The Lampstand FoundationCreating tools for grassroots organizations developed and managed by transformed criminals who serve the community from a deep knowledge leadership model. It takes a reformed criminal to reform criminals. |
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Lighted Lamp
A professional criminal who transforms his life and seeks to help others is a lighted lamp capable of great work within the field of criminal reformation. The professional criminal is a person who commits crimes for money, to whom crime is a way of life, habitual, as in "of the nature of a habit; fixed by habit; constantly repeated or continued; customary" (Oxford Dictionary) and prison time an occupational hazard. A criminal, as we use the term, is a professional criminal. It is used by Lampstand rather than other terms like offender/ex-offender, convict/ex-convict, or felon/ex-felon, because none of those specifically define the act of crime which is committed for economic reasons, while excluding those impulsive offenses of lust and perversion, addiction, momentary rage, mental illness, or accident. The use of this term creates a clear line of demarcation between the individuals to whom our work is directed, and from who we look for innovative and effective solutions for criminal reentry programs. We consider time in maximum security prison as a qualifying factor in identifying criminal world leaders from the same perspective national business leaders would be identified by their involvement in nationally important business organizations. Transformation and reformation are the primary terms used rather than rehabilitation, because it implies a previous state when one was not a criminal, while the criminals Lampstand's work is directed to, were essentially born into the criminal world. Professional criminals become part of the communal community when they make the choice to transform themselves, to create from within a different person than whom they were previously, to become a person whose motivation is based on an eternal truth potent enough to trump the truth of the criminal world, and this eternal truth is only found in the Catholic Church. Penitential criminals who have found this truth, and also taken the steps necessary to become community leaders in the transformation of other criminals -- becoming lighted lamps -- are those to whom our work is directed. For a transformed criminal to retain his baptismal balance within the world, he must daily practice those ancient rituals dedicated workers of the apostolate have relied on for centuries to strengthen themselves -- he must walk the eternal path seeking the deepest knowledge of all. It is the knowledge gained from continuous communion with God; the continual prayer and daily practice set forth by the reach for perfection to which each Catholic is called through baptism and communion within the Kingdom of God. In olden times, the paths humans made to travel here and there were made by human feet, traveling the same way through the forest and over the plain as the day and the year before, and as the years deepened the path, it became a hardened way that remained for guidance through the woods and mountains on the way home. As it is with our own path, trod daily through the sacramental rituals established by the Church to feed her saints and priests the food divine -- morning prayer, daily Mass, praying the Rosary daily, examination of conscience daily, and always remaining resolute against sin while strengthening virtue -- and through this daily practice, the armor of God is slowly crafted as the penitential and transformed criminal aspiring to community leadership, for whom this is a vital journey of lifetime atonement from the years of harm caused to others through his criminality, enters into the hardened path of the priestly soul and saintly temperament on the long journey home, becoming a lighted lamp to his brothers.
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"To those who are searching for a new and authentic theory and praxis of liberation, the Church offers not only her social doctrine and, in general, her teaching about the human person redeeemed in Christ, but also her concrete commitment and material assistance in the struggle against marginalization and suffering." (Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus) |
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