The Joy of Music

The Joy of Music

With her three sisters, a Vancouver Island woman brings forgiveness and love into Texas prisons.

The Facts

When Lorraine Bandet of Victoria agreed to help her sister Evelyn in Texas with her prison ministry, she had no idea it would mean talking to young women dimly glimpsed through a one-foot by one-foot plexiglass opening in a steel door, and talking to them through a narrow, floor level slot in that door.

“It took me aback at first, for sure,” says Lorraine, whose speech still bears charming traces of her Francophone upbringing in rural Saskatchewan. “They are all in solitary confinement, in tiny stalls. We each knock on a different door, ask them if they want to talk, to sing, to pray. Usually they do.”

“We” includes Aline and Carmel who  have join Lorraine and Evelyn for the past five years in Berzoria County, Texas, “a place with a lot of prisons,” says Lorraine ruefully, for a week of sisterly fellowship—and prison music ministry. Each year, they put on a concert at a men’s penitentiary, and minister more intimately at a women’s jail.

“Music has always brought us together and brought us great joy,” says Lorraine, recalling how the family of six girls and six boys would sing at Catholic church socials accompanied by their parents. “It was the best time of our lives.” Evelyn became a country gospel singer, cut records in Nashville and continued to perform in Saskatchewan at pro-life events before moving with her husband to Texas 18 years ago. There 12 years ago she volunteered to join her parish priest in providing a Catholic presence in the local prisons and eventually roped her sisters in too.

The sisters sing “everything,” pop, C &W, Gospel to an audience of about a 150 men accompanied by a prison band. “The men are incredibly talented,” says Lorraine. The sisters also testify as to the love Christ and tp the important role Mary can play as their guide through life. “Many of these men came from really bad family situations. Mary is a true mother for these men.”

Lorraine has seen men “lifted up to a different place,” by the hymns the sisters sing.  The message that Jesus forgives them and cherishes them is a welcome one indeed to men serving long sentences. Many are baptised and receive their First Communion in jail, dressing all in white for the sacraments.

But it is working with the women that Lorraine especially cherishes. “There is a real pro-life angle to this,” says Lorraine, who is a regular participant in the 40 Days for Life prayer vigil outside the CRD’s abortion clinic in View Royal. That angle emerges in those talks  conducted through the steel doors.” “Ninety per cent of the women that we speak to have had an abortion. They have destroyed a life and now feel their own life has no value.” The sisters preach Christ’s forgiveness. Later, Evelyn’s parish takes in many of these women when they are released, providing advice and instruction on how to live productive lives, be good mothers and reclaim their children from the foster care system.

As grim as the settings are, says Lorraine, “When we come out we feel renewed.

You never know what these women have been through,” she adds. “We’ re not there to judge or condemn but just give them hope that life can be better for them.  But doing this helps us too. It has made me stronger in my faith, more willing to stand outside the abortion clinic.”

 

The Comment

Unpaid volunteers send a powerful message to those serving time. These men and women know how scary they are and appreciate those brave and kind enough to get close. The Good News that Christ forgives sinners is easier to hear behind a steel door.