Columban Sister Angela McKeever’s story provided the inspiration for the BBC Radio 4 Daily Service program, as aired on Monday 12th May. The program was presented by Far East subscriber John Forrest.
Transcript extract 04.47 - 06.20mins:
Recently I was reading a report by Columban Sister Angela McKeever, a nun who’s spent the last 20 years working amongst huge social problems in the prisons of Chile. Many inmates there are young men whose childhood development has been through life on the streets. They’ve only known lives of crime and addiction.
She writes movingly about what she calls, "rivers of pain and suffering which flow through the prison cells. The awful power of addictions which destroy young lives and families, turning young men, so full of promise, into criminals and thug."
Often the good work she’s able to do with some of the prisoners is completely undone when they’re eventually released and hit the streets again. It seems to me not only like a thankless task, but often a potentially futile one. But Sister McKeever gets her inspiration from Jesus.
She writes, "My hopes have been dashed so many times; it’s only by God’s grace we keep going. It is by faith in Him, who loves the very worst of these prisoners, that we find deep peace and a joy in reaching out to these men."
I think Sister McKeever is describing something of the saving power that’s the theme of our Daily Services this week. It’s saving power linked with the ’Spirit of the Lord’. And this is given a musical expression in part of Elgar’s Oratorio "The Apostles" - which is sung now by the John Powell singers.