In over 16 years of prison writing, Beyond These Stone Walls has produced something far more redemptive than prison itself. The Word of God has emerged here too.
A New Year of Freedom Begins at Beyond These Stone Walls — Beyond These Stone Walls
In over 16 years of prison writing, Beyond These Stone Walls has produced something far more redemptive than prison itself. The Word of God has emerged here too.
New Year 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae
“Father MacRae’s blog, Beyond These Stone Walls, has been the finest example of priestly witness the last decades of scandal have produced.”
— Father James Valladares, PhD in Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast
+ + +
Please do not misunderstand my title. I have not been delivered from the belly of the beast into which I was devoured in 1994. I have not stopped jousting against the windmills of injustice that seem to proliferate in the “Live Free or Die” State. If you have followed tales of New Hampshire corruption you will see that the pursuit of justice here is mired in layers of deceit. So I must have other pursuits, and they must not be trivial pursuits.
Back in February 2025, I wrote “On the Great Biblical Adventure, the Truth Will Make You Free.” It cited an unexpected …
Pope Benedict XVI left the Chair of Peter amid debate about what his decision meant for the Church. Above all else, it was an act of fatherly love and sacrifice.
Pope Benedict XVI: The Sacrifices of a Father’s Love — Beyond These Stone Walls
Pope Benedict XVI left the Chair of Peter amid debate about what his decision meant for the Church. Above all else, it was an act of fatherly love and sacrifice.
December 31, 2022
Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: The Holy Father, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI entered Eternal Life at 9:34AM Rome time (3:34AM EDT) on the last day of the Year of Our Lord 2022. I wrote the following post in February 2013 in the weeks following his decision to leave the Chair of Peter. It was a time of great confusion for the Church, and great sorrow for those who loved this Pope. Upon the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978, Archbishop Fulton Sheen said that he offered a ‘Hail Mary’ for him, and then another ‘Hail Mary’ in his honor asking for his intercession before the Divine Presence. I offer these same prayers today for Benedict XVI and in the same way.
+ + +
February 2013
We are all prisoners of our own perception. We come to just about every concern and deliberation from the perspective of our own unique limits …
After the Birth of the Messiah, a second angelic dream warns Joseph to flee to Egypt with Mary and the Christ Child as Herod orders a slaughter of the Innocents.
Joseph’s Second Dream: The Slaughter of the Innocents — Beyond These Stone Walls
After the Birth of the Messiah, a second angelic dream warns Joseph to flee to Egypt with Mary and the Christ Child as Herod orders a slaughter of the Innocents.
Feast of the Holy Innocents by Fr. Gordon MacRae
Editor’s Note: The following is the second of a special two-part Biblical Christmas Season post. Part one, which appeared here two weeks ago was “Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah.”
+ + +
In the proclamation of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (2:13-18) on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the Church recalls in just six verses an account of the Visit of the Magi, Joseph’s second dream of an Angel of the Lord, the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt, and the wrath of Herod as he orders the slaughter of all male children under two years of age in and around Bethlehem. As a priest, I have read this account over forty-two consecutive Christmas seasons, but never before was it overshadowed by such tragic realism.
Our safe, emotional buffer zone from that 2,000 year old …
The shepherds of our Nativity Story lived difficult lives in the social strata of the Ancient Near East, but they are summoned by angels to Bethlehem for a reason.
Silent Night and the Shepherds Who Quaked at the Sight — Beyond These Stone Walls
The shepherds of our Nativity Story lived difficult lives in the social strata of the Ancient Near East, but they are summoned by angels to Bethlehem for a reason.
At Christmas
Note from Father Gordon MacRae: I first wrote this post at Christmas in 2018 but it surprisingly became one that we wanted to present anew at Christmas. It drew tens of thousands of readers from throughout the Holy Land and the Middle East and Asia. During Christmas week in 2018, 50,000 came to this post from India alone. These are historically regions where shepherds thrived. They are near the heart of the most beloved Christmas hymn of our time, Silent Night.
+ + +
“Silent Night, Holy Night,
Shepherds quake at the sight.
Glories stream from heaven afar,
Heavenly hosts sing alleluia.
Christ, the Savior is born,
Christ, the Savior is born!”
