“There are few authentic prophetic voices among us, guiding truth-seekers along the right path. Among them is Fr. Gordon MacRae, a mighty voice in the prison tradition of John the Baptist, Maximilian Kolbe, Alfred Delp, SJ, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”

— Deacon David Jones

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 9/27/23 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 9/27/23

St. Michael the Archangel and the Scales of Our Salvation

In Judeo-Christian tradition the scales of Saint Michael the Archangel measure souls for eternity, weighing not only justice and mercy for us but also from us.

In Judeo-Christian tradition the scales of Saint Michael the Archangel measure souls for eternity, weighing not only justice and mercy for us but also from us.

September 27, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae

In September 2010, when this blog was but a year old, I wrote a post that was to become one of the most-read posts of the last decade. I had no idea at the time that it would find readers year after year on six of the seven continents. (Is there no one reading BTSW in Antarctica?) The post was “Angelic Justice: St. Michael the Archangel and the Scales of Hesed.”

The last word of its title, “Hesed,” is a Hebrew term associated with two central tenets of salvation: Mercy and Righteousness. The story that post tells began within these stone walls and brought about a resurgence of interest in this Patron Saint of Justice. Over time, his Angelic Presence — his name means “who is like God” — has developed a seemingly mystical connection with this imprisonment.

This connection began with a simple gesture from a devout young man named Alberto Ramos. Sent to prison at age 14 for murder — a back-alley drug deal gone horribly wrong — Alberto was a psychology student of mine at age 18 in a prison program for college credit. Alberto also lived in the same prison unit as me and Pornchai Moontri. His painfully amazing story was told at Beyond These Stone Walls in “Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being.” We will link to that post again at the end of this one, and if you click on it you will see a wonderful photo of Alberto and Pornchai as they are graduating from high school.

A startling thing happened after I wrote it. The mother of the young man who died in that Manchester, NH alley that night read it. Then she agonized over it. Then she had a conversion of heart, something she says she would not have thought possible after years of entrenched bitter resentment toward Alberto. She forgave him, and wrote of her forgiveness in a moving comment on that post. She also decided to try to help him.

Mere words cannot capture the meaning of “Hesed” relative to the Scales of Saint Michael and the weighing of souls, but the mother of that murdered boy attained it as much as any human being can. A conversion of heart that sets aside bitterness to give way to mercy made her righteous in the eyes of the Lord.

Some of the images of Saint Michael with his scales depict Satan, even while subdued under his feet, reaching to tip the scales by stifling our ongoing conversion. The battleground of spiritual warfare is our very soul, and the battle is real. One day Alberto walked into my cell carrying a card with a painting on it. He silently climbed up onto a concrete counter and taped the image above my door. “You need this here,” he said, “and you should never take it down.” It was a startling image depicting this scene from the Apocalypse:

“War broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, the ancient serpent who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world — he was thrown down to Earth and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, ‘Now have salvation and power come, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Anointed One, for the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who night and day accused them before God.’”

— Revelation 12:7-10

At the center of the painting was St. Michael the Archangel, sword in one hand and scales in the other, subduing Satan after a fierce battle. I asked Alberto why he thinks I need this. “Because you were falsely accused,” he said, “And you need his protection so you won’t be bitter and never trust anyone again.” Now, almost 14 years later, that image is still above the door of my cell.

Guardian of the Covenant

Sometime later, Alberto was moved to another prison in another state, but I have for years pondered what he said. I did not include his warning about bitterness when I first wrote in “Angelic Justice” of his placing that image above my door. I am not certain why I left it out. But I have come to see that false witness is a powerful tipping of the scales in the measure of souls, and so is succumbing to bitterness. We are far more spiritually vulnerable than most of us realize. It took a long time, but I was finally able to convince both Pornchai and Alberto of a tough lesson I was slow in learning myself. Bitterness is like a toxic brew that we mix for our enemies just to end up drinking it ourselves.

In Jewish tradition, Saint Michael is one of the four angels who stand in the Presence of God. The Book of Daniel (12:1) also identifies Michael as “One who stands beside the sons of your people,” an allusion that he is the guardian of God’s chosen people. His name is mentioned in the Shema, a prayer from Hebrew tradition:

“In the Name of the Lord God of Israel, on my right hand stands Michael, on my left, Gabriel, before me, Uriel, behind me, Raphael, and above me, the Divine Presence of Yahweh.”

Every mention of Michael in the Hebrew Scriptures identifies him as an advocate for Israel and therefore an advocate for the Covenant relationship with God. Advocate in that sense is used in the same manner that someone falsely accused of a crime might describe his defense attorney. And Satan is presented as prosecutor. It is fascinating that in the Book of Revelation, the scene of Satan’s expulsion from heaven by Michael and his angels ends with a declaration: “The accuser of our brethren is cast out.” The offense for which Satan accuses us is something he himself is denied: a hope for salvation. In ancient traditions, Michael defends the righteous in the presence of Yahweh in our final judgment.

Like much of what I write at Beyond These Stone Walls my post, “Was Cardinal George Pell Convicted on Copycat Testimony?”appeared on the professional social media site, Linkedln where it had hundreds of views. I rather like Linkedln even though I have never actually seen it. It’s a little tamer than some other social media platforms where the give and take can become overbearing. And on LinkedIn, you will never have to look at pictures of other people’s cats.

So I was a little surprised when even at the venerable LinkedIn, my rational and factual defense of Cardinal Pell ran into some pointed opposition. One writer who identified himself as “a practicing Catholic” wrote that Cardinal Pell is in prison where he belongs for “abusing children.” Several readers responded that the evidence does not support that claim. In my response, I wrote that his practice of Catholicism needs more practice. And as you know, Cardinal Pell was ultimately exonerated in a unanimous decision of Australia’s highest court.

The abuse crisis in the priesthood is a two-edged sword in seemingly equal measure. It is a story of clerical corruption, but it is by same measure a story of false witness. Clerical corruption has had ample play in the news media, and social media has been no exception. False witness, however, is grossly under-reported.

Also under-reported are the wonderful expressions of Catholic faith by people of real fidelity undaunted by the arena in which scandal plays out on the front page. Father George David Byers sent me a link to a short video of the Eucharistic Congress Procession in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina. Wonderful!

The Origin of the Eighth Commandment

From the first signs of Satan’s pursuit of the hearts and souls of humankind, the Covenant conscripts us into Saint Michael’s battle against evil. The separation of light from darkness in the human relationship with God portrays Saint Michael as a warrior tasked with the protection and defense of human souls, and the preservation of the covenant.

Written contracts did not exist in the Hebrew society of our Old Testament. In their place, the spoken word had the authority of a signed contract. A blessing or curse was understood to follow the person to whom it was directed for all of his or her life. Spoken words were thus carefully considered. The parties of a covenant were bound by mutual agreement with serious repercussions for those who violated its terms. God’s covenant with Abraham was seen in Jewish culture as the foundation of our relationship with Yahweh. For that story, see “The Feast of Corpus Christi and the Order of Melchizedek.”

However, the covenant with Israel itself, the covenant that made Israel a people of Yahweh, was the Sinai Covenant in the Book of Exodus (19:1-ff). It made them a people because it set down ethical standards for being a people. The Covenant was set down in the stone tablets of the law, and had the authority of God’s Presence housed in the Ark of the Covenant.

One of these sacred tenets, the Eighth Commandment — “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” — is thought by both Jewish and legal scholars to have an unusual origin: Genesis, Chapter 39. When Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and taken down to Egypt, he was purchased as a slave by Potiphar, a high ranking officer of Pharaoh. In the account in Genesis (39:6-21), Potiphar’s wife repeatedly pursued Joseph but he would not consent. In one episode, she tried to grab his garment, but he fled, tearing off a section of his garment in her hand. She later accused him of sexual assault using the garment as evidence against him.

For this, Joseph was unjustly imprisoned. Alan Dershowitz, a Jewish scholar and Emeritus Professor of Law at Harvard, addressed this in his book, Genesis of Justice (Warner Books, 2000):

“The Ninth Commandment [Eighth in the Christian texts] — “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” — derives directly from Potiphar’s wife bearing false witness against Joseph and Joseph then bearing false witness — even as a pretense — against his brothers. [His brother] Yehuda’s desperate question, ‘How can we clear ourselves?’ is answered by this prohibition and the subsequent procedural safeguards that rest upon this Commandment.”

— Genesis of Justice, p 250

The subsequent procedural safeguards were laid out in the Books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus. The accusation of a single witness, without evidence or corroboration, could not result in a conviction. The testimony of a witness who had a financial stake in the outcome of a juridical trial could not be admitted as evidence against the accused. Today’s juridical proceedings have fallen far from these safeguards.

In both its active and passive forms, false witness was seen in the Covenant as a slayer of souls. Safeguards against it were implemented from the earliest days of Salvation History. In its active form, false witness was any testimony not based on absolute truth. In its passive form, it spreads through rumor, innuendo, and judgments based on bias and agendas instead of facts.

The Necessity of Allies in Spiritual Warfare

It is because of the great danger to the soul that false witness poses that Saint Michael the Archangel took up his cosmic role, as described in the passage from the Book of Revelation above, to cast out the false accuser who no longer has a place in heaven.

Hebrew Scripture and tradition was not unique in this concept. Egyptian mythology depicts a rite in the underworld in which the heart of the deceased was weighed on a set of scales against a “truth feather.” If the heart was heavy with falsehood and false witness, it could not pass on to paradise.

The grave effect of false witness on the person accused, on the souls of accusers, and on the Covenant with God is reflected throughout Sacred Scripture as evidenced in just this partial sampling of passages:

Exodus 20:16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
Exodus 23 1-2 “You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with the wicked to act as a malicious witness. You shall not follow a majority in wrongdoing to bear witness in a lawsuit.”
Exodus 23:6-7 “You shall not pervert justice. Keep far from a false charge. Do not kill the innocent or those in the right for I will not acquit the guilty.”
Deuteronomy 5:20 “Neither will you bear false witness against your neighbor.”
Deuteronomy 19:18 “If the witness is a false witness, having testified falsely against another, then [the judge] shall do to that witness what he intended to do to the other. So shall you purge the evil from your midst.”
Psalm 27:12 [This is one many priests could plea to their bishops] “Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen up against me.”
Proverbs 6:16-19 “There are six things that the Lord abhors: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, a hand that sheds innocent blood, a heart that plots wicked plans, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family.”
Proverbs 19:20 “A false witness will not go unpunished.”
Proverbs 25:18 “Like a war club, a sword, or a sharp arrow is one who bears false witness against a neighbor.”

This list of excerpts from the Word of the Lord could go on for pages. We live in an age of falsehood, a time when the rule of law is collapsing under the weight of political correctness, identity politics, expediency, and moral relativism. These will spell the ruin of both souls and society.

This is why we have allies in spiritual warfare behind and beyond these stone walls, and we are more than willing to share them with you. They include Mary, Mother of God, whose heart was wounded by seven swords; Saint Maximilian Kolbe, wrongly imprisoned under an evil regime, who gave his life for another; Saint Padre Pio, falsely accused, suspended from priestly ministry, even while openly bearing the wounds of Christ.

And Saint Michael the Archangel who prevailed when “the accuser of our brothers was cast out who night and day accused them before God.” (Revelation 12:10) False witness, sans repentance, is a path to spiritual ruin for eternity.

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do you, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, cast into hell Satan, and all evil spirits who prowl about this world seeking the ruin of souls.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: You may also like these related posts :

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POSTSCRIPT

As indicated in this post, my friend Alberto Ramos was sent to another prison about six years ago. While I was writing this post he was returned to the New Hampshire prison to prepare for his coming release after 30 years “inside.” At his earliest opportunity, he came to the prison law library where I am the clerk. His smile was visible in Heaven. As he took my hand in his firm grip he asked three rapid-fire questions: “How are you?, Where is Pornchai? Is Saint Michael still above your door?”

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Pornchai Maximilian Moontri 9/23/23 Pornchai Maximilian Moontri 9/23/23

On the Day of Padre Pio, My Best Friend Was Stigmatized

Writing from Thailand, Pornchai Moontri hopes and prays for justice for Fr Gordon MacRae who begins a 30th year unjustly in prison on the Feast Day of St Padre Pio.

Background photo by Sue Thompson (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Writing from Thailand, Pornchai Moontri hopes and prays for justice for Fr Gordon MacRae who begins a 30th year unjustly in prison on the Feast Day of St Padre Pio.

September 23, 2023 by Pornchai Maximilian Moontri

Note from our Editor: Pornchai Moontri wrote this post in 2020 as he was returning to Thailand after a 36 year absence. The post is mostly about a very important person in his life whom he had to very painfully leave behind. Father Gordon MacRae was wrongly sentenced to prison on the Feast Day of his Patron Saint, September 23, 1994. As Father G begins his 30th year under this injustice, Pornchai implores us all to pray for him that his faith and strength and hope will never fail.

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To My Dear Friends and Family Beyond These Stone Walls : It was not until my friend, Fr Gordon MacRae wrote “Pornchai Moontri and the Long Road to Freedom’’ in 2020 that the weight of this immense change in our lives really hit me. My emotions were on a roller coaster then. Father G and I worked long and hard over the previous 15 years that we had been friends, family and roommates. I could not have imagined on the day we first met that I would be facing this day with hope.

Hope is just one of the emotions competing for space in my heart back then. I was also scared beyond measure, and anxious, and excited, and I was very deeply sad. I guess I have to try to sort this out for myself and for you. I was scared because my whole life, and all that I have known since I was a homeless and lost teenager 32 years ago, was about to change completely.

