It’s 7:00 AM, and the Blessed Sacrament is exposed under a
rich canopy; during the night, the women took turns in adoration. The year is 1864 and the women are prisoners
in Cadillac, France.
They were 397 women, relatively young, their crimes ranging
from murder, robbery, and prostitution.
Illiteracy was very common. A
Dominican preacher was requested to begin a retreat in preparation to beginning
perpetual Adoration. In these days,
people didn’t receive Communion frequently and Adoration was considered a
spiritual communion.
The friar was fairly new.
His name was M. Jean-Joseph Lataste, O.P.* In order not to interfere
with the labor of the prisoners, the retreat time had to be taken from the
inmates’ sleep. Imagine the trembling,
young friar presenting himself at the prison door. Imagine him looking over the
sleepy congregation, kerchiefed heads bowed down. Would they not listen to him, fall asleep, be
disrespectful, or even mock him out loud?
Here is how Father Lataste described his state of mind:
They were there,
almost four hundred of them, dressed in shabby clothes, a handkerchief tightly
wound their temples, giving them a very unusual appearance which somehow was
offensive to me. The point is I was
prejudice. In fact, I had a horror of them.
At the beginning of the first sermon, the preacher went
beyond his personal repulsion, and raised his eyes to his audience. His first words, his greeting, landed like a
bomb.
My dear sisters,…
He didn’t call them sinners, and rant about their crimes and
scream at them to repent. Rather, he spoke of God’s love. As he talked about the mercy of God, he heard
them sobbing. Gradually, their handkerchief
heads rose, with eyes wet with tears.
He was the first one to be converted.
They brightened at the story of Jesus exorcising the demons
from Mary Magdalene. They asked about
the love of Mary Magdalene for Jesus.
Could Jesus love them?
I spoke to them of God’s
great mercy, of God’s great love, of God’s preferential love for sincerely
repentant souls who want to love like Magdalene. You would have seen them gently raise their
heads, like flowers after a storm when the sun comes out to touch them. Their faces lit up little by little; it
seemed that they breathed more easily and that the walls of the prison, heavy
as they were, had become light.
He told them when they knelt in front of the monstrance, to
give Jesus their love like Mary Magdalene did--to speak to Him from their
hearts. God loved them and would forgive
them for their transgressions. The mercy of
God respects the basic dignity of every human being, who is called to holiness
whatever their past.
The women looked at the Blessed Sacrament in awe. It was a mystery. They wondered if it were true that Jesus
could love them. He loved Mary Magdalene. He loved Dismas. He was God; His mercy was endless; His
forgiveness was given; His love was for them.
They could feel it. Finally, they
were free to love Jesus. They would be
like Mary Magdalene and love Him, forever.
Their hearts beat in unison with the pulsating joy and happiness emanating from the Monstrance.
*Blessed M. Jean-Joseph Lataste, O.P. founded the Dominican
Sisters of Bethany, with some of these same inmates. His cause for canonization is being
considered. He is known as the Apostle to Prisoners.
Quotes from My Dear
Sisters, Fr. Jean-Marie Guellette, O.P., New Hope Publications, 2018.
