Prayer

For those of us whose apostolate is within the world, the prayerful power and contemplative intercessions of the religious has our back, for they are a mighty arm of the Church and their prayer is one of the sharpest swords of the Word, now as it was centuries ago, when St. Teresa of Avila wrote these words: "I think we should act as people do when, in time of war, the enemy has overrun the country and the king finds himself hard pressed. He retires into a strongly fortified town from whence he sometimes makes a sortie. The small company with him in the citadel, being picked men, are better than a large army of cowardly soldiers; thus they often come off victors, they are not vanquished for there is no traitor in their ranks and famine alone can conquer them. No famine can force us to surrender--it may kill us--it cannot vanquish us! But why have I told you this? To teach you, my sisters, that we must ask God to grant that, of all the good Christians in this fort, none may desert to the enemy, that no traitor may be found here, and that the captains of this castle, or city--that is, the preachers and theologians--may be proficient in the way of our Lord. Since most of these are religious, you must pray that they may advance in perfection and may follow their vocation more perfectly. This is very necessary, for, as I said, it is the arm of the Church and not of the State which much defend us now. We, being women, can fight for our King in neither way: Let us, then, strive so to live that our prayers may avail to help these servants of God who have laboured hard to arm themselves with learning and virtue with which to help their Sovereign." The Way of Perfection, [1565]. (1997). Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers. (pp. 16-17)

Our Work

The Lampstand Foundation is a 501 c (3) nonprofit corporation founded in 2003 in Sacramento, California by David H. Lukenbill as a lay apostolate grounded in the social teaching of the Catholic Church, providing leadership development tools for grassroots community organizations -- managed by reformed criminals -- working to reform criminals.

Our work in the world springs from the waters of baptism, through the gateway of the social teaching of the Catholic Church, informed by experiential and academic knowledge shaped by professional experience, and embracing the Church's call of the apostolate to share the tools from a life of transformation and communal reentry, to serve penitential criminals, the organizations they create and the public supporting them, on the path of deeper conversion to the communal life.

Pope John Paul II reminds us of the call of the Catholic Church: "...Millions of people, who, spurred on by the social Magisterium, have sought to make that teaching the inspiration for their involvement in the world. Acting either as individuals or joined together in various groups, associations and organizations, these people represent a great movement for the defense of the human person and the safeguarding of human dignity. Amid changing historical circumstances, this movement has contributed to the building up of a more just society..." (Pope John Paul II: Centesimus Annus)

Criminal reformation, the key to solving the reentry problem, has been a well-documented failure for decades. Lampstand proposes the idea that only the reformed criminal can reform criminals. The difficulty of understanding and interpreting the culture of the criminal world and guiding the often misunderstood motivations and desires of the criminal into effective rehabilitation, has been insurmountable for the rehabilitation practitioner, but, Lampstand contends, may not be so for the reformed, educated, and trained former criminal.

Transformed criminals with advanced degrees and Catholic social teaching knowledge, working through grassroots community organizations, can help reverse the long-term failure of criminal rehabilitation programs, as they possess the elemental experiential knowledge of the criminal world allowing them authentic access to penitential criminals.

The reentering criminal will only respond to a reformer with an experiential understanding of the issues involved in the world and way of life he is being asked to give up as well as the learned perspective of the world he is asking to reenter (really enter for the first time) as most professional criminals are born into the criminal world rather than the communal world they are seeking to "reenter".

The criminal world is otherworldly when compared to the world of the people largely charged by society to help the criminal transform and that is a central aspect of the failure of traditional rehabilitation. That otherworldly nature is perpetuated by the inability of rehabilitation practitioners to often even understand what it is criminals are saying, beyond the words they are using.

Few human beings are farther from God than criminals, yet the first canonized saint of the Church Christ established on the rock of Peter was the criminal Dismas, the Good Thief, who Christ took with Him from Calvary to heaven, thereby revealing the eternal path to criminal transformation.

The prodigal son's return - the transformed criminal's leadership in the community - can address the four central criminal justice issues of our time: 1) our nation's youth who are at risk of becoming criminals, 2) the failure of prisons to rehabilitate, 3) the failure of reentry, 4) the increasing criminalization of culture.

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"The desire to work for the common good is not enough. The way to make this desire effective is to form competent men and women who can transmit to others the maturity which they themselves have achieved." (St. Josemaria Escriva, Conversations with Josemaria Escriva, p. 115)

"The battle-flag is always placed among warriors, as a sign to which they look during the hardest fighting of the battle. We are continuously at war with the princes of darkness...If anyone is troubled, vanquished, and overcome, let him look to the Lord hanging on the gibbet of the cross." (St. Thomas of Villanova)