I was anxious because I was to be cast among strangers for a time, and it was a long time due to Covid-19 pandemic and the constraints on international flights. Weeks after leaving Father G in Concord, New Hampshire Prison, ICE agents took me away to be a prisoner in another crowded, chaotic place where I lived among strangers, taking only the clothes I was wearing.

I was excited because this journey may well be the last of the nightmares of my life. At the other end of that ICE nightmare five months later, I was left in Bangkok, Thailand where I was entirely free for the first time in my living memory. I was adjusting to freedom and a new country and culture all at once. From inside the prison cell we shared for all those years, Father Gordon miraculously built a bridge to Thailand for me through this wonderful blog. Where there was once only darkness ahead, there were now people in Thailand waiting for me and I was not alone.

Father G wrote about my life before prison in an article that changed everything for me. I have not read it myself because I can’t. I will explain why, but I already know what is in it because I have lived it. I am just not ready to see it in print. The article was “Pornchai Moontri: Bangkok to Bangor, Survivor of the Night.”

All that had become familiar to me had to be left behind. Far worse, Father G had to be left behind and for that I am also sad beyond measure. I knew that when that day came, I would likely never see my friend, my mentor, my father, again in this life. There were times as that day approached when I would lay in the dark in my upper bunk in our prison cell at night, and my darkness and dismay about this felt overwhelming. The person who gave me hope would remain in prison while I would be set free, while banished to a foreign land.

But I was set free in another way, too, and it was Father Gordon MacRae who set me free. I can only barely remember being a happy 11-year-old boy living and working on a small farm in the North of Thailand. In December of 1985, I was taken from there and brought against my will to the United States. Though it was my mother who took me, I did not know her. She had abandoned my brother and me in Thailand when I was only two years old. She waited until I was age eleven to come and take me away because her life was under the control of a monster who sent her to bring me to him. It is that simple, and that terrible.

I have always wondered if readers know how unlikely this alliance between me and Father G is. To explain it, I have to go into what happened to me in life. That is very painful, even unspeakable, so I will spare you what is known only to Father G and God. Father G would later write about this in more general terms in an article that shattered my childhood shame for once being a victim. That post was “Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam.”

I was brought to America as a child. I was eleven when taken from my home and twelve years old when I arrived there. I spoke no English at all so I could not tell anyone what was happening to me. I became afraid to go to sleep at night. This went on for over two years before I escaped into the streets. I was fourteen in a foreign country fending for myself. While trying to protect my mother from what she was also suffering, I kept what had been happening to me a secret even though it had severely affected my mind and destroyed my spirit. This was no story about repressed memories like so many of the stories against Father G and other Catholic priests. My burden was that I could not forget a single moment of what happened no matter how much I tried.

So when I was sent to prison at age 18, I was broken and bitter. It is not a good place to grow up. I was forced to fight, a lot, and I convinced myself that I will never again be anyone’s victim. Eight years after I was sent to prison, I learned that my mother was murdered on the Island of Guam. She was brought there by the man who arranged for me to be taken from Thailand. It’s all in Father G’s article linked above and it is an American horror story.

I ended up in solitary confinement for years, a prison within a prison that just magnified the inner madness. In 2005, at the age of 32, I was chained up and transported to a prison in another state, New Hampshire. As you already know, I met Father G there. I heard why he was in prison. I wanted him to help me transfer to a Thai prison, something that he refused to do, but I also thought that he and I could never be friends. Then I heard that there were articles about him and his charges in The Wall Street Journal so I read them. The articles were the result of an honest investigation. I was shocked by them.

As a childhood survivor of horrible sexual abuse and violence, I felt disgusted by what I knew to be accusations made up for money. This guy, Thomas Grover was seen as credible by a police detective, a prosecutor, and a biased judge, but I did not see how that could be possible. Any real survivor of sexual abuse should see right through this. There was a claim that this con man, high school football player at age 15, was raped by Father G in a rectory office, then the guy returned five times saying that he repressed all memory of it from week to week. The stories of his brothers were even more incredible. Then I read that they all stood to get a $200,000 check from the Catholic Diocese of Manchester and no one questioned any of this???

I read that Father G was offered a plea deal from a corrupt detective and prosecutor. One year in prison. If he was guilty, of course he would take it. Even if he was innocent, but had no integrity, he might still take it. But he was innocent, and he did have integrity, so he refused the deal. Then he was sentenced to more than sixty times the time in prison he would have got if he was guilty. When I read all this, I was furious just as every real survivor of sexual abuse should be furious.

Now I have to jump ahead several years. I made a decision to trust Father G. This was a miracle all by itself because I never really trusted anyone. There is a writer in France named Marie Meaney who somehow wrote about this story. It is not a long version, but she caught every important detail and its meaning in just two pages. Her article is “Untying the Knots of Sin — In Prison.”

Ever Deeper Into the Tangled Threads

As the trust grew between me and Father G, I began to reveal all that happened to me. I did not imagine then that he was storing every detail in support of some future deliverance. We had been living in the same cell for two years when Beyond These Stone Walls began in the summer of 2009. I had been secretly thinking about becoming Catholic then, and had been taking correspondence courses in Scripture and Catholic teaching through the Knights of Columbus. My interest in the Catholic faith was growing because I saw it quietly working every day in the person I was living with in a small prison cell. I remember a day, just after I was moved into the area where Father G lived. It was a few months before we became roommates. I walked into his cell and the first thing I saw was a picture taped to a beat up steel mirror on the wall. I stared at it. The man was balding with glasses, and half in priest’s clothes and the clothes of a prisoner. Father G was busy writing something. I asked, “Is this you?”

It turned out to be the most important question of my life. Father Gordon then told me all about Saint Maximilian Kolbe, of how he was sent to prison in a Nazi concentration camp on fake charges, of how he helped other prisoners, and finally of how he gave his life to save a younger prisoner from execution. Father Maximilian was 41 years old when this happened. Father G was 41 when he was unjustly sent to prison. I learned about not only sainthood, but manhood from these two men. In another miracle, Felix Carroll, the Editor of Marian Helper magazine, wrote a book with a chapter about me. He wrote of this story:

“Eyes that once smoldered with coiled rage now sparkle with purpose and compassion. Through Fr. Gordon MacRae, Pornchai discovered the saints and the Blessed Mother. In St. Maximilian Kolbe he discovered what it means to truly be a man, what it means to be tough. A man doesn’t seek to destroy other men. A man doesn’t hold his own needs above the needs of others. A real man is selfless. St. Maximilian knew what it was like to be stripped of his humanity and dignity. In him, Pornchai found recourse because Maximilian never caved into despair. In 1941 at Auschwitz, he gave his life to save that of another man.”

— Loved, Lost, Found, pp.166-167

Over time, Father G became all of these things for me. He never once put himself first, and he made great sacrifices for me. He told me once that sacrifice is the most necessary part of being a man and a father. While I was slowly being drawn into faith and hope, Father G was always looking out for my best interests, never putting himself first. He became my best friend, and the person I trust most in this world. From prison, he opened for me a window onto Christ.

As I mentioned above, Beyond These Stone Walls began in our cell in the summer of 2009. It was another miracle I never would have thought possible. It was proposed to Father G in a phone call and he came to our cell and told me about it. He let me decide what to call it so I chose “These Stone Walls,” I always saw prison as a place where we were sent to be forgotten. Father G said that we could speak to the whole world from here, and we did.

I became a Catholic on Divine Mercy Sunday, 2010. Meanwhile, Father G’s writing at Beyond These Stone Walls got the attention of others. One of them was Mrs. Clare Farr, a Trademarks attorney in Western Australia. She and Father G teamed up to begin an investigation of my past life. They were relentless, and over time what they accomplished grew and grew. I never thought justice was even possible, but they kept probing and making connections. Then the police came to interview me. They came a second time along with a District Attorney. As a result, in 2017 Richard Alan Bailey was arrested in Oregon and held on $49,000 bail charged with forty felony counts of sexual abuse against a child.

There was to be no trial, however. Richard Bailey took a plea deal. He today stands convicted of all 40 felony charges. His sentence was suspended and he was given probation. This would be an international outrage if Richard Bailey were a Catholic priest. The story of the murder of my mother when he took her to the Island of Guam remains there a cold case unsolved homicide even though there is new evidence pointing to a solid suspect.

Pornchai Moontri’s mugshot at the time of his arrest at age 18 in Bangor, Maine, after having lived on the streets for two years.

True Crime and Punishment

Father Gordon MacRae freed me from the evil this man inflicted on me. He taught me that this evil is not mine to keep. I just see the horrible injustice in the handling of these two cases. My abuser did monstrous things. His assaults were more than the number he was charged with. There were witnesses ready to testify and lots of clear evidence.

He was sentenced to mere probation because I was a prisoner and the prosecutor feared that I would be assailed on the witness stand because of that. So they offered Richard Bailey a plea deal. He took the deal because he is guilty. So for forty counts of rape, he will never serve a single day in jail and all the evidence was never placed before the court.

In the case of Father Gordon MacRae, a plea deal was also offered. It was offered three times, and each time he refused the offer of a single year in prison because he is innocent. These offers were made because Thomas Grover, his 27-year-old accuser at trial, was not credible at all. He was a drug addict with a criminal record that was kept out of the trial by a biased judge. He was biased from the beginning and once told the jury to disregard all the inconsistencies in Thomas Grover’s story. As Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote in “The Trials of Father MacRae” in The Wall Street Journal, “They had much to disregard.” Father G was not on trial. The whole Catholic priesthood was on trial. Convicted of five counts with zero evidence, he got 67 years in prison.

What do I do with such a story? If Father G had not been here, what would have become of me? This is part of the Cross I now carry through life. I would give my freedom to save his, but he would have none of that.

For the last 14 years in this prison while becoming a Catholic and living as a Catholic, I have also lived in very close quarters with a man I know without a doubt to be innocent. During this time, I have been scandalized by the response of most other priests, and especially by Father G’s cowardly bishop who treats him like a dangerous outcast.

When they have come here for an occasional Mass, they barely speak or even acknowledge him. I am ashamed for their cowardly and petty attitude. Father G says the Church and the Mass are much bigger than the flawed human beings behind them.

After 29 years in prison, 15 of them as Father G’s roommate, and 12 of them as a Catholic, freedom came to me in steps. Three years ago I was freed from this prison, but I will never be free of Father G. It breaks my heart that the man responsible for my freedom was left behind unjustly in prison.

When I asked that question all those years ago — “Is this you?” — I got my answer. It was Saint Maximilian in that picture on the mirror but it is also Father Gordon MacRae, the man who freed my mind and soul from the horror inflicted on me by a real predator.

I could not bear to leave my friend, and I have not. We speak every day, and his fatherly guidance is no less potent now than it was in that prison cell. We have another Patron Saint, Saint Padre Pio who brought about much healing in my life. The day the Church honors him is also the date Father G was cast into prison. They have a special bond. I entrust Father Gordon MacRae to him, and to all of you.

Please do not forget Father G behind those stone walls.

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Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 9/13/23 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 9/13/23

Old Max Moontri Had a Farm, EIEIO!

Having built with pick and shovel a 150 meter walkway on a property he landscaped, Pornchai Moontri spent his 50th Birthday plowing and planting an acre of farmland.

Having built with pick and shovel a 150 meter walkway on a property he landscaped, Pornchai Moontri spent his 50th Birthday plowing and planting an acre of farmland.

September 13, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae

I stumbled upon a late night TV movie recently — though I do not know the title — just as a young man was visiting his father in prison. I was late tuning into the film so the plot was not immediately clear. It seemed that the father was innocent of whatever crime sent him to prison and his son was very anxious to prove it. I was riveted to the scene. Through security glass where they conversed via monitored telephones, the father was urging his son to move on with his life and be free. The young man protested, “But I want YOU to be free!” His father replied, “My freedom is in witnessing yours.”

I pondered this for a few moments laying there in the dark of night in a prison cell. And then I began to cry. That was most unusual. In nearly 30 years of seeing my life implode from false witness, I can count on one hand the number of times I have shed even a single tear. It just isn’t in my nature to cry easily. I wrote once that women seem to cry much more easily than men. Perhaps men do not cry nearly enough.

That night I could not contain what was spilling out from within me. I realized with an emotional collision of joy and sadness that a part of me now compensates for my loss of freedom by witnessing it unfold in the life of Pornchai Moontri with whom I spent 15 years surviving in a prison cell. In that time, a bond of trust grew between us in a place where trust is the rarest of commodities. We became each other’s family, and the basis of our connection was always fatherhood. Pornchai never had a father. I spent the last forty one years being called one.

I was 20 when Pornchai was born, and on September 10 this week, he turned 50, so do the math. Fatherhood in this case was not an event, but a process. Over time, while learning the entire story of Pornchai’s tragic life, it gradually became my own life’s mission to secure his freedom even above my own.

Overtime, we encountered mystical connections in this bond. They include Divine Mercy and the intercessory graces of a Patron Saint who also surrendered his life in this life to save another. I do not fully understand these connections, but I know in my heart that they are there. Embracing fatherhood makes men see their lives differently. As I quoted in a recent post:

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. Now we see dimly as in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. Now I understand only in part, but then I shall understand fully even as I am fully understood.”

