ENG_HTM.htm
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Catalyst: "Compassion as a Subversive Activity: Illness, Community, and the Gospel of Mark" from Cowley Publications, by David K. Urion, M.D., 178 pages, paperback, c. 2006, $14.95
[Source: Cowley Publications] To Dr. David Urion's question, "How can I help you?" the father of the young boy with autism responded in a small voice that choked back some tears, "Be with us. Keep us company. This is so lonely."
This book is part of Dr. Urion's attempt to keep his promise, a promise which in fact we all made to this family and to many families on the day of their child's baptism. Baptism by baptism, in each of our faith communities, we vow to do everything in our power to support them in their life in God.
Urion beckons us to contemplate the miraculous healings in the Gospel of Mark as subversive political acts of power that provide examples of restoring the integrity and the wholeness of the community, not just for the persons who are overtly healed but for the community as well. The tales of power he invites us to consider in this book reflect upon the extraordinary and paradoxical power of the powerless.