Descent into Hell

I'm reading A Different Kind of Cell: The Story of a Murderer Who Became a Monk by W. Paul Jones.  In this fascinating true story, Father Jones, a Trappist monk at Assumption Abbey in the Ozarks, recounts his friendship with Clayton Fountain, called "the most violent criminal with which our country's federal penal system has ever had to deal."

Fountain suffered severe beatings from a vicious father as he was growing up. Once his father beat him with a board, even hitting him over the head with it.  At 17, lying about his age, he joined the Marines, but wound up shooting his abusive staff sergeant point-blank.  While in prison for that murder, he managed to kill four men at different times, and in different prisons.  Finally, he was sent to Marion, Illinois, where a special impenetrable cell was constructed for him and where he had absolutely no contact with any human being at all.  His meal were slid through a slot in the door, but the door itself did not permit even visual contact with the guards.  He was to spend 5 consecutive life sentences behind that door.  He was so notorious that a newspaper did a feature article on him, hoping to support the death penalty as a choice of punishment in that state.

As a result of the article, a woman whose life had been totally depraved, but who had not committed murder, wrote to him to tell him how God had found her in the worst of circumstances.  He carried her letter in his pocket, and somehow it encouraged him to turn to God.  Eventually, he wrote to the Abbey, asking for help, and the monks there agreed to visit him -- although they were required to remain three feet away from his cell door and to speak with him through the meal slot.  He began working on his GED, and then on a college degree through correspondence, and eventually on a Master's Degree in Social Service, taking as his field of study the penal system in its social structure and the psychological effects it produces on inmates. During all this time, his behavior changed to peaceful and quiet submission.  He wrote to the wife of one of his victims, sending her all the money he had -- $800 ---earned through work he was eventually allowed to do in prison (typing in his cell).

Eventually, he requested permission to study for the priesthood, asking the bishop to consider him a hermit who would spend his life in prayer and penance for the good of others, a goal he pursued until his death from a heart attack.

The book raises questions about whether education and spiritual mentoring might help others hardened by evil, but its greatest message is how the love of God was able to reach this man through a simple woman whose life was almost as wrecked as was his, and how the love of God changed this man from a murderer to a contemplative.  He learned to structure his days in his cell around the monastic hours of prayer and meditation. 

Reading this book reminded me of our creed, which says that Jesus "descended into hell," and then rose on the third day.  I went to the first book of Peter and read this:  For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God.  Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit.  In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison....(I Peter 3:18-19). 

If he descended into hell once, he is willing and able to do it again and again, to bring back its captives. If this man was not beyond the reach of God's love and compassion, we have hope for everyone, whether living or dead.  God is not limited by what we see as impossible -- or even dead -- situations!