— 1 Corinthians 13:10-12

Three years after Pornchai’s deportation to Thailand, I still find myself, as any true father would, reveling in his freedom as though revisiting an inspired work of art that I somehow had a hand in creating. This was perhaps evident in our recent post about the earliest days of this blog and the first posts I wrote back then. Some readers told me that it made them cry as well, but not just from sadness. I hope you did not miss “Maximilian Kolbe: The Other Prisoner Priest in My Cell.”

A Passage to India

The interconnectedness of our lives did not suddenly end because of time and distance. In his final years here, Pornchai and I were the sole figures offering assistance to other prisoners facing deportation. Regardless of what anyone thinks about whatever offense brought them to this pass, deportation is often an inhumane nightmare impacting bonds within entire families.

One of the persons we assisted in navigating deportation was a young Cambodian man who was brought to the United States at age two. At age 22, he pled guilty to a petty crime without ever being told that doing so would result in his forced deportation. He spoke not a word of Khmer, the language of Cambodia. He was left in the city of Phnom Penh, and since then has disappeared.

One of our good friends here, Abishek, a native of India, had been in the United States for much of his adult life before some out-of-character and out-of-culture domestic dispute and breakup landed him in prison. As with most such situations, Abishek lost not only his freedom, but the entire infrastructure of his life. His close-knit family in India kept in contact from a great distance, but he leaned on Pornchai and me for moral support when he most needed it as the time of deportation approached.

In 2020, Abishek was understandably interested in the process Pornchai was facing because he knew he would soon face the same thing. He was alarmed to learn that Pornchai remained in the dismal custody of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for over five months at the height of the global Covid pandemic. I wrote of this ordeal in 2020 in “ICE Finally Cracks: Pornchai Moontri Arrives in Thailand.”

We hoped this process would be easier for Abishek once the pandemic receded, but that was not the case. He ended up serving six months beyond his prison sentence, but could not seek release because of the ICE hold on him. After waiting six months for ICE to act, I helped Abishek write to Regional ICE Headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts. Just two weeks later, he was suddenly gone in the night. That was six months ago, and for all that time we assumed that he was safely back in India adjusting to freedom, family and a new life. We thought no news was good news.

But we were wrong. A few weeks ago when I called Pornchai in Thailand, he told me that he received a call at 1 AM during the night before. ICE detainees without resources get one free five-minute call per week. Abishek used it to call Pornchai in Thailand. It turned out that for six months since leaving this prison, Abishek was stranded just 50 miles away in a jail where ICE rents space for detainees awaiting deportation. Abishek was now one year past his prison sentence.

Pornchai and I were powerless to do anything directly so I sent an email message from the tablet in my cell in Concord, New Hampshire prison to Clare Farr, a trademarks attorney in Western Australia who helped Pornchai immensely. She then called Pornchai in Thailand who gave what little information we knew about our friend’s plight. Clare contacted the Indian Embassy in Canberra, Australia and conveyed all that we told her. The Indian Embassy in Australia then contacted the Indian Government which in turn contacted the Indian Consulate. Two weeks later, just days before I type this, Abishek’s odyssey came to an end. Thanks to the intervention of Clare Farr in Australia, Abishek is now reunited with his family in India.

The bizarre thread of this story is worth repeating. Indigent ICE detainees get one free five-minute phone call per week. From ICE detention in New Hampshire, Abishek called Pornchai Moontri in Thailand at 1 AM. Pornchai then contacted me in New Hampshire. I contacted Pornchai’s advocate, Clare Farr in western Australia, who then contacted the Indian Embassy in Canberra. Then the Embassy contacted the Indian Government in New Delhi, who contacted the Indian Consulate in New York instructing them to prepare Abishek’s travel papers and fax them to ICE in Burlington, Massachusetts. ICE then booked a flight for Abishek to get him out of ICE detention in New Hampshire. After a six-month delay, Abishek arrived in India two weeks after his free five-minute phone call to Thailand. We could not make this story up!

**Chalermpon Srisuttor, Mayor of Phuviang, and Pornchai Moontri.**

Pornchai Set His Heart on Plowing Furrows (Sirach 38:26)

As all of the above was going on, Pornchai sent me some photos of his finished, back-breaking work creating a 450-foot walkway on property he landscaped in Pak Chong, Thailand. I actually tried to talk him out of his next project, but as the quote from the Book of Sirach implies above, his mind was made up. Pornchai has not yet received any income from the work we described in “For Pornchai Moontri, Hope and Hard Work Build a Future.”

All his hard work is building hope for a future livelihood as Thailand builds a high-speed railroad with a depot in each of the places where Pornchai is working now. I have been sending him a small amount of money each month for food and expenses. It does not take a lot — $100 U.S. dollars equals about over 3,000 Thai baht at the current exchange rate. It helps Pornchai manage food and necessities for a month while waiting for the tourism season and rental housing customers.

Pornchai is no stranger to hard work so he decided to take on another project while waiting. About 250 miles north of Pak Chong, where Pornchai now lives in the District of Nakhon Ratchasima, is the village of Phuviang (Pu-vee-ANG) . It is the place where Pornchai was born, was orphaned, and then was taken from at age eleven. There is a lot of pain there. There is also a small house and piece of land that once belonged to his mother. The house was only half built when Pornchais Mother, Wannee, traveled to Guam to her death in 2000, an unforgettable story told in “Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam.”

Not far from that unfinished house is an acre or so of farmland that belonged to Wannee. Pornchai’s extended family cultivates rice nearby, so Pornchai decided to go up to Phuviang and plant a crop. It had to be something that he could plant and then leave alone. He chose to plant cassava, a crop that grows in Asian tropical zones and is self-sustaining until harvested.

The cassava plant grows up to about 8-feet in height and its edible roots are typically three inches in diameter and up to three feet long. The roots are akin to a sweet potato, and are a staple in some Asian countries. Ground into flour, cassava is also used to make sweet bread or cakes.

Growing cassava is easy, but planting it is an enormous amount of work. Cassava roots from a past crop have to be cut into smaller pieces and soaked in water for several days. The pieces are then planted along plowed furrows as in the photo atop this post. Pornchai is pictured there along with a local helper. The photo above was taken by Chalermpon Srisuttor, the Mayor and Town Manager of Phuviang who has become a friend to Pornchai — enough of a friend to help him plow and plant an acre of cassava!

The planting was finished just in time for Pornchai’s 50th birthday. I now want to remind him that when he arrived in Concord, NH from a long stint in solitary confinement in Maine in 2005, I had just turned age 52 while Pornchai was 32. He liked to circulate handmade birthday cards for our friends to sign for my birthday. They contained snarky little phrases like “Father G loves history so much because he was there for most of it!” and “Father G knows Latin because it was his first language!” Pornchai thought I was really old back then.

What goes around comes around! Happy Birthday, Max!

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*Upper right:* Chalathip Chiradomrong; Chalermpon Srisuttor, Mayor of Phuviang; and Pornchai Moontri. *Lower left:* Since Phuviang is very near to the Thailand headquarters of the Society of the Divine Word Order where Fr John Hung Le is local Superior, he stopped to spend an afternoon with Pornchai and even to pitch in a bit on the plowing and planting. *Upper left and lower right:* First signs of growth a few days apart.
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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

Maximilian Kolbe: The Other Prisoner Priest in My Cell
ICE Finally Cracks: Pornchai Moontri Arrives in Thailand
For Pornchai Moontri, Hope and Hard Work Build a Future
Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 8/16/23 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 8/16/23

Listen to Our Mother: Mary and the Fatima Century

The century since the Miracle of Fatima in 1917 saw an explosion of Marian devotion throughout the world. For me, one skeptic priest, resistance was futile.

The century since the Miracle of Fatima in 1917 saw an explosion of Marian devotion throughout the world. For me, one skeptic priest, resistance was futile.

Back in May, 2017, Mother’s Day in the United States was on the day after the 100th anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima which occurred on May 13, 1917. There was a lot taking place in preparation for the observance of that day, but very little of it was available to me. Months earlier I received a wonderful letter from Annie Karto, a Catholic songwriter and music composer. She had composed a beautiful song entitled “Rise Up All People,” and she performed it in 2016 as part of a special Divine Mercy production that included a slide presentation. She wanted me to know that I was a part of that presentation and that she was dedicating the song to me. She wanted to send me a link to the video so I could hear it and see the presentation. I was most grateful to her but there was simply no format available to me in prison to make that happen.

For the previous 23 years, I had been living in what was widely understood here to be punitive housing. I was told that it was because I do not admit guilt. So for 23 years I just endured it. I endured it far longer than any other prisoner. For half of those years, Pornchai Moontri lived in a cell with me. As you know, some very important things took place in those years that were filled with grace personally inspired by Saint Maximilian Kolbe who pointed us always to the Immaculata.

During a Divine Mercy workshop in the prison chapel that year, one of the volunteers from the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy told me that Concord, NH has a Catholic radio station. I had no idea. The only radio available for purchase where I happened to be living was a small hand-held model manufactured by Sangean and sold to prisoners here for just under $50. It was a pricey item considering that there are many radios for a fraction of that price, but in prison we had no other options. I decided against the purchase because the world of concrete and steel where we lived blocked out most radio signals. So why would anyone here buy a radio? That was a question I was asking myself even as I filled out the order form to send to a friend who wanted to order one for me from a catalog of items approved for prisoners. At the time, I needed other things more than a radio. I had holes in my socks but for reasons I do not understand to this very day, a friend was insistent that I have a radio. So when my radio arrived, I installed two AAA batteries, tuned into the FM frequency that carried the signal for Ave Maria Radio, and heard nothing but disappointing static.

So in mid May 2017, the morning of Mother’s Day, the day after hearing all that static on my new radio, Pornchai and I went outside to the prison Ball Field. He was pitching for a baseball game that day, and I just wanted to walk the perimeter of the field. On our way there, after we had passed through several locked doors and barriers, Pornchai said, “Why don’t you bring your radio?” So I rushed back through multiple barriers, patiently waiting at each for unseen entities to buzz me through a multitude of electronic locks. I got back to our cell, grabbed the radio, and reversed the process of waiting at each of the locked doors.

I made it back to the Ball Field just as the last door was about to slam shut. I walked toward the back of the field, took my radio out of my pocket, and unraveled its earbud headphones. It was still tuned to the local Catholic station from which I heard only static the night before. At the moment it came alive in the Ball Field, I heard the voice of Teresa Tomeo say, “Our guest today is Catholic singer and songwriter Annie Karto to discuss her latest CD, ‘Rise Up All Peoples.’” And then I heard for the first time Annie’s now famous song. I had imagined that song in my mind many times, but never heard it. Months before, Annie Karto, produced a video for that song for a national conference on Divine Mercy, and the video included, among many images, a photograph of me from an article for the Year of Mercy entitled “The Doors that Have Unlocked.”

Having neither seen nor heard any of this before, I could only imagine it until that morning outside when I had the right receptor at just the right time to hear the music play. My friend, Pornchai Moontri was on the pitcher’s mound in a game when he stopped to wonder why I was standing mesmerized and immobilized at the far outfield.

Click or tap image to play Annie Karto’s 4-minute presentation of “Rise Up All People.”

Listening to Mary with the Right Receptors

When that was over, and Teresa Tomeo’s Catholic Connection had signed off for the day, I had another five minutes out in the field. I continued listening to a call-in show about Scripture. The first caller was a man who identified himself as a fallen away Catholic who is now a Protestant Evangelical. He said that he left the Church because of the Catholic focus on Mary as “a conduit of grace” which, he seemed to believe, is not supported by Biblical truth.

At that moment, my new radio just stopped working. It died two months after I received it. I tried everything to get it working again, but to no avail. I cannot return it, and given its limited use (outside only) I could not justify buying a new one. So now I just walk in the Ball Field in silence. But I have the strangest sense that I heard the things that I was supposed to hear when I had the right receptor to hear them. I do not know how the Catholic radio commentators responded to the Evangelical’s concern about Mary, but the answer came to me immediately. I was thunderstruck by it, and by how little thought I had ever given to this before.

The basis of religious authority for Evangelical Protestants is “Sola Scriptura,” Latin for “Scripture Alone.” The concept embraces not just Biblical authority, but also a deeply held belief in Biblical inerrancy. Both notions clearly support Catholic belief in the role of Mary in Salvation History. It’s a truth that I was once deaf to as well, because I did not employ the right receptors to hear it. There was a time as a younger priest inspired only by science, when I scoffed at notions such as Marian apparitions at Fatima. But I have come to understand that such things are highly valued in our life of faith, less by the events themselves and more by their impact on our spiritual history. I was a little slow in my heart to come to understand Mary in our life of faith as Catholics. I knew all that there was to know about her, but I did not know her. I did not “hear” Mary because I did not have inner receptors tuned to her. The deep reverence that Catholics hold for Mary, and the notion that she can be, and has been, an emissary from Heaven and a conduit of grace make total sense.

The appearances of Mary in the Gospel are like bookends for the story of salvation. Her first appearance — in the Gospel of Saint Luke (1:26-56) — opens with an angelic declaration that is unprecedented in all of Sacred Scripture:

“In the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.’”

— Luke 1:26-28

Scripture contains 326 references to angelic appearances between the fall of Adam and the Resurrection of Christ. This brief passage in the Gospel of Luke is the first and only place where an angel refers to a human person with a title instead of a name. And the title — rendered “full of grace” in its English translation — is fascinating.

The term appears in only one other place, the Book of Acts of the Apostles which was also authored by Saint Luke. It’s a reference to Stephen who would become Christianity’s first martyr: “Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8). However, these English translations of the term fail to capture the full meaning the Evangelist intended. In Saint Luke’s original Greek, the terms have very different meanings.

