Down the Nights and Down the Days: Advent for a Prisoner Priest
. . . Offering Mass in a prison cell is a little like offering Mass in a battlefield. We don't have the luxury of an altar, and must make do with what we've got - which isn't much. In the middle of the floor in this eight-by-twelve-foot cell are two concrete stumps that protrude about two feet out of the concrete floor. Just inches to one side of my stump is an iron bunk, and inches to the other side is a concrete counter protruding sixteen inches from the stone cell wall. At first, I offered Mass sitting on the concrete stump with my Mass kit spread at the edge of my bunk. One of my treasures is a Hammond World Atlas. Whenever TSW readers post comments that mention where they are, Pornchai and I like to find their town or city in the Atlas. So far, we have had readers from 31 countries. . . .
New on These Stone Walls: Loose Ends and Dangling Participles
. . . Another reader wrote that she liked "Saints and Sacrifices," but pointed out that it was my third post in 12 weeks about Adolf Hitler, and I'm "beginning to sound a bit like the History Channel." OUCH! There's a strange irony in that. There's no character in history that I loathe more than Hitler. The irony is that as my trial ended in 1994, the prosecutor compared me to Adolf Hitler in his closing remarks to the jury.It was the sort of inflammatory statement that usually isn't allowed in court, but it was allowed in that court. The jury looked visibly alarmed, and I can only imagine how I looked to them. As with the rest of that trial, the Hitler comparison like Hitler himself - had nothing to do with the truth or with justice. . . .
