Gina Masterson was confident in teaching French to college students.
But when the George Mason University adjunct professor volunteered to help with the Catholic women’s ministry at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center in 2014, she was humbled. Sometimes no one would show up.
“I thought, we have to make some changes,” said Masterson. “Volunteers would come in and just read the Mass with no priest and no consecration. It was simply too rote.”
Masterson embraced the challenge and took her teaching skills to new levels of creativity and inspiration. “We started off calling it women’s prayer and reflection, but tweaked it and now it’s called ‘Bible and Beyond,’ ” she said. “It was just enough to inspire women to attend.”
Devising a uniquely Catholic curriculum to engage the senses, Masterson mixed Scripture and catechetical readings with audiovisual presentations and art. “Women have this need for some kind of meditation, so I came up with the idea of doing this spiritual coloring with adult coloring books,” she said. “There was a huge positive reception and they couldn’t wait to do it in each class.”
As the coloring progressed, so did the art. Soon the women were producing Catholic-themed posters of beauty and depth. “When I saw how good these posters were, I was floored,” said Masterson. “I have to think that they’re inspired by God because the posters are just stunning. They come to this place where they’ve hit rock bottom — that’s when they find this sort of wellspring of creativity and beauty.”
Father Paul A. Berghout, a diocesan prison chaplain, credits Masterson for revitalizing the jail ministry that has brought the love of Christ to isolated and depressed women.
“Gina is helping them in their recovery by allowing them to be in a safe place and to come back to their relationship with God in the Catholic faith,” said Father Berghout. “This artwork represents their offering to the Lord. They’re bringing the fruit of their labor and their love to the altar of the Lord. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Proselytizing in the jail is not permitted. Masterson said the women are ethnically and religiously diverse, with a high percentage of agnostics, but many have been attracted to Catholicism.
“We can show them how rich the Catholic faith is by showing a video testimony of Mark Wahlberg, who had his own experience with prison, and it was a priest who helped get his life together,” said Masterson, who attends Mass at the St. Robert Bellarmine Chapel on the GMU campus. “Our goal is to have them identify with Catholicism, not as something far away and stodgy, but as something real.”
Masterson even found a way to obtain rosaries that meet jail safety requirements. She discovered a Ukrainian artist online who designs one-decade rosary rings made of yarn. “They rely on them as a means of prayer and reflection when they’re in their cells,” she said. “They can put them on their finger, and can hold them, but there’s no damage that can be done.”
Father Berghout estimates attendance at the twice-yearly Mass at the jail celebrated by Bishop Michael F. Burbidge has quadrupled in the last decade. “God was the very first thing to leave when they got involved in their addictions or their crime, and God is the very last thing to come back,” he said. “Gina is helping them knit the pieces of their lives back together, so that their journey is complete.”
Find out more
Want to volunteer? Start by asking your parish if they have a prison ministry. If not, register on the Catholic Charities volunteer website. Catholic Charities is a liaison between volunteers and parish prison ministries, which act under the guidance of the pastor.