In the case of Stephen, the original Greek words of Luke for “full of grace” were “plērēs charitos.” You can see in this the Greek roots of the word “charity.” But in the angel’s reference to Mary, a very different Greek term was used to convey the words, “full of grace.” It was a title much more than a trait. The Greek term Saint Luke used is “kecharitomēnē,” a far more revealing concept. It refers not just to a facet of her character, as in the case of Stephen, but of her essence. “Kecharitomēnē” refers to a prior action of God in which Mary was “graced” in the sense of her being a “vessel” in multiple tenses — past, present, and future — who is instilled with divine life, a soul that magnifies the Lord.

This does not mean that Mary was divine. It means that God prepared her from the moment of her conception. Some English translations use the term “highly favored one” instead of “full of grace” in the Angel’s greeting, but this in no way captures the truth of the Evangelist’s meaning which is far more profound than “favor.” It is closer to “innate holiness.” Saint Luke’s unique Greek title became the Scriptural basis for the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. It points not to a trait of Mary’s character, but to a revelation of her lifelong holiness and unique place in Salvation History as the Mother of both the Redeemer and the redeemed — the new Eve.

In the angelic declaration to Mary (Luke 1:28) the next phrase is rendered in English, “the Lord is with you.” Its more proper sense is, “the Lord is within you.” Her Greek title, “Theotokos,” literally “Mother of God,” was defined at the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 and reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council in Lumen Gentium (53). For the entire life of the Church, Mary has been venerated — not worshipped, but venerated — as the Mother of God. This is a theological truth that I described in “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

The Miracles of Fatima

I owe a debt today to the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, stewards of the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. I wrote of this debt, and of my all-too-human resistance to their great gift, in “Divine Mercy in a Time of Spiritual Warfare.” That debt was deepened in 2022. That is when the Church marked the 100th anniversary of our Blessed Mother’s first of six appearances to three small shepherd children in the village of Fatima, Portugal. She appeared to them in this little known, out-of-the-way village in Portugal as World War One raged on all around them. It was the time of what Pope Benedict XV (not XVI) described as “the suicide of Europe.” It was at this very time that Mary reentered human history to convey a message through the smallest of voices in a most insignificant place. Then it echoed with ever increasing volume across the century to follow.

I had never fully understood the apparitions at Fatima. My scientific mind with its natural skepticism had always been in the way, making real moments of grace hard won for me. But now I think, for the first time in my life, I understand what happened at Fatima commencing on May 13, 1917 and the 13th of each of five months to follow. And thanks to Fr Michael Gaitley’s book The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, I finally understand Fatima’s meaning in the context of faith and in the context of human history.

My understanding has also been greatly aided by a wonderful gift by a superb Catholic writer and friend of Beyond These Stone Walls, Felix Carroll. You have met Felix Carroll in these pages before. He is the Executive Editor of Marian Helper magazine, which has published two major articles about my friend Pornchai Moontri’s Divine Mercy conversion and my place in that remarkable story. Felix is also the author of the great Divine Mercy book, Loved, Lost, Found: 17 Divine Mercy Conversions with a chapter about the life of Pornchai.

As I was pondering how to approach a post about the Fatima Century, I quickly found myself wading into waters I am only now beginning to sound for spiritual depth. Knowing the facts is one thing, but knowing the necessary story under the story is quite another. The Spring 2017 issue of Marian Helper with a cover entitled “Fatima: 100 Years Later” filled in a lot of the blanks for me. I read it cover to cover in one sitting. Its centerpiece is an amazing article by Felix Carroll entitled, “Fatima. The Place. The Message.” I am simply in awe of his achievement. I urge you to visit Marian Helper and read Felix Carroll’s outstanding writing, his historical analysis, and the depth of his understanding of the message and miracle of Fatima — all in just a few very readable pages.

In 2017, at the behest of Fr Michael Gaitley and Felix Carroll, I wrote an article about the journeys of both me and Pornchai Moontri into the Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The article was, “Behold Your Son, Behold Your Mother!” Felix told me that it “ lit up the Marians’ website as never before.” It was not me and Pornchai who got the attention of so many people. It was her. It is no mystery in our troubled time that so many are finally coming to listen to our Mother. After writing the article I received this brief reflection from an Evangelical Protestant college student:

“I finally get it! I am a college student and a lifelong Protestant. I never understood the Catholic connection to Mary until I read this. Thanks to this I finally understand Mary and her place in the life of faith.”

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Please honor our Mother by sharing this post. You will behold her place in history as never before by reading and sharing with others another amazing post written for Beyond These Stone Walls and LifeSite News by Craig Turner entitled:

“How Our Lady of Fatima Saved a World in Crisis”

The 100th Anniversary of the apparitions at Fatima can be seen through a lens of history. Journalist and historian Craig Turner presents a fascinating view of the Fatima Century.

July 12, 2017 by Craig Turner with an Introduction by Fr Gordon MacRae

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 8/2/23 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 8/2/23

The Transfiguration of Christ

Jesus took Peter, James, and John to a mountaintop where he was transfigured before their eyes, an event that echoes through the ages in the transformation of souls.

Jesus took Peter, James, and John to a mountaintop where he was transfigured before their eyes, an event that echoes through the ages in the transformation of souls.

August 2, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

The image atop this post depicts the Transfiguration of Christ, an inspired work by Venetian artist, Giovanni Bellini painted in 1480. The painting is displayed in the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy. It portrays the Transfiguration of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The account in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (17:1-9) is the Gospel for the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord observed on August 6, 2023 . The Feast of the Transfiguration has been celebrated in the Eastern Church since the Fifth Century. It was inserted into the general calendar in 1457 by Pope Callistus III to mark the defeat of the Muslim Turks in the Battle of Belgrade. It was celebrated on the Sixth of August because it occurs 40 days before the Feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross on September 14.

The Transfiguration account told in the Gospel of Saint Mark (9:2-10), is simply told, but filled with history and theological meaning:

“After six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to him in reply, ‘Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us erect three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ He hardly knew what to say; they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them. From the cloud came a voice; ‘This is my beloved son. Listen to him.’ Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.”

— Mark 9:2-10

The same basic elements of the Transfiguration account appear in each of the Synoptic Gospels. Peter’s idea to erect tents for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah seems an almost comical response from someone just given a vision of the Kingdom of God and its most renowned denizens from the Hebrew Scriptures. As the passage points out, Peter “hardly knew what to say. They were so terrified.” But the idea wasn’t entirely out of place.

It was the seventh and last day of Sukkoth, the “Feast of Booths” described in the Books of Deuteronomy (16 13-15) and Leviticus (23:42-44). Known in Hebrew as Hag ha-Asif, translated as “The Festival of Gathering,” it lasted for seven days during which Jewish observers erected tents or booths from the boughs or branches of palm trees. The booths were a memorial of their ancestors’ deliverance from bondage in Egypt:

“You shall dwell in booths for seven days, all that are native in Israel shall dwell in booths that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

— Leviticus 23: 42-43

The presence of Moses and Elijah with Jesus on Mount Tabor represents the Law and the Prophets, the two pillars of divine revelation in Hebrew Scripture. They represent the heart of God’s covenant with Israel. There were some previous hints of the Transfiguration. In Exodus (34:29), Moses did not know that upon his descent from Mount Sinai with the Tablets of the Law, “the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.”

Upon the death of Moses, according to Deuteronomy (34: 5-6), God himself secretly buried his body in an unknown place in the land of Moab. However, the New Testament Letter of Saint Jude (Jude 9) refers to an ancient Jewish legend from the apocryphal text, The Assumption of Moses. Saint Jude described a story that he presumes his listeners already know: that Satan attempted to take the body of Moses, but the Archangel Michael “contended with the devil” and brought the physical body of Moses into Heaven.

The same became true of Elijah. In the Second Book of Kings (2:11) the prophets Elijah and Elisha became separated by “a chariot of fire and horses of fire” and “Elijah went up in a whirlwind into Heaven, then Elisha saw him no more.” In the Gospel account of the Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John — as well as the early Jewish Christian Church — would have readily perceived that Moses and Elijah came from Heaven to witness the Transfiguration of Jesus.

They would also have known well the Prophet Malachi.

“Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the great and terrible Day of the Lord comes.”

— Malachi 4:4-5

Hence, as each of the Transfiguration Gospels points out, “they were terrified.”

A Transfiguration of Faith

Saint Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration that you will hear at Mass on August 6 begins with the words, “after six days.” Something very important happened six days earlier between Jesus and his disciples that literally rocked their world and shook their faith. As the pilgrimage Feast of Sukkoth began, they saw Jesus cure a blind man at Bethsaida. Then Jesus asked them at Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16:13-20), “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” They answered, “Some say John the Baptist” [already slain at Herod’s command], while “others say Jeremiah, or one of the Prophets.”

“But who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked. Simon, answered with something — like the offer to build some booths six days later— that came spontaneously from his heart and soul: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!”

What exactly did that mean to Simon Peter, James and John? Those who awaited a Messiah in Israel envisioned a political force who would transform the known world and set it aright. But Jesus said something astonishing (Mark 16:21-24): “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid, Lord! It shall never happen to you!’ ... Jesus answered, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.’”

And then a final bombshell: “Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God come with power.” Hence, once again, Simon Peter, James, and John, dazzled upon Mount Tabor six days later, were terrified when Moses and Elijah appeared.

And what of the Transfiguration itself? The Greek word the Gospel used to describe it is metamorphothe. His very form and substance were transformed. Recall the great hymn of Christ recounted by Saint Paul to the Philippians (2:5-11):

“Though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped, but rather emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him a name above every other name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue proclaim, to the glory of God the Father, that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

— Philippians 2:5-11

For six days, Simon Peter, James, and John must have lived with shattered hopes, discouraged over the revelation about what it means to follow Jesus to the cross and death. Ascending that mountain to see him transfigured in glory was a gift of Divine Mercy that also transformed the cross — forever.

These same three disciples had been present when Jesus restored life to the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:35-42), and the same three would later be present with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46) to see him humiliated as the Passion of the Christ commenced. They were also the only disciples to have been given new names by Jesus. Simon became Peter, “the Rock,” “Petros” in Greek, from which was derived the name, “Peter.” And he called James and John “Boanerges,” the “Sons of Thunder.” Their new names denoted that they were forever changed by these experiences, a transfiguration of identity and faith.

Transfiguration behind These Stone Walls

On August 6, 2014, the Feast of the Transfiguration, the well known Canadian Catholic blog, Freedom Through Truth, featured a post by Michael Brandon titled, “Transfiguration Behind These Stone Walls.” Michael Brandon wrote some very nice things, not so much about me personally, but about what I write. I was first bewildered by it. Then I was very moved. Then I finally accepted his premise that he and other readers have a vantage point I do not have. Michael Brandon wrote:

“In the years that I have followed Beyond These Stone Walls, I have seen the transfiguration of Father Gordon MacRae and Pornchai Moontri.”

Michael Brandon is also the author of a very popular post featured at our “Voices from Beyond.” It is “The Parable of a Prisoner,” and it describes a transfiguration of the heart.

“In our struggle to be holy, grace is certainly required. But we must also do the footwork — we must will to be better than we really are… The degree of perfection is measured by the amount of adversity we overcome in order to be holy.”

— St. Maximilian Kolbe

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Note from Fr. GordonMacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. We continue the story of Transfiguration in the lives of Sacred Scripture in these other posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Holy Spirit and the Book of Ruth at Pentecost

Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah

Joseph’s Second Dream: The Slaughter of the Innocents

Prison Journal: Jesus and Those People with Stones

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 7/26/23 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 7/26/23

For Pornchai Moontri, Hope and Hard Work Build a Future

After his ascension beyond these stone walls, starting life over in Thailand was not easy for Pornchai Moontri but Divine Mercy and hard work are building a future.

After his ascension beyond these stone walls, starting life over in Thailand was not easy for Pornchai Moontri but Divine Mercy and hard work are building a future.

July 26, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

The heroic true story of former Homeland Security Agent Tim Ballard captured international attention around Independence Day in the United States this year. It is told in the inspiring and unforgettable film, Sound of Freedom. Jim Caviezel is cast in the role of Tim Ballard, a U.S. federal agent who launched a real-life search and rescue mission to save kidnapped children from human traffickers in Central America and Colombia.

Sound of Freedom is being shown in over 2,600 movie theaters across the U.S. this summer. Some of our readers hesitated to view it thinking it may be too depressing. Its subject is dark, but the film is an outstanding and true inspirational triumph that should not be missed.

The film’s topic and its aftermath have also been prominent in recent years here at Beyond These Stone Walls. It was at the center of an article published by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and republished here this week. That article is “Pornchai’s Story.”

The real story of Sound of Freedom is the triumph of Divine Mercy manifested in one man’s path of sacrifice and human courage. Though on a smaller scale, Pornchai Moontri’s story has taken a similar turn. The most amazing part of it also involves a pathway — one that seems a metaphor for the life he once lived and now lives very differently. The scene atop this post captured that pathway to a remarkable transformation.

But first, it requires some background. If you are new to this story, visit my 2021 post, “Pornchai Moontri and the Long Road to Freedom.” His story reads a lot like the plight of some of the children the heroic Tim Ballard set out to rescue. I do not claim to have rescued Pornchai, but he may tell this story differently. Pornchai arrived in my life in 2005 an angry, depressed, sometimes volatile young man wholly committed to a singular, all encompassing goal: to never again be someone’s victim.

