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Denver, Colo., Aug 31, 2017 \/ 06:15 am (Denver Catholic<\/a>).- Sometimes people surprise us for the better.<\/p>\n For Lorenzo Patelli, leader of one of the Communion and Liberation (CL) communities in Denver, and a man called \u201cJ,\u201d a former inmate who is now on parole, the surprise of friendship turned into a deep encounter with Christ through one another \u2014 all in the setting of prison ministry.<\/p>\n But the meeting had just happened to fall on Patelli\u2019s lap. At that time, J had been in prison for several years and requested the CL magazine, Traces, in German to learn the language, only to find that he also needed the English one to help him better translate with his German dictionary.<\/p>\n J contacted the Human Adventure Corporation, the legal entity the CL movement uses in the U.S. to run Traces and other various events, to ask about getting the English subscription.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got a phone call or an email from [a woman] saying, \u2018Hey, I got this request to send Traces to this prison in Colorado, I have no clue who this person or prison is, I can definitely send the magazine, but you guys want to get in contact with him?\u2019\u201d Patelli said.<\/p>\n Not long after, another member of Patelli\u2019s Denver community reached out to J by letter and said that the group wanted to visit him in prison. After a long process of applications and verification, eight from the community were added to J\u2019s list of people he was allowed to see in prison, although he couldn\u2019t see more than four at once. So they rotated.<\/p>\n A surprising friendship<\/strong><\/p>\n Patelli recalled that at first, he didn\u2019t want to know J\u2019s crime, but then realized that not knowing someone\u2019s full story \u201cis like not even knowing your name.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe were really struck by his story and so I knew at that point, even if he had told me he killed 200 people, I would have been, not fine, but, \u2018Okay, this is it,\u2019\u201d Patelli said. \u201cBut before, I didn\u2019t want to have the opposite thing, looking at him with his crime in my mind. And a beautiful friendship started.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought I was going to find someone desperate or really struggling. And I remember we met a man who was busy, certain of his faith more than me and all of us together, and it was immediately clear to all of us that we didn\u2019t go to help him, but that something was given to us,\u201d Patelli continued. \u201c[We left] every time way more aware of the love of God for us. That God could have said, \u2018J I free you right now,\u2019 and he was not doing that, but yet, J was loving his life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThink about J\u201d became a saying in the community to one another when they were struggling with things big and small.<\/p>\n \u201cHe became a presence, a something in our mind,\u201d Patelli said. \u201cEverything took a new perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n For both J and Patelli, as well as the others that visited him, the friendship was a surprising encounter, Patelli said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were talking about everything, he got to know us in what was going on in our lives more and more. He was telling more and more about his days,\u201d Patelli said. \u201cYou can\u2019t bring anything in [to the prison], not even your wallet. So you\u2019re naked in front of another person, who is very naked in terms of his being in prison. So it\u2019s a very interesting dynamic that makes you very true in front of what you\u2019re saying, what you want to say, what\u2019s happening in your life. It was very, very real.\u201d<\/p>\n Finding Christ in prison<\/strong><\/p>\n Before meeting Patelli and the other members of the community, J had already experienced a conversion to the Catholic faith several years before.<\/p>\n He had previously been baptized, but when his mother left the Church while he was a kid, he did too.<\/p>\n But his journey back accelerated in prison. J accepted a Bible from a chaplain and began to read it only to prove to his evangelical brother that it was \u201cfull of holes.\u201d But he found something else instead.<\/p>\n \u201cI was amazed,\u201d J said. \u201cI had no idea that there was all this history in there, and it just really spoke to me. It was clearly true. I had always believed in God and believed that Jesus was God, but I didn\u2019t know what that meant, and certainly didn\u2019t have any personal experience with Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n After finishing the Bible in a matter of weeks, he told his family about his experience, and his grandfather, who was a devout Catholic, sent him books so he could read more about the faith.<\/p>\n \u201cI basically read my way back into the Catholic Church,\u201d J said. \u201cIt made sense to me as I read this stuff\u2026Catholicism isn\u2019t a faith that requires you to check your brain at the door. It actually makes sense. You have to accept some premises on faith, but everything logically makes sense. You might say it\u2019s above logic, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s illogical or unreasonable, it\u2019s just more than logical and reasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n After getting confirmed, J became an Oblate of St. Benedict, got his master\u2019s degree in theology through the Catholic Distance University, became a leader of a non-denominational religious program, a Bible study leader, and an RCIA leader \u2014 all while in prison. He even sponsored five men in baptism and confirmation while there.<\/p>\n \u201cI kind of miss it. I\u2019m obviously happy to be out of prison, but there are days when I say, I was having a lot more impact on the world in there than I can out here, and it\u2019s been a frustration for me,\u201d J said. \u201cI had wanted very much to get something going out here, a prison ministry that would reach into the prisons and befriend people and act as mentors. There are so many people who could use that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSomebody who loves me\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n During the three years that the CL community visited J, they saw the act of visiting as a charitable work, but the experience changed the way they view other people.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we were going down, we were reading a little booklet by Father Giussani [the founder of the CL movement] on charitable work, and he says you don\u2019t go because you can fulfill the need of the other, because who knows what that need is,\u201d Patelli said. \u201cYou go because it\u2019s part of the law of life to give yourself. And even these words, they sound cute and nice, but they were carrying a weight every time we were going down there.\u201d<\/p>\n They visited J about every other month until he was released on parole last October, during the Year of Mercy.<\/p>\n Immediately the question became, \u201cWhat happens next for J?\u201d which brought Patelli a lot of anxiety.<\/p>\n \u201cSo this is the situation. And then he tells me in this letter that he\u2019s going to rely on me for finding a job and getting back on track,\u201d Patelli said. \u201cBut the thing he\u2019s needed the most he\u2019s already been given, which is somebody who\u2019s out who loves me and waits for me. And that took all the anxiety and pressure off my back.<\/p>\n \u201cI could have said that to myself, but it was very different to hear him say that,\u201d Patelli continued. \u201cThat exactly in these three years of visiting him, his awareness that that\u2019s what we did and that\u2019s what he needs first and foremost, is very liberating.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, with the gifts he\u2019s been given of conversion and a thorough education, J dreams of getting back into prison ministry to help the people he\u2019s lived so long with \u2014 especially on a relational level so they know that they, too, have \u201csomebody who loves me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf the 1,500 guys in the prison I was in, we would get about 20 guys at Mass on a regular basis,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s less than one percent. It\u2019s not that those people aren\u2019t interested in questions that life is giving them, they just don\u2019t know what the answers are. And somebody needs to engage them in a way that\u2019s compelling to them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n This article was originally published in the Denver Catholic<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n