Sister Stories

Sharon Schmitz
RSM, Called to Prison Ministry

"God writes straight with crooked lines." I heard that line many times in my childhood/teen years, and at the time, it seemed to mean: "Don't judge. God can touch the least effective life and instill great meaning into it." Now, I think it describes my life with the Sisters of Mercy.

Fifty years later, the "line" God weaved with my life has taken me through nursing into theology and then into ministry with incarcerated women. How did that happen? I spent ten years as a Director of a Diploma School of Nursing in Springfield, Missouri, when Vatican council II happened. I was intrigued with it and it led me into the study of theology.

Then one year when I was on retreat, I reviewed the Works of Mercy: Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, etc. I had done a lot of all of them except "visit the imprisoned." I'd done a minimum amount of that - but not enough to make a difference in anyone's life ... not enough to say I had "set anyone free." But, I wasn't concerned. I told myself God doesn't expect that of me.

Surprise, surprise! Not too long afterwards, I was on a sabbatical year and received a phone message asking me to consider teaching a course to prisoners. To make a thirteen-year story short, I accepted that invitation and, as Robert Frost's poem says, "that has made all the difference."

God has written straight with the crooked lines of my life and ministry, and I couldn't be more pleased.