Pornchai spent the previous 14 years in and out of the cruel torment of solitary confinement. The path we were on over the succeeding years was not easy, but through Divine Mercy we built trust and became each other’s family. Fifteen years later, Pornchai left my presence a committed Catholic convert and a gifted young man. His new path in life was not to flee from his past, but to be empowered by it in the service of others.

On the morning of September 8, 2020, as we walked in the dark outside awaiting the dawn and his departure after fifteen years together, he left me in tears when he shook my hand and said with simple sincerity, “Thank you for my future.” When ICE agents arrived to take him away, I watched from afar as Pornchai walked through a distant gate. I knew I may never see him again in this life.

I had to hand him over to face his life’s next chapter alone, but like the father of the Prodigal Son cast off to a distant land (Luke 15), I worried about him. Pornchai knew so many wounds in life that even from a great distance I still had a mission to accomplish and no time to grieve. I wrote in a post for September 23, 2020 of the day he left. It was the Memorial of Saint Padre Pio and the 26th anniversary of my own unjust imprisonment. You should not miss that story either. It was “Padre Pio: Witness for the Defense of Wounded Souls.”

When I Was a Stranger ... (Matthew 25:35)

I am incredulous at the newest developments in Pornchai’s life since then, and just as incredulous to find myself still so much a part of them even from a great distance. Pornchai arrived in Thailand on February 24, 2021, free for the first time in 29 years. The photos above depict his first moments and his first meal in freedom with friends you will meet below, friends who would become key elements to a then unknown future for Pornchai.

There were many challenges. I learned that the housing plan we developed for Pornchai fell apart just before ICE agents placed him aboard a flight. Before his plane landed in Bangkok 24 hours later, Yela Smit, the facilitator of Divine Mercy Thailand, contacted me with an emergency plan to support Pornchai’s return to a country he had not seen and a language he had not heard since age eleven 36 years earlier.

Yela told me by telephone that Fr. John Hung Le, a Divine Word Missionary and head of a Vietnamese refugee project in Thailand, offered shelter for Pornchai. Father John knew this would be a difficult and traumatic adjustment. His sudden presence in this story seemed an intervention by Divine Mercy. When Pornchai’s required two-week pandemic quarantine ended on February 24, 2021 — his final stint in solitary confinement — Yela and Father John arrived to meet him. Left to right in the left photo above are Pornchai, Chalathip, Yela and Fr. John.

Pornchai came to call Chalathip “Mae Thim” (Thai for “Mother Thim.”) She lived alone in the home pictured above near the Society of the Divine Word Mission where Pornchai was to stay with Father John and two other priests. Chalathip, a devoted supporter of Father John’s refugee project, has been Catholic since birth which is unusual in Thailand, a country that is 98-percent Theravada Buddhist.

Bangkok, a city of 9.5 million, is massive and intimidating. After 29 years in a U.S. prison coupled with the traumatic events that led up to it, acclimating to Bangkok was a mountain of a challenge. “Mae Thim,” widowed with an adult daughter living in the U.K., knew that Pornchai lost his mother early in life and then was taken against his will from his homeland. So she proposed to Father John that Pornchai needs to immerse himself in Thai language and culture, but cannot do this while living with three Vietnamese priests who do not speak Thai. She offered to give Pornchai a second floor apartment in her home in close proximity to Father John.

Father John conferred with me, and I agreed with him that this would be in Pornchai’s best interest. As readers know from our “Special Events” page, I had been trying to raise funds to help me to support Pornchai as much as possible. He could have found work as a laborer in Bangkok, but at a rate of pay equivalent to just a few dollars per day for ten-hour workdays. I feared that this would delay his needed adjustment, which was massive and daunting, and that his language barrier would then frustrate and overwhelm him.

Generous readers began to assist in supporting me in this effort. It did not require a lot of money. For just a few hundred dollars a month I could support Pornchai and also assist Father John. He and Chalathip and Pornchai became somewhat of a family filling in a large gap from the wounds of life imposed upon each of them. I am grateful to Father John and Chalathip.

Pornchai was not idle. Over the coming months he volunteered for Father John’s food outreach to Vietnamese refugee families rendered without work in Thailand during the pandemic. Pornchai also worked to repair and restore Mae Thim’s home in the city of Nonthaburi just a few kilometers from Bangkok. Armed with only hand tools he devoted himself to repairs inside and out. While Bangkok’s tropical temperature soared to 46 degrees Celsius (114 degrees Fahrenheit) Pornchai restored the home and property. Despite toil and sweat, the property is beautiful, as the photos attest.

Climb Every Mountain

The rest of this story could be told in pictures, and there are lots of them. Over the coming months, a wonderful bond grew between Chalathip and Pornchai. However, Bangkok’s air quality was raising havoc with his allergies. So Chalathip brought him to another property she owns in the small city of Pak Chong in the mountainous region of Thailand about 240 kilometers north of Bangkok. The air is cleaner and substantially cooler there.

Chalathip’s property in Pak Chong has two homes, one a two bedroom cottage where Pornchai now lives, and the other a large three bedroom, two-bath home, with an adjacent one bedroom one bath apartment attached. Together they are on almost an acre of what in Thailand would be luxury property. At first, Pornchai decided to remain there to make several repairs to the two homes and property. Thailand’s rainy season can be hard on a home so he set out to repair several roof leaks.

The floors, walls, and roofs in most modern Thai homes are made of concrete which endures humidity and high tropical heat. There is no winter ice to crack it, but natural settling can produce small cracks and relentless leaks. To assist him, our friend Claire Dion in Maine ordered a case of Flex Seal products not readily available in Thailand, and shipped them to him. It is a great product and its website has videos for every application. Pornchai fixed every leaks and even those of some neighbors. At one point I thought he was starting up a new “Leaks-r-Us” business.

Then he turned his attention to the property. The result was remarkable. Using only a spade, a pickax, and lots of muscle, Pornchai transformed the overgrown property into the magnificent park-like setting pictured atop this post. Armed only with a pickax, he dug through 4-5 inches of hardened clay for a distance of over 240 yards to create a pathway across the entire property. With an ax, he chopped away a large stump that no one had been able to remove. He built or repaired yard furnishings, painted both homes inside and out, repaired a gazebo, added outdoor lights, and restored everything in sight. He removed dying trees and used the wood to line his new walkway. Then he transplanted new trees.

Mae Thim was in awe of what he had accomplished. Retired without a steady income available to her, she and Pornchai then devised a plan to use the property as a small business. Pornchai would live in the smaller home while renting out the larger one and managing the property. Pak Chong is convenient to Khao Yai National Park, Thailand’s oldest and largest park and game preserve where wild elephants still roam free.

In recent weeks I have also learned that China is extending a high-speed railway from Kunming in its southernmost province to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, which is on the northern border of Thailand. China plans to extend the railway the entire length of Thailand to Bangkok and then extend it all the way to Singapore. Pak Chong, where Pornchai now lives, is designated to become a major depot by 2026. This promises to create a large economic change in the region bringing trade and tourists and a higher demand for housing.

Even before learning of the above, Chalathip decided to also rent her property pictured above in Nonthaburi just north of Bangkok. She has designated Pornchai as her official Property Manager. With the help of a friend, we have been building a Linkedln page for Pornchai and will link to it at the end of this post. This endeavor is not yet up and running or producing any income, but it has the potential to support them both for years to come.

For a Buddhist nation, Catholicism has an oversized footprint in Thailand. There are two Catholic universities, hospitals, and multiple orphanages and specialized residential schools under the auspices of the Fr. Ray Foundation. Pak Chong has two Catholic parishes. Pornchai attends Mass at St. Nicholas Parish where he lights a weekly candle for me and another for the readers of Beyond These Stone Walls.

Pak Chong’s location in central Thailand is midway on Father John’s route to Nong Bua Lamphu, the Thai headquarters of his order and the place of Pornchai’s birth. So Pornchai and Chalathip have made Pak Chong an overnight stopover for Father John so he does not have to drive the entire nine+ hours each way from Bangkok to the Laos border, the route he takes in his ministry to Vietnamese refugee communities. On a recent visit, Father John took Pornchai fishing. They caught a 155 pound Mekong River catfish which they mercifully released after a one-hour battle. The fish swam happily away. Freedom now means a lot to Pornchai, and apparently to his fish as well.

My role in Pornchai’s life and the salvation of his freedom and his soul is the most important thing I have ever done as a man and as a priest. It is the story of Saint Maximilian Kolbe and his sacrifice to restore life to another prisoner. I have experienced first hand the grace of the sound of freedom, and it is glorious.

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Here are some additional photos of Pornchai’s hard work.

See Pornchai’s article on LinkedIn.

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 7/19/23 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 7/19/23

Are You Suffering a Great Deal?

As this blog by a priest unjustly in prison began in 2009, Fr Gordon MacRae had to write 12 brief posts to send to an editor. Here are three of these early gems.

As this blog by a priest unjustly in prison began in 2009, Fr Gordon MacRae had to write 12 brief posts to send to an editor. Here are three of these early gems.

July 19, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae

A lot has been going on here this summer. Even in this place where time often seems to stand still, finding blocks of time to write has suddenly become a challenge. Nonetheless, I am enthused by a new development. Gloria.tv is an international Catholic video and news sharing venue launched in Switzerland in 2005. It is known for its high degree of fidelity. I cannot see it, of course, but on rare occasions over the years it has reported on one of my posts.

After reviewing and then reposting “Convicted for Cash,” the 44-minute video documentary about my trial by Frank X. Panico, Gloria.tv invited me to establish a page and submit selected past posts on the site. The result has been a huge increase in visits to this blog from around the world. Please visit our presence there at Gloria.tv/FrGordonJMacrae.

A flood of activity this July, along with some technical difficulties where I live, has temporarily slowed my ability to write. So this week, and again two weeks from now, we are returning to July, 2009 and the first days of this blog. As it was beginning, I was asked to quickly write and submit 12 short posts to launch it. I am told today that a few of them are “gems,” so I want to share them with you anew.

Our first entry today is “Are You Suffering a Great Deal?” It’s from a laminated card that fell into my lap from a book in 2009 just as I was beginning to write. At the time, I was in fact suffering a great deal.

Pornchai Moontri was here with me then and was very much a part of this beginning. It was Pornchai who named this blog, “These Stone Walls,” then in 2020 I renamed it “Beyond These Stone Walls” as he was returning to Thailand. Pornchai has contributed many posts to this site, some more popular than my own, but please don’t tell him I said that. So the second of our three short selections is “Bunkies: Pornchai’s Story.” Next week in these pages, we will have some exciting news about developments in Pornchai’s new life in Thailand.

My last entry this week is “Contentious Convicts.” I will let that one speak for itself. You might think it seems a little fishy.

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Are You Suffering a Great Deal?

Are you suffering a great deal? No, the question isn’t from Oprah or Dr. Phil. It is on a bookmark kept in my breviary. It was asked by Our Lady of Fatima on June 13, 1917:

“Are you suffering a great deal? Don’t lose heart. I will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge, and the way that will lead you to God.”

There is immense power in that promise, and for someone who has lost everything, it is like a lifeboat at sea. There is sometimes nothing else to cling to. Even when I feel that my faith dangles from a thread — which is often, in prison — I cling to that promise.

I don’t know where the bookmark came from. Like most of the things I cling to for spiritual support, it just sort of showed up one day. I like to think it was handed down to me — in the way important things are handed down by brothers — by Maximilian Kolbe whose reverence for the Immaculate Heart of Mary guided him through life, and death, at Auschwitz.

Even when my faith is so diminished and darkened by the prison around me that I believe in little, I believe that promise. Sometimes I can only believe that Maximilian believed — with the very fabric of his life.

It’s often hard to pray in prison. It’s not just the noise, the harshness, the lack of privacy, the relentless obstacles. It’s just hard to raise my mind and heart beyond these stone walls at times. In that, at least, I am not alone.

The Vietnamese Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan wrote that there were long periods during his years in a Communist prison when he was unable to pray. I guess any Catholic who ever looks inward has a dark night of the soul. If not, why would the Blessed Mother ever ask such a question in her appearance at Fatima? It’s not the usual question a mother would ask when she comes a long way for a brief visit.

Are you suffering a great deal? When Saint Maximilian’s life was finally snuffed out after days of starvation chained to the corpses of those who could not endure, he was heard gasping a hymn of praise. I wish I had his heart! I don’t, but I wish I did. I have to learn how to suffer, and I am a slow learner.

In Spe Salvi, his Encyclical on Christian Hope, our Holy Father Pope Benedict wrote the most masterful prose on suffering that I have ever read. I cling to it like I do my bookmark with Our Lady of Fatima’s Promise:

“Christ descended into ‘Hell,’ and is therefore close to those cast into it, transforming their darkness into light. Suffering and torment is still terrible and well-nigh unbearable. Yet the star of hope has risen — the anchor of the heart reaches the very throne of God. Instead of evil being unleashed within man, the light shines victorious: suffering — without ceasing to be suffering — becomes, despite everything, a hymn of praise.”

Spe Salvi, ¶37

Brilliant! Simply brilliant! There’s something hopeful in that, and I should listen.

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Bunkies: Pornchai’s Story

In prisons all over the world, the most crucial issue for prisoners is where one has to live, and with whom. Confined to a 60 square foot cell with another human being can be a nightmare. Most of us have no say in the choice of “Bunkies,” as cell mates are called here. If a bunky is moved — even after two or three years with the same person — sometimes a total stranger is living in the cell within minutes.

