The Sanctuary: a Vision

The parable of the Prodigal Son is familiar to us. A young man leaves home, squanders his inheritance, and loses himself in a foreign land. Coming to his right mind, he returns home to beg his father for a job as one of his hired servants. His father, who has been watching for his son all this time, sees him coming from a distance, and runs to him. Before the son can recite his carefully prepared speech, his father embraces him and immediately restores to him everything that he had. He welcomes him back into the house and throws a feast in his honor. 

Imagine a different ending to this well-known story. Imagine that the son comes home, but his father does not come running to embrace him. Instead, the son arrives at the door and finds it closed. He knocks and eventually, one of the servants comes to the door to find out what he wants. Perhaps, in the end, the father offers his son a job, and the young man goes about his menial tasks, while the rest of the family go about their lives, ignoring the estranged family member in their midst. Or, perhaps the door never opens at all, and the son goes away hungry. 

Can we even bear to imagine such an ending? And yet, this is how the story ends too often for many offenders in our society. They have squandered their humanity in acts of violence. They have degraded themselves and others. Then, one day, they come to themselves and realize that they’re lost in a strange land, far from their spiritual home, starving to death. They long to regain their lost humanity, and do whatever they can to give back to their community at least some of what which they took away. So, they actively demonstrate their willingness to be a hired servant, doing what the correctional system requires: taking programs, completing their education, serving their time in peace. They repent and return to the Church, experiencing the embrace of the Father through Christ in baptism and chrismation and participation in the Eucharist. 

And yet, having done whatever they can, what happens when it comes time for them to find a home outside the prison walls and fences? Too often, they find locked doors, whether the doors of employment, the doors of a residence, or the doors of a church. When they knock, either we do not answer, or we let them in on the condition that they keep their place apart from our family. Either way, the effect is the same: God embraces them in heaven, but we shut them out on earth. Whether we let them in conditionally, or refuse to let them in at all, they go away hungry from the table of the family of God, outcasts or servants, rather than sons of the kingdom. 

The Sanctuary was born out of a desire to create a place where offenders who are striving to fulfill their new identity in Christ can experience the embrace of the Father on earth, not just in heaven. The Sanctuary is not a half-way house. It is a place where offenders serving long-term to indefinite sentences can find a haven in which to live, work, play, and worship—all without closed doors, judgment, or condescension. It is a place where those who have squandered their humanity and come to their right minds can find that humanity once again, to be restored to divine sonship. 

But the Sanctuary is not just a place for its residents. It is a place for the broader community as well. It is a place for those of us who might be tempted to take on—even unintentionally—the posture and the attitude of the elder brother in the parable, considering ourselves the obedient ones who have never done and could never do things like that son of yours. We can come to the Sanctuary and discover ways in which we can identify with our prodigal brother, our own weaknesses and vulnerabilities, which we too often conceal from others. As we continue to visit, we can rediscover our joy in the things that God shares with us, but which we take for granted. Finally, we can leave the Sanctuary changed people, our hearts softened. We can return to our church communities with a renewed commitment to making those places into the sanctuaries they are meant to be. 

Almost 50 years ago, Jean Vanier started L’Arche—the Ark—a residence for the mentally handicapped in France. Today, L’Arche has grown to 147 communities around the world. With the Sanctuary, we want to extend his legacy to include the incarcerated, with the same ultimate goal: to learn what it means to be truly human from those that society would either relegate to second-class status or reject as less-than-human. 

What does the Sanctuary look like? Here’s the vision: a small acreage located in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia not too far from town; a small chapel built by the inmates on work escorted absences from prison; a workshop for the production of wood and leather crafts to be sold online in support of the Sanctuary; a studio for the production of sacred art and music; a garden and an orchard, chickens and a cow as a local source of food; small container homes or tiny houses for the residents; a home for the director and his family. Liturgical services will punctuate each day and in between, residents and visitors will work together to make and create, grow and harvest all those things necessary sustain our community’s material needs, even as they nurture and deepen their relationships, the Holy Spirit uniting them together as God’s beloved children. 

Today, I invite you to help us realize this vision. Our first step is to purchase property and our goal is $250,000. Please go to https://orthodoxprisonministry.ca/support-our-ministry today. There’s a drop-down menu, giving you the option of the general fund or the Sanctuary fund. You can donate one-time or monthly. 

If you can’t donate, please share this podcast widely and encourage others to do what they can. And it goes without saying that we are grateful for your prayers as we seek God’s grace, without which we cannot bring this vision to reality. 

Thank you for helping to make the Sanctuary, where we become human in Christ together.