Kolbe House helps inmates find peace in jail

Inmates at Cook County Jail and the Metropolitan Correctional Center are finding space to breathe and space to sit in silence through centering prayer, thanks to the efforts of Kolbe House ministers.

Kolbe House Jail Ministry and Contemplative Outreach started the program at Cook County Jail in January 2023, modeling it on a similar program at Folsom Prison in California, according to Tom Cook, Kolbe House Jail Ministry coordinator and chaplain.

“Centering prayer has had a tremendous impact on my life,” Cook said, explaining that centering prayer is a kind of receptive prayer in which people engage in silence in order to hear what God is saying to them. “That was part of our motivation to share this practice with others. … I had heard from a lot of guys that they wanted to learn to meditate. They wanted to learn what to do with racing thoughts and anxiety.”

That was borne out by the response to the group.

“The class was full from day one,” he said. “It continued to be full for months. We continued to be blown away by how this was impacting people, how they carried it with them from week to week.”

The centering prayer program is the subject of a documentary being produced by Kolbe House. The film features interviews with several of the inmates who participate.

“I’ve been practicing meditation by myself, but I’ve had no teachings, I’ve had no guidance,” said Jeffery Meegan, one of the inmates interviewed in the film. “I pick up a book, but you can’t get from a book what you can get from someone who is willingly practitioning in front of you.”

With the help of volunteer facilitators, the program has grown to five groups meeting each week at Cook County Jail, and one that started and is expected to resume at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Kathy McLennan, a parishioner at Mary, Seat of Wisdom in Park Ridge, had been doing centering prayer with a group in the parish when she received an email looking for people to help facilitate groups at the jail.

She was a little scared at first, she said, but now facilitates two groups a week at Cook County Jail and plans to return to the federal correctional center.

“It’s just such a wonderful program, and I see guys looking inside their hearts and seeing that good that God gave them,” she said.

Cook and volunteer ministers such as McLennan go into the jail each week to facilitate meetings, which include video selections from “Holding Still,” a documentary on centering prayer at Folsom Prison, and readings from “Finding God Within” and “Going Inside,” by Ray Leonardini, as well as readings about centering prayer from Father Thomas Keating.

Weekly meetings in the jails last for more than an hour, with time for a greeting and an icebreaker question to start things off. Then the group reads, often from Leonardini’s books, taking turns and going paragraph by paragraph.

A singing bell marks the beginning and end of 20 minutes of silence, followed by a time for participants to reflect out loud on their experience.

It’s the silence that draws participants to the practice, Cook said.

“It’s this moment of peace, this moment of time to yourself, you’ll be able to block out the whole world and be able to just be in your thoughts and control what’s in your head, other than just allowing things to just go like a wave and knock you around,” said Alvin Thomas, another inmate interviewed in the film. “Centering prayer allows you to center yourself, not just yourself but your thoughts, your spirit, your soul, and connect with one. That’s the biggest thing, being able to be one with God and self, and so yeah, it gives you that moment of peace. It gives you that moment of space.”

There aren’t many opportunities for silence in the jail, Cook said, with the TV constantly on, inmates talking and moving around and doors opening and closing. It’s a chaotic environment that some inmates said left them “shell-shocked” when they first arrived.

“Every week, people are sharing deep wisdom, deep learnings that they are having,” Cook said. “They’re learning about themselves, learning about God, learning about their relationships. They’re learning about the decisions they’ve made.”

That vulnerability extends to the facilitators, who are a part of the community formed in the meetings.

“Just being with them and listening to them, I’ve learned so much about myself and how much we’re so much the same in our hearts,” McLennan said.

Kolbe House worked with Contemplative Outreach to offer a program to teach volunteers how to facilitate centering prayer, which has allowed the program to expand, Cook said. He would welcome more volunteers who practice centering prayer in their own lives, he said.

Participants interviewed for the documentary said more inmates could benefit from the practice.

“I believe telling someone about centering prayer would help heal them,” said inmate Arnel Smith. “It would help them be able to face the situation without feeling like you’re being defeated, that there’s no hope. I believe without a shadow of a doubt, if you do it right, if you’re serious about it, you will tap into the God that’s in you.”