Having a good roommate seems to be everyone’s goal, but I tried another approach years ago. Being a good roommate is a goal I have more control over. The result has been that in 10 years since being moved from the torturous 8-man cells in which I spent my first seven years in prison, I have never had a roommate (we prefer to call our cells “rooms”) request a move.

The downside of that is that I have had some very dysfunctional roommates who have no wish to move elsewhere. My assigned roommates here have ranged in age from 19 to 67 or so, and have included men convicted of murder, rape, armed robbery, various drug crimes, and gang-related crimes. Everyone here knows all the details of why everyone else is here. Rumor and gossip fill in what the facts leave out.

My roommate of the last two years was also a good friend for several more. It was the first time I have been assigned to live with someone I know well, so it feels more like living with a family member than a felon.

Pornchai (his name is Thai, and the “r” is silent, as in “Paunch-eye”) is 35 years old and has been in prison since the age of 18.

He is about to convert to the Catholic faith and currently he is a scholarship student in theology in the Catholic Distance University’s excellent Distance Learning Program for prisoners.

Pornchai caused a minor sensation last year when he wrote a very brief autobiographical sketch that ended up being published as “The Conversion Story of 2008” by The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. I hope you will take a moment to read it.

A year after publication, Pornchai still receives occasional mail about his life story. The most recent being a personal letter from Cardinal Kitbunchu, Archbishop Emeritus of Bangkok, Thailand, and a note from Mary Ann Glendon, former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. Oh, and there was also a letter from the late Father Richard John Neuhaus.

Pornchai takes his new notoriety in stride, though one letter had a profound impact. It was from a young man who wrote that he turned his life around, dropped out of his gang, swore off drugs, and returned to faith after reading “Pornchai’s Story” online.

Pornchai mistakenly credits me with some small role in his extraordinary life of late. He has fallen under the power of grace and cannot escape it now even if he tried. Now, he creates. Here is a photo of one of his creations, “The Olde Baldy” (named after me) which he carved piece by piece (over 600 of them) from scratch.

Pornchai Moontri — Master Craftsman

Pornchai was designated a master craftsman in wood and model shipbuilding. One of his first ships was a circa 1800 British warship from the Napoleonic era which he named after Father MacRae. He dubbed it “The Olde Baldy,” which is now docked in the home of our friend, Bill Wendell in Stow, Ohio.

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Contentious Convicts

There was little I could do to stop the fighting. Convicts are so territorial; they do not hesitate to take on intruders twice their size. They just can’t be reasoned with. It’s even worse when the convicts are mating. What drama!

No, no, no! I’m not talking about bizarre behavior among my fellow prisoners — though they do have their moments. I’m referring to Herichthys (Archocentrus) Nigrofasciatus, a fish of the cichlidae family native to the tropical river basins of Central America. They are popularly known as convict cichlids, or just convicts because of their characteristic black stripes.

Oh, go ahead and yawn! Whenever I would recite the scientific nomenclature for the fish in my aquarium, my friends would always yawn! Aquarium buffs are used to it! The more serious among us always felt duty-bound to learn the scientific names of the residents of our aquatic neighborhoods. Hey, we don’t talk that way by choice, you know!

My 100 gallon cichlid aquarium was my spare-time-consuming hobby for most of my life as a priest until I was sent to prison at age 41. It was an oasis of life, light, and aquatic drama that kept me mesmerized for hours at the end of each day. Only one other priest in my diocese had an aquarium, and we had an instant bond of shared knowledge and interest.

I had a breeding pair of convict cichlids who shared their home — perhaps “shared” is too strong a word — with a pair of Astronotus Ocellatus, or red oscars native to the Amazon Basin. I also had a single Herichthys (Archocentrus) Octofasciatus known otherwise as a “Jack Dempsey,” and for good reason. He ended up in a smaller aquarium of his own. Couldn’t play well with others.

Convicts typically excavate a cave when preparing to breed, so an old clay flower-pot in the corner sufficed. I named my convicts Bonnie and Clyde (at the time, I had limited knowledge of suitable convict names. Today I’d go with Bubba and Bella.) The other denizens, the Oscars, were named Oscar Madison and Oscar Wilde. (I’m glad I only had two!)

The Oscars gave their testy neighbors a wide berth once eggs were laid in the cave. Oscar Madison, twice the size of the convicts, sometimes paid a price for lumbering over to eat the convicts’ food. He had the nips in his fins to remember them by.

I once tried to use a mirrored barrier to keep everyone happy, but Clyde kept launching himself furiously at his own reflection. In time, everyone learned to respect some boundaries. My current convict friends could learn a lot from that. “The Aquarium is Gone.” That’s actually a line from a poem by Robert Spence Lowell (“For the Union Dead.” 1964)

Its absence from my world is still deeply felt. It is one of the three recurring dreams I have in prison. (I’ll write of the other two later.) It haunts me a bit. I often dream that my aquarium is on the concrete shelf of my cell, and Oscar Wilde is staring at me with his bulging eyes willing me to bring food.

I miss them. There is nothing with water and life here.

“And the fish of the sea will declare to you. In His hand is the life of every living thing.”

— Job 12:8,10

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 4/19/23 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 4/19/23

For the Soul of a Nation: In Defense of Religious Liberty

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the present U.S. Supreme Court are all that stand in the way of the gradual annihilation of religious liberty.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the present U.S. Supreme Court are all that stand in the way of the gradual annihilation of religious liberty.

April 19, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

Early in 2023, a global Internet tracking service reported that there are more than two billion active websites, 600 million of which are blogs publishing over 2.5 billion posts per year — including this one. Back in 2010 when this blog was in its infancy with a much smaller readership, a site called The Crescat reviewed a variety of blogs it categorized as Catholic blogs.

A moderator divided them into further categories and asked for reader input to sort them out. Somehow, this blog showed up on The Crescat’s radar, but it defied easy description. I wrote about everything. So in the end we were given the dubious distinction of “Best Under-Appreciated Catholic Blog.”

I do not look for recognition in writing, but that may not seem evident when publishing a single weekly post that competes for readers with about 50 million other weekly posts. I also never called this blog a “Catholic blog.” It has no Imprimatur, no Nihil Obstat, and no official recognition from any official Catholic institution, but neither do any other Catholic blogs.

As a writer, I have to earn Catholic “street cred” the hard way. “Street cred” is a term I hear a lot in my present environment. It refers to “street credibility.” In prison it is considered a standard of personal integrity, a sort of consistency of being. Having pulled oneself up from the school of hard knocks translates into a badge of honor for some and a cause for disdain for others. The Catholic Writers Guild invited this blog’s participation while the Catholic Media Association rather bluntly refused it.

“The School of Hard Knocks” is a literary term defined by The American Heritage Dictionary as, “the practical experiences of life, including hardships and disappointments that temper and educate a person.” It isn’t easy for a priest — even one in prison — to claim such a thing, but in recent years some priests could be considered for this distinction. For a Catholic priest, being falsely accused and unjustly in prison is like the postgraduate level of the school of hard knocks.

This blog has always struggled against tidal forces to survive. So you might understand my surprise a few years back when readers of Our Sunday Visitor cited Beyond These Stone Walls as “The Best of the Catholic Web” in the area of Spirituality. Then Catholic Culture gave it highest marks for content, excellence, and fidelity. Then About.com awarded it second place in the category of Best Catholic Blogs. Being where I am, I did not even know about some of this. Do they not know from whence I write?

But for me, the “street cred” with the most impact has come from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the largest, most influential, and most visible organization dedicated to the defense and preservation of religious liberty. Catholic League President Bill Donohue has repeatedly recognized this blog as a source of credible Catholic witness in dark times. And Bill Donohue himself has recently been cited by the Catholic Herald in the U.K. as one of the top religious leaders in the U.S.

On a dozen occasions recently, Bill Donohue and the Catholic League have cited and promoted posts from Beyond These Stone Walls sending tens of thousands of readers to this site. Each cited post covered some aspect of religious liberty or controversial currents in the Church that impact religious freedom. These posts are now collected on the page, “Cited by the Catholic League.”

Image Credit: Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

A Growing Culture of Hostility to Religion

On July 21,2022, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito spoke at the University of Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit in Rome. This excerpt of his address, published in The Wall Street Journal (August 4, 2022) exemplifies the dire importance of our attention to the state of religious freedom. From Justice Samuel Alito:

“I am reminded of an experience I had in a museum in Berlin. One of the exhibits was a rustic wooden cross. A woman and young boy were looking at this exhibit. The young boy turned to the woman, presumably his mother, and said, ‘Who is that man?’ The memory has stuck in my mind as a harbinger of what may lie ahead for our culture. The problem that looms is not just indifference to religion; it is not just ignorance about religion. There is also growing hostility to religion.

“A dominant view among legal academics is that religion does not merit special protection. A liberal society, they say, should be value-neutral, and therefore it should treat religion just like any other passionate personal attachment — like rooting for a favorite sports team, pursuing a hobby, or following a popular artist or group. Now I think we would all agree that in a free society, people should be free to pursue those avocations. But do they really merit the same protection as the exercise of religion?”

— Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, July 21, 2022

In a different recent address, Vice President Kamala Harris cited the Declaration of Independence. She emphasized that the document “guarantees all Americans the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” But there was an intentional glaring omission. The Vice President conspicuously left out the most fundamental of inalienable rights, the Right to Life. It is a right rooted in religious liberty, recognizing both life and religious freedom as rights given by God and not simply by the whim of government.

I have strong reason to now believe that the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the current United States Supreme Court are all that stand in the way of the annihilation of the Right to Life and Religious Liberty in America. A Catholic League annual membership fee is a small price to pay for lending your name in defense of the most basic of our unalienable rights, the right to practice and profess your faith even in a secular world.

I admit to having a vested interest in this. More than any other voice, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has treated me with open-minded justice and fairness. The Catholic League has also advocated for my friend, Pornchai Moontri as he languished in ICE detention for five grueling months during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. To great effect, Bill Donohue and the Catholic League petitioned the White House to move Pornchai’s case forward from the bureaucracy in which it was stalled.

A Movement Defending Parental Rights

The Catholic League has also recently distinguished itself as a staunch defender of parental rights. One of my posts cited and recommended this year was “Disney’s Disenchanted Kingdom versus Parental Rights.” That post was about the production of a documentary sponsored by the Catholic League entitled, “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom” which has received wide acclaim.

In a recent news release, Catholic League President Bill Donohue described some of its accolades. The film was just one entry among films from 22 nations in the L.A. International Short Film Festival. “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom” was nominated for six categories and won in four of them awarding it Best Documentary, Best Editing, Best Sound Design, and an Honorable Mention for Best Trailer. The latter three awards were in a broader field than just the documentaries alone. They were judged the best of all films presented to the International Film Festival. “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom” is now also nominated for Best Documentary and Best Poster Design at The Prisma Film Festival in Rome, Italy.

Some on the political left have remained stubbornly tone deaf to the assault on parental rights that the Disney franchise has recently embraced. Parental demands to be heard have upended the political spectrum in Virginia and Florida and are now spreading across the playing field of U.S. politics. To suggest that religion does not belong in that arena may be a fair assessment, but Religious Liberty as an unalienable right certainly does belong in the political sphere, and so does parental rights.

More recent examples of the tone deaf politics arising out of the debate over Parental Rights in Education have come from two prominent New York House Democrats. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) characterized the Parental Rights in Education bill in Congress thusly: “Extreme MAGA Republicans don’t want your child to learn about the LGBTQ+ experience.” He deserves our thanks for making our point so succinctly. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) described the Parental Bill of Rights as “fascism,” adding, “Our children need urgent and aggressive educational solutions. When we talk about progressive values, I can say what my progressive value is: It is freedom over fascism.”

There is not much left to say after that. They have made our point for us. Please consider lending your voice to the Catholic League efforts to preserve and protect our freedoms. You may become a member or subscribe for free email news releases at: www.catholicleague.org.

Bill Donohue’s new book, War on Virtue: How the Ruling Class Is Killing the American Dream, was published yesterday and is available on Amazon and Sophia Institute Press.

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A Message to Our Readers from Fr. Gordon MacRae

In recent months, a number of readers have suggested that I compile some of our past posts into a series of published books. I think the popularity of the Prison Journal by George Cardinal Pell raised this idea among some of our readers. I have been moved beyond words that I had a substantial presence in the late Cardinal Pell’s Prison Journal Volume Two.

I am also moved by the Journal itself and the many similarities in our respective prison experiences. The late Cardinal Pell and I responded to prison in much the same way, boldly facing the absence of anything that supports our faith or our priesthood. It is amazing how important something becomes when you can no longer have it. Cardinal Pell's Prison Journal is a legacy for the whole Church. So is his final message which was one of our posts recommended by the Catholic League: “The Vatican Today: Cardinal Pell’s Last Gift to the Church.”

The exoneration of Cardinal Pell was the answer to a prayer. At the time of his exoneration by Australia’s highest court, he had spent just over 400 days in unjust imprisonment. At the time I was storming Heaven for his freedom, I marked 10,000 days and nights in prison. Australia’s justice system is not the same as in the United States. A release based on wrongful conviction here is very hard won. An effort to review my case and restore my freedom is still underway. My faith and my priesthood are also still intact, and they inform and empower my survival.

