For about five years now I have been visiting the women of Rebibbia Prison in Rome, one of the largest in Europe.
Among the different wings, the Infirmary, in which inmates who have health problems, drug addiction, and mental illness find themselves, has always particularly summoned our attention. Often these women suffer psychotic breaks, delusions, episodes of screaming, and hallucinations. They cannot participate in the educational activities, cannot be permitted to work, and are not able to go to Church or to the Library.
We have been asked to increase the hours of our presence in the Infirmary in the hope that our listening, dialogue, and prayer could soothe their distress and relax their tension a bit.
We often return to our community with this pain to share together, and so an idea was born out of the creativity of Sr. Silvana and Sr. Tiziana. This idea was to propose some Art Therapy workshops for that wing, and, after obtaining the necessary authorizations, we began our meetings.
Art therapy is a collection of creative methodologies that facilitate a relationship of helping. Through the act of drawing, messages are communicated that give voice to emotions, feelings, thoughts, one’s deepest elements, and the spiritual dimension. It is a way to communicate in a cathartic manner, which is therapeutic for the individual and functions also as a mini-process of healing. We use this tool with the goal of offering the women a safe space, where they can take care of themselves and where they can feel taken care of, welcomed, and also understood.
The experience that we have when we closely support these women—whose lives are troubled, devastated and almost inconceivable—is one of contemplating God in a very small piece of this lacerated world. Within these painful wounds, God is present, in the affection the women hold for their children, for a parent, in their desire to redeem their own lives, in the tears shed for the innumerous episodes of abandonment and neglect. Each time we go to the prison, we do not know what awaits us, but going together, entrusting everything to the Lord allows us to contemplate how much God works within us and within the inmates.
Sara suffers from psychiatric problems. The medicines that she takes slow her movements and her ability to speak. One day she told me that she wanted to send a drawing to her young son, but with her trembling hands she was not even able to hold onto a pencil and she asked me to paint a mother with a baby in her arms. I told her that I am willing to do the drawing together with her. I calm her anxieties and I accompany her movements by holding and supporting her hand. As I am supporting her, I notice that she is the one moving the colored pencil to trace the forms. She continues on her own and then she asks for my help, because she wants the mom and baby to be smiling. Sara expresses herself through warm colors which, at the same time, are also soft. Through this type of support, she enters into contact with herself, and with her desire for motherhood, her sweetness, and her need to be recognized. A certainty is buried deep inside her heart: she loves her young son. Sara gives a hint of a smile more than once and she asks to take with her the picture she has made, repeating several times that she likes her drawing. Even if this is only for a brief moment, Sara feels welcomed and recognized as being worthy of life.
We arrive in the Infirmary wing after having passed by barriers and gates. There are moments of waiting, during which we have the opportunity to place ourselves in communion with God and to ask for peace for all the women who find themselves here. One day we brought with us some dice, which we were intending to use to help our guests open themselves up so that they could gain a better understanding of their feelings. On one die actions were imprinted and on the other die there were symbols. The inmates asked me to participate too, and I said that when I saw the symbol of the book I thought about the Gospel and when I saw the other die with the gesture of someone raising a weight, I thought that the Gospel helps us relieve our own weights or burdens. And then one of the women said: “I see! That is exactly what you all are doing for us: you lift our burdens by way of the Gospel!” For me personally, this helped me understand that, even though I had never spoken about the Gospels, Jesus had entered the women’s lives in an evident and recognizable way.
One day, Alessia ran toward us as we entered into the wing, and in her hands she was holding a drawing that she had made the week before. It was ripped up into pieces and some of the pieces were dirty and ruined.
After an argument, the women with whom she shares her cell tore it from the wall and ripped it up into pieces and threw it into the garbage can. She was alarmed because they had told her that her picture was filled with negativity. In this painting, Alessia had written one of her poems and then she covered it up with strong colors (red, black…), the colors of her life.
We offer her the possibility to restore the painting with glue and gold glitter. When she sees the final result, she is happy and her cellmates are also content, relieved that she had been able to find a remedy to a disaster caused by one moment of anger. They mutually forgive one another. Even the rifts and tears of life are not permanent: it is necessary to always offer ourselves some new possibilities and then fractures will become precious storylines and scars will become a beauty to be displayed.
Casa Schervier Community
Published: February 9, 2024
