God's Fiery Nun

You may remember Dead Man Walking, the 1996 film about a death death row inmate Matthew Poncelet, played by Sean Penn, who asks Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon) to help him with a last appeal, maintaining that he is innocent of the murders of a young couple. This was a powerful true story based on a book of the same name by Prejean. 

Through the years Sister Helen's name has continued to surface in the ongoing debate about capital punishment in the United States, and she has been the unrelenting advocate for those who have been sentenced to death. She has always understood the need for justice and honesty. In the film she is firm with Poncelet that he must take responsibility for his actions rather than live in denial. She has also maintained that “people are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives”. 



A print of Fra Angelico’s “Annunciation” is a touchstone for the nun. “There’s this thing of how you discern God’s will in your life,” Sister Helen said. “Or how your boat catches a wave and you begin to ride the current.”CreditWilliam Widmer for The New York Times


 Prejean has just released her spiritual biography and its being covered across the media, including a worthwhile piece in the New York Times by Penelope Green. She offers these insights:

Sister Helen’s awareness of social justice came even later, when she attended a talk by an activist nun who noted that Jesus’ message about the poor is that they be poor no longer. That their fate was not God’s will, and that just praying for people was not enough. Social justice, the nun said, meant being involved in political processes, because doing nothing was tacit support for the status quo.

What stung the most, Sister Helen said, “was the realization of how passive I had been.” A year later, she moved into Hope House, a Catholic service ministry in a New Orleans housing project. She was 42 years old. And a year after that, she would begin writing to a death row inmate.“I had to break out of two cocoons,” she said. “One was the spiritual one that by praying you helped the world be a better place. And the other was white privilege because I was taken care of in every way. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/style/sister-helen-prejean.html

I am grateful for people like Sister Helen whose Christian faith has led them to places they never anticipated. They are encouragement for us to do the same, in our own modest ways. Should I order this autobiography?...