Compiling past posts into my own version of a Prison Journal like Cardinal Pell’s is not possible, however. I have no access at all to the online world or to income, and that has been so for a much longer period of time. I cannot even see and have never seen this blog. I have no access to almost 14 years of writing published at this site. With severe restrictions on space, I have no access to printed copies of past writings. I have only a list of titles and I reference them only on memory.

But perhaps we have done the next best thing. When These Stone Walls, the prior version of this blog, evolved into Beyond These Stone Walls in 2020, we added the BTSW Public Library with multiple categories. We have slowly been restoring past posts to add them to the respective categories. Some of our categories have considerably more posts than others. This is because I pay more attention to some category subjects than others. Because I have abiding interest in Sacred Scripture, for example, I have written many posts about it.

The BTSW Public Library is set up like an ordinary library’s card catalog except that it is digital. Each category has a title and top image. Once you tap or click on either one, you will enter that category to scroll through a list of images and titles for each post. When you find a post that interests you, just tap or click on the image. When you close it, you will remain in the same category to peruse it further if you wish.

Abuse of the Abuse Crisis

The newest Category in our Library is “Abuse of the Abuse Crisis.” This is an important Category for me because it contains posts about how others have magnified and exploited the abuse crisis in the priesthood for their own ends and agendas. There has been no shortage of people who — out of vindictiveness or greed or just anti-Catholic bias — have used our crisis to tear down the priesthood and your faith. The posts in Abuse of the Abuse Crisis tell a riveting story about the costs of such abuse not only to the Church’s financial future, but to our lives as priests and your lives as Catholics. Real abuse has made us all ashamed, but the amount of fraud and bias is an outrage.

My interest in developing this special Library Category came from an experience with watching CNN a few years ago. A CNN commentator told the world that During a protest at the Vatican, 100,000 victims of sex abuse by priests were refused an audience with the Pope.” I was alerted to this story from several readers so, to the extent I was able, I looked more closely under the hood.

It turned out that SNAP, the Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests, did in fact stage a “victims’ protest” near the Vatican. The number of people present was about 40 — of which more than half were media people invited in advance to the photo op. The actual protesters were very few, and actual victims fewer still. By the time the story reached CNN, 40 became 100,000. I sent this story to Bill Donohue at the Catholic League and he followed it with a protest of his own. CNN apologized and promised to be more vigilant with its facts.

We must not accept such distortions blindly just because they appear in the news media. A post at this new category, second from the top, also addressed this same story. The SNAP-sponsored trip to Rome later became part of an employee lawsuit against SNAP in which the organization was exposed for fraud, a lawyer kickback scheme, and misused donor funds — some of which paid for a high end junket at first class hotels for this protest in Rome. I expect 100,000 people will now visit my Abuse of the Abuse Crisis page. Well ... maybe it will be closer to 40, but you might understand how such numbers are easily confused.

There are other important additions. You may have noticed the “Documents” feature in the menu at Beyond These Stone Walls. You will find there some important documents in the case against me and also a section with documents on the Pornchai Moontri story. Both sets of documents have been equally visited and l consider both to be of great importance to the cause of justice. Over 16 years of listening to the constant tap-tap-tap of my typewriter, Pornchai more than earned an honored place at this blog.

We have recently added a new item atop the documents section in my own case. It was recently prepared for a legal review through a new set of eyes. The document is entitled “Synopsis of the Case.”

Finally, for those who want to help me personally, and/or contribute to maintaining this blog or aiding me in support of Pornchai Moontri and Fr. John Hung Le, we have added access to a Zelle Account in addition to our existing PayPal Account. Zelle is easier and less expensive to use, but presently only available in the United States. Please visit our “Contact and Support” page or “Special Events” for further information.

Thank you for coming here. May the Lord Bless you and keep you.

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 4/12/23 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 4/12/23

Divine Mercy Reunites Pornchai Moontri and His Brother

Midway on life’s arduous path, Divine Mercy entered the lives of Pornchai Moontri and Fr. Gordon MacRae. When the road led to Thailand, Divine Mercy was there too.

Midway on life’s arduous path, Divine Mercy entered the lives of Pornchai Moontri and Fr. Gordon MacRae. When the road led to Thailand, Divine Mercy was there too.

April 12 , 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

Pornchai Moontri entered the Catholic faith on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2010. To some who knew him, it was a most unlikely conversion story but it was a transformation in his very core. This story is my story as well. The Lord asked me to be an instrument in restoring life and hope to this prisoner even while in prison myself. Though Pornchai now lives on the far side of the world from me, he is still very much a part of my life and the life of this blog. His most recent post for these pages was the very moving “Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand.”

As most readers of this blog know, Pornchai (which in Thai means “Blessing”) was my roommate for 16 years in the draconian confines of this prison. Out of both necessity and deprivation, we became each other’s family. Pornchai was not just a transient along the twists and turns of my life. I learned over time that our paths crossed for a divinely inspired reason.

With new information, I won a reprieve for Pornchai who was released after 29 years in prison. I did my best to accompany and support him through a gruesome five-month ordeal in ICE detention at the height of a global pandemic. He finally emerged free in Bangkok, Thailand on February 24, 2021 with nothing but the clothes he was wearing. The life he vaguely remembered before he was taken as a child of eleven was gone. Because of the posts I wrote about us, a small group of devout Catholics who formed Divine Mercy Thailand recruited Father John Hung Le and Khun Chalathip, a benefactor of Father John’s refugee work, to give Pornchai shelter. Mary herself chose them for this task just as she chose me.

That is not an exaggeration. It might seem strange to someone not versed in Catholic spiritual life, but at some point I became aware that through the intercession of Saint Maximilian Kolbe in both our lives, The Immaculata involved herself in a special way in Pornchai’s life and well being. Then she involved me through intricately woven threads of actual grace over time.

In 2022, in “Divine Mercy in a Time of Spiritual Warfare,” I wrote of the compelling signs of Mary’s interventions in our lives. After Pornchai’s conversion to the Catholic faith, we took part in the “33 Days to Morning Glory” retreat written by Marian Fr. Michael Gaitley who would become a friend to us. Depicted atop this post, our Consecration to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary took place in 2013 on the Solemnity of Christ the King.

I once mistakenly believed that this path was all about me and my priesthood in exile, but the truth was confirmed for me when Marian Helper magazine published “Mary Is at Work Here” in 2014. The article by Felix Carroll includes these startling paragraphs:

“The Marians believe that Mary chose this particular group to be the first [invited to Marian Consecration]. The reason eventually was revealed. It turned out that one of the participating inmates was Pornchai Moontri who was featured in last year’s Marian Press title, Loved, Lost, Found: 17 Divine Mercy Conversions. (See the Chapter entitled “Pornchai Moontri”) .

“Pornchai experienced a dramatic conversion in no small part due to a friendship formed with fellow inmate and cellmate Fr. Gordon MacRae who chronicles their lives in his celebrated website, Beyond These Stone Walls. Fr. Gordon joined Pornchai in the Consecration and called it 'a great spiritual gift.' It opened a door to the rebirth of trust during a dark time for both men. Great suffering requires great trust.”

— Marian Helper, Spring 2014

From Dante’s Inferno to Purgatorio

Many readers already know the most painful parts of this story. Pornchai and his brother, Priwan, were two and four years old respectively when they were abandoned in rural Thailand by a young mother desperate to find work to provide for them. She traveled to Bangkok where she fell under the control of an evil man. She was but a teenager. Nine years later, when her sons were ages 11 and 13 with no memory of her, they were taken from Thailand to the United States where they both became victims of sexual and physical violence.

Pornchai and Priwan became homeless adolescents fending for themselves in a foreign land in the mid-1980s, and they became separated. I and others investigated this story, wrote about it, and ultimately, with God’s grace, brought their abuser to justice. In September 2018, thirty years after his ruinous offenses, Richard Alan Bailey was convicted in Maine of 40 felony counts of child rape.

I discovered that at some point their mother learned the truth, but when she vowed to seek justice for her sons, she was murdered. This account is told in an article that may shake your faith in the justice system but strengthen your faith in Divine Providence. It is, “Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam.”

In the sixteen years in which Pornchai lived in a bunk just above me in the Concord, New Hampshire prison, the first few years were a bit rough. Looking back, Pornchai today says that the rough part was all him. He never set out to harm anyone, but in a Maine prison at age 18, facing a dark future alone, Pornchai vowed to never again become someone’s victim. He kept people away with a constant state of anger. As a result, he spent the next seven years alone with his raging thoughts in the cruel madness of solitary confinement.

When Pornchai could be held in solitary no longer, the State of Maine decided to just get rid of him. He was chained up in a van and taken to another prison in another state. He could have been taken anywhere, and he had no idea where he was going, but he landed just one state away in New Hampshire. He ended up in a familiar place solitary confinement.

When he emerged months later, Pornchai could have been sent to any of three New Hampshire prisons each with multiple housing units reflecting varying levels of security. By some mysterious grace, he was moved in with me. It was providential that just before his arrival in New Hampshire,The Wall Street Journal published its first articles about my plight. Somehow, Pornchai read them.

The context for this story is essential. Understandably, Pornchai trusted no one. Just imagine his inner struggle when he learned that he was now to live in a prison cell with a Catholic priest convicted of sexual abuse. Others told me to sleep with one eye open, but it did not take long for Pornchai to learn that I was not at all like the man who destroyed his life.

When I offered Mass in my cell late at night, it was Pornchai who was sleeping with one eye open. He watched me, and later he questioned me. When I told him about the Mass he asked if he could stay awake for it. I taught him to read the Mass readings and I explained the Eucharist along with a restriction that he cannot receive the Body of Christ unless he came to believe. Did he dare to believe in anything good in this world?

Pornchai and I lived in the same cell for two years before I began writing from prison. When we spoke about an invitation I received to write for this blog, I told Pornchai that it might somehow find its way around the world to Thailand. I did not actually believe that myself, but that is exactly what happened.

Here is Pornchai’s perspective on the first year of this blog given to me in a recent phone call to Thailand:

“When I was living in the bunk above Father G he would sometimes hand some typed pages up to me. Sometimes I thought they were interesting. Sometimes they kept me awake, and sometimes they just put me to sleep. But one time — I don’t remember the post — Father G included some paragraphs from the book, Dante’s Inferno. [It’s the first part of a three-part book, The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri in 1307]. When I read the passage, I thought, “This is the story of my life!” Father G found it and here it is:

“Midway on my life’s journey, I went astray from the straight path and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood. How shall I say what wood that was? I never saw so drear, so rank, so horrible a wilderness! Its very memory gives shape to fear. Death could scarce be more bitter. But since it came somehow to good, I will recount all that I found revealed there by God’s grace. How I came to it I cannot rightly say, so drugged and loose with sleep had I become when I first wandered from the True Way. But at the far end of that valley of evil, whose maze had sapped my heart with fear, I found myself upon a little hill, and there I lifted up my eyes...”

— Dante, The DivineComedy: Inferno, 1307

“Living with Father G., I thought I had finally left hell and now I was in Purgatory with him. I came to trust him. He was the only person in my life who always looked out for my best interest and never put his own first. So now I turn this story back over to Father G.”

From Dante’s Purgatorio to Paradiso

Learning from this blog about what we both faced in this prison without support or family, some readers came to our aid. Thanks to their modest gifts of support, we were suddenly eating a little better and were able to purchase things that made life here a little easier. The slow and tedious passage of time in prison sped up. I made a promise to Pornchai that he would never again be abandoned and stranded in life. I can only say that I am filled with gratitude, not only to our readers, but to God and our Mother Mary, the Immaculata, under whose mantle Saint Maximilian Kolbe led us both. He ratified a covenant with us when Pornchai was received into the Church on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2010. There was now meaning in all the injustice I had endured.

I began to write posts that would reach around the world to navigate a path home for Pornchai. There were small miracles of connection, one after another, and the lights of Divine Mercy began to illuminate both of our exiled souls. This story was not without setbacks and challenges, however.

In 2017, Pornchai and I became separated. It came at a most stressful time just as we learned that Pornchai must be deported to Thailand immediately upon leaving prison. I knew that the few years we had left together were crucial for his well being. What happened next was a miracle. There is no other explanation for it.

On July 17, 2017, I was summoned from my work in the prison law library. I was handed a few plastic bags and was told that I have one hour to unravel my life from the 23 years I had spent in that punitive and confining building and move to another place. I asked that Pornchai also be called from his work to help me. I was shaken, and did not want him to return that day just to find me inexplicably gone. As Pornchai helped me pack, our despondence was like a dark cloud. Prison has no knowledge of Divine Mercy and places no value on human relationships.

An hour later, we wheeled a small cart out of that building, across the long walled prison yard, up a series of ramps, and then in between some other buildings to a housing unit called Medium South. I knew about it, but I had never before seen it. A gate in the high wall opened up, and in we went.

I felt like Dorothy Gale having just crashed in the Land of Oz after a tornado uprooted our lives. After 23 years locked in with no outside at all — 13 of them with Pornchai — this new place was built around a park-like setting with outside access nearly around the clock. And there were flowers! People I knew came running down to carry my things. I was led to the top floor from where I could see over the walls into forests and hills beyond.

Then came this wonderful scene’s collision with a broken heart. From there, I watched as Pornchai passed all alone back through that gate down below, possibly never to be seen again by me again. Friendship means nothing in prison bureaucracies. We were powerless to change this and I was powerless to decline this move. On the next day after a sleepless night, I learned that Pornchai was also moved — but somewhere else. Our faith was shaken and it began to crumble.

Pornchai was moved to another unit. We both knew that no one ever returns from there. Not ever! Over the next two weeks I prayed daily asking Saint Maximilian, our Patron Saint ,to bring this before the Heart of Mary for a word to her Son. Surely, she could undo this knot. After all, it was upon her word that He changed water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana (John 2:1-10).

On the following Sunday, Pornchai was able to attend a Catholic Mass in the prison chapel. We had only a minute to speak after Mass. I asked him to trust, and to hand this over to our Mother. Pornchai just nodded in silence. Then I picked up a Missalette and saw a prayer, the Memorare. I asked Pornchai to pray with me:

“Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, we fly unto you, O Virgin of Virgins, our Mother. To you do we come, before you we stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not our petition, but in your mercy, hear and answer us. Amen.”

Each day to follow was under a dark cloud. Three days later, on a Wednesday afternoon, I returned from my work in the prison law library. As the gate to Medium South slid open, another prisoner was waiting for me. I usually sit on a bench there for a few minutes before climbing up the 52 stairs to my cell, but the person standing there told me I was needed up there right away.

I arrived to find Pornchai unpacking and moving into the bunk above me where, just a few hours earlier, some other prisoner lived. The smile on Pornchai’s face told the story. “How did this happen?” I asked. Pornchai said, “I think you already know.” He had no explanation. He said he was suddenly called to an office and told to pack and move to Medium South, Pod 3-Bravo, Cell 4. He had no idea the address was mine until he got there and saw my possessions in the 60-square-foot cell.

We were able to spend the next three years becoming ready, and we were ready. Pornchai remained my roommate until September 8, 2020 when he was handed over to ICE for deportation to Thailand. There was another miracle yet to come, and I wrote of it in “For Pornchai Moontri, A Miracle Unfolds in Thailand.”

Epilogue : A Prodigal Son and His Older Brother

It has long been my mission in life to restore the life of another person stranded in the twists and turns of this story. After an absence of 38 years, Pornchai’s brother, Priwan has been saving and hoping to travel to Thailand. For the first time since they were taken away in 1985, he will be reunited with Pornchai in Thailand. Priwan’s flight departs Boston on Divine Mercy Sunday arriving in Bangkok on the day after.

Priwan cannot remain there, but he wants to restore his Thai citizenship and the identity that was taken from him as Pornchai had already begun to do. Priwan will spend a month with Pornchai, the first time they have been together since the tragedy of their lives separated them 38 years earlier. I have promised to help, and that is my other prayer.

Mary is still at work here, and I am still in her service.

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Left: Pornchai greets his brother Priwan in the company of Khun Chalathip, his Thai tutor, upon arrival at the Bangkok International Airport. Right: Having arrived with clothing from the state of Maine, Priwan needed to find something more suitable to Thai weather. It was 113℉ that day. (Photos by Father John Hung Le, SVD)

Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae:

Thank you for reading and sharing this Divine Mercy story. To help me in this Corporal Work of Mercy, or to support Beyond These Stone Walls, please see our “Contact and Support” page. You may also wish to read these related posts:

Divine Mercy in a Time of Spiritual Warfare

Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand

Loved, Lost, Found: The Chapter on “Pornchai Moontri”

For Pornchai Moontri, A Miracle Unfolds in Thailand

And you must not miss...

Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam

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And available until Pentecost:

A Personal Holy Week Retreat from Beyond These Stone Walls

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 4/5/23 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 4/5/23

Simon of Cyrene Compelled to Carry the Cross

Simon of Cyrene was just a man coming in from the country to Jerusalem for the Passover when his fated path intersected the Way of the Cross and Salvation History.

Simon of Cyrene was just a man coming in from the country to Jerusalem for the Passover when his fated path intersected the Way of the Cross and Salvation History.

Holy Week 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

I first wrote about Simon of Cyrene in Holy Week, 2010. While restoring that post, I ended up completely rewriting it. It led me almost immediately to a vivid example of the descent of this world at a time when faith invites us to ascend to Eternal Life. We are all going to die. It is an ordinary part of life. But don’t just die. Set out now for home. The only true path to life leads “To the Kingdom of Heaven through a Narrow Gate.”

A single sentence about Simon of Cyrene in each of the Synoptic Gospels conveys a wealth of meaning with a roadmap to the way home. Several readers told me privately and in comments that they were struck by these last few sentences in a recent post that mentioned Pornchai Moontri. In “God in the Dock: When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” I wrote,

“It was upon reading [a] passage from Pope Benedict that Pornchai made his decision to journey with me from the Exodus, through the desert, to the Promised Land toward which we, in hope, are destined. Faith never rescued us from our trials, but it taught us to carry one another's cross like Simon of Cyrene. That is the key to Heaven. Even in suffering and sorrow, it is the key to Heaven.”

Under the weight of Earthly Powers, this world loses sight of our true destiny while the great masses of people focus only on what they have stored up in this life. When a bank fails those whose treasury contains little more than money in life, people panic, some even commit suicide. It's a tragedy unfolding before our very eyes in the weeks leading up to Holy Week.

I turn 70 years old on Easter Sunday this year. It haunts me to reflect on how much the values of this world have changed in my lifetime. While researching this post about Simon of Cyrene, I came across a reference to The Greatest Story Ever Told, a 1960 United Artists film production of the life of Jesus from his birth to his Resurrection. Today, many of the woke denizens of Hollywood might shun such a project, but in 1960 it drew an enormous cast of Hollywood stars clamoring to be part of 'it.

Some of the film industry's most stellar actors were cast, some surprisingly in even minor roles: Max von Sydow portrayed Jesus, Dorothy McGuire was Mary, Claude Rains was Herod the Great, Jose Ferrer was Herod Antipas, Charlton Heston was John the Baptist, Telly Savalas was Pontius Pilate. He shaved his head for the role and never grew his hair back again. This is why he was bald when he played the famous NYPD detective, Kojak. David McCallum was Judas Iscariot. The list of Hollywood stars goes on and on.

The great John Wayne was cast as a captain of the Roman Centurions who professed his belief in Jesus at the foot of the Cross, as depicted in the top graphic on this post. John Wayne became a Catholic not long after this film. Today, his grandson is a Catholic priest in California.

Simon of Cyrene was portrayed by Sidney Poitier who three years later won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a drifter who became a handyman for a community of nuns in Lillies of the Field. He was an interesting choice to play Simon of Cyrene. In New Testament times, Cyrene was a major city in Northern Africa with a large Jewish population in what is present day Libya. It was the home of Lucius, a prophet and teacher of Antioch mentioned in Acts 13:1, and of Simon, a man who ventured to Jerusalem for the Passover but found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time or, depending on your perspective, in the right place at the right time.

Weep Not for Me, Jerusalem

My first inkling to learn about Simon of Cyrene was during Holy Week in 2000, nine years before this blog began. An old friend planning a visit to the Holy Land asked me to write a prayer that he promised to leave in a crevasse in the famous Western Wall. Known popularly as the “Wailing Wall,” it was built by Herod the Great (who was not so great, really!). That section of wall was all that remained standing after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Romans in 70 AD. Known in Hebrew as “ha-Kotel ha-Maaravi,” it is today one of the holiest pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land.

According to the Midrash, a collection of ancient rabbinic scholarship, the Wall survived the destruction of the Temple because the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, rests there. My friend left my handwritten prayer in a crevasse in that Wall. Just a day later, during a historic pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Pope John Paul II left his own prayer in that same place in the Wall. I recall hoping that his was not blocking mine!

On that same day, just beyond the city walls, my friend came upon a tourist area where a photographer was capitalizing on the presence of the Pope. He tried to coax my friend into picking up a mock cross and carrying it for a photograph. My friend was appalled by the disconnect between what happened at Calvary 2000 years earlier and what was happening in that present scene. He refused to pick up the cross.

Reflecting on the scene upon his return from Jerusalem, my friend wrote to me in prison asking, “What can you tell me about Simon of Cyrene?” His question took me to a single sentence in each of the Synoptic Gospels from which I felt compelled to unpack some hidden meaning. It turned out that there was much to unpack.

Jesus, denounced by the Chief Priests, tried and condemned before Pilate, was mercilessly scourged to the point of near death. Roman soldiers tasked with his crucifixion feared that he may die before the ascent of Golgotha while bearing history's heaviest cross. Roman law allowed soldiers to press Jews into service for Rome so they forced a passerby to assist the “King of the Jews” as recounted in all three of the Synoptic Gospels:

“As they went out, they came upon a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; this man they compelled to carry the cross.”

— Matthew 27:32

“And as they led [Jesus] away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross to carry it behind Jesus.”

— Luke 23:26

“And they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.”

— Mark 15:21

Sidney Poitier as Simon of Cyrene in *The Greatest Story Ever Told*

He Was There When They Crucified My Lord

Crucifixion was entirely unknown in Jewish history until the Roman occupation of Palestine in 31 BC. Sacred Scripture, however, contained echoes of the sacrifice to come. Some 2,000 years before Jesus ascended Calvary bearing his Cross, Abraham was summoned by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac in the land of Moriah (Genesis 22).

Israelite tradition (2 Chronicles 3:1) identifies Moriah as the site of the future Jerusalem Temple. What became Golgotha or Calvary was one of its foothills. Obedient but brokenhearted, Abraham placed upon his son the wood for his sacrifice and together they climbed Mount Moriah.

Isaac asked his father, “Where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” Abraham answered, “God will provide himself the lamb for the offering, my son” (Genesis 22:8). In the end, an Angel of the Lord stayed Abraham’s hand, and his obedience became the basis for God’s covenant with Israel. Two millennia later, in that same place, God Himself did provide the lamb for the sacrifice. Hence, in our Liturgy, Jesus is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

Crucifixion was a common form of capital punishment among Persians, Egyptians, and Romans from the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD. The punishment was ritualized under Roman law which required that a criminal be scourged before execution. The accused had to carry the entire cross or just the crossbeam from the place of scourging to the execution. Crucifixion was abolished in 337 AD by Emperor Constantine out of respect for the emergence of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Jews carried out their own form of capital punishment by stoning, but the Romans forbade such executions when they occupied Palestine. This is why Jesus was handed over to Pilate for trial.

The gruesome punishment of crucifixion was reserved by the Romans for criminals, seditionists, and slaves. Roman law forbade the crucifixion of a citizen for any crime. Saint Paul, who was a Roman citizen, could not be crucified so he was martyred by Emperor Tertullian, likely by beheading, in 60 A.D.

When Pilate had Jesus scourged, he may have instructed his tormentors to go beyond the usual torture hoping to convince the Sanhedrin and the mob that scourging was punishment enough. That plan failed when the crowd, spurred on by the Chief Priests, shouted “Crucify Him!”

However Jesus had been beaten so severely that Roman soldiers doubted that he could carry his cross the entire distance to Calvary alone. Note that I use the terms “Golgotha” and “Calvary” interchangeably. They are one and the same place. Golgotha is a Greek translation from an Aramaic word meaning “Place of the Skull,” a name likely derived from the fact that many executions were carried out there. “Calvary” is derived from “calvaria,” the Latin translation of Golgotha.

A condemned man was then led through the crowds to the place of crucifixion. Just as today, most of the people in the crowds assumed that an all-powerful and righteous state has justly condemned a real criminal to punishment, so many joined in the mocking and humiliation even if they knew nothing of the accused or the alleged crime. It was part of the ritual. Along the way, the condemned was forced to carry his cross — or at least the crossbeam upon which his arms would be tied and his hands or wrists nailed (see John l9:l7).

In 1994, the year I was sent to prison, archeological remains of a crucified man were discovered intact near Jerusalem. It was the first evidence of what actually took place in a typical Roman crucifixion.

It is unclear from the Gospel passages above exactly what part of the Cross was imposed upon Simon of Cyrene. Luke’s Gospel refers to Simon carrying the Cross behind Jesus, a position which also came to be symbolic of discipleship. It is likely that Jesus, like other condemned, carried the crossbeam upon which he would be nailed, while Simon may have carried the vertical beam or the rear of the entire Cross.

I learned from Mel Gibson’s famous film, The Passion of the Christ, that Simon of Cyrene is the person in the Gospel to whom I can most relate. I did not pick my cross willingly, nor do I willingly carry it. I did not see it as a share in the Cross of Christ at first. Few of us ever do.

The Passion of the Christ portrayed with power what I have always imagined must have become of Simon of Cyrene. Something stirred within him compelling him to remain there. He became a part of the scene, setting his own journey aside. The lights went on in Simon’s soul and he became compelled not just from Roman force, but from deep within himself.

Note that Saint Mark alone mentions that Simon of Cyrene had two sons, Alexander and Rufus. The Gospel implies that both became well known to the early Church. Being the earliest of the Gospels to come into written form, Mark addressed his Gospel to Gentile Christians in Rome. So did Saint Paul in his Letter to the Romans. Mark was with Paul at the time he was imprisoned in Rome so he was likely aware of Simon’s profound transformation as a witness to the Crucifixion and Saint Paul’s knowledge of his sons, Rufus and Alexander cited in Saint Mark’s Gospel.

Hence in the concluding verses of Paul’s Letter to the Romans Paul wrote: “Greet Rufus, eminent in the Lord, and also his mother who is a mother to me as well” (Romans 16:13).

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post which is now on our list of Holy Week posts for our sponsored Holy Week Retreat. It is not too late to follow the Way of the Cross this week by pondering and sharing our

A Personal Holy Week Retreat from Beyond These Stone Walls.

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”