— Silent Night, Verse 2
“Silent Night,” one of our most beloved and enduring Christmas hymns, was the result of an accident. It was first heard at the Christmas Midnight …
The Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent:
Saint Joseph is silent in the Gospel account of the Birth of the Messiah, but his actions reveal him as a paradigm of spiritual fatherhood and sacrificial love.
Joseph's Dream and the Birth of the Messiah — Beyond These Stone Walls
Saint Joseph is silent in the Gospel account of the Birth of the Messiah, but his actions reveal him as a paradigm of spiritual fatherhood and sacrificial love.
At Christmas
Note from Father Gordon MacRae: An important post at Beyond These Stone Walls appeared here recently with the title I Have Seen the Fall of Man: Christ Comes East of Eden. It is a bit heavy on the theology of Salvation and so the comments on it were limited. One of them, by Thomas Ryder left me pondering the nature of Sacred Scripture. I have never imagined that anything I write could be considered “sacred,” but Mr. Ryder’s comment introduced for me an awareness of how much of our New Testament was written from prison by Saint Paul. Mr. Ryder wrote:
“St. Paul’s epistles, many written from prison, are astonishing, not just for the brilliance of the exegesis, but for his insight into humanity and the beauty of his language. Fr. MacRae is his very worthy successor.”
I wanted to crawl under my prison bunk and hide …
The Genesis story of the Fall of Man is mirrored in the Nativity. Unlike Adam at the Tree of Knowledge, Jesus did not deem equality with God a thing to be grasped.
I have Seen the Fall of Man: Christ Comes East of Eden — Beyond These Stone Walls
The Genesis story of the Fall of Man is mirrored in the Nativity. Unlike Adam at the Tree of Knowledge, Jesus did not deem equality with God a thing to be grasped.
December 17, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae
Back in 2014, one of our readers sent me an article that appeared inCrisis Magazine, “Who will Rescue the Lost Sheep of the Lonely Revolution?” by the outstanding writer, Anthony Esolen. It is an admonitory parable about the lost sheep of the Gospel and the once-dead prodigal son of another parable. What exactly did Jesus mean by “lost” and “dead”?
Mr. Esolen raises questions about controversies I had been taking up in previous weeks, perhaps most notably in “Synodality Blues: Pope Francis in a Time of Heresy.” Some of my posts then had a focus on the Parable of the Prodigal Son, so central to the Gospel, but Esolen makes a point missing from the Synod debate:
“That is why you came among us, to call sinners back to the fold. Not to pet and stroke them for being sinners, because …
On a Christmas morning buried in snow a young man in prison took a first trusting step from the valley of humiliation to seek the high places and a season of grace.
Christmas in the Valley and on the High Places — Beyond These Stone Walls
On a Christmas morning buried in snow a young man in prison took a first trusting step from the valley of humiliation to seek the high places and a season of grace.
Christmas by Fr Gordon MacRae
’Twas the night before Christmas, 2007, when a winter storm descended upon Concord, New Hampshire. I awoke that Christmas morning to a shroud of heavy snow that masked this prison world of concrete and steel under pristine whiteness. A howling wind encased the walled prison yard in drifts of snow while saner men hibernated through the long, cold Christmas trapped inside.
I don’t know what came over me that Christmas morning. By 9:00 AM my claustrophobia was in high gear. Still a source of anxiety after all these years, it reached its usual crescendo with a near panic-driven urge to be outside. Prisoners here have a brief hourly window to move from point A to point B, but it was Christmas. We were snowed in, and there was simply no place to go. But I had to try.
Our friend, Pornchai Moontri had …
Please read and share this in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, A Vision that Changed the Future of the Americas.
He Has His Mother’s Eyes: The Vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe — Beyond These Stone Walls
The Church now steers us from titles for Mary such a Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix. Our Lady of Guadalupe presents us with another: “The Very Pathway to Eternity.”
December 10, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae
“The Blessed Mother is not only beyond the Earth, but also beyond the stars. She is not only Mother of the world, but Mother of the heavens — or as we might say today, Mother of the Universe. The child that she bears would therefore be not only the Savior of the world, but also the Savior of the heavens — and the Universe. In view of this, we can rely on Him and her not only for help but for the teaching that transcends all time — the very pathway to eternity.”
— Father Robert Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D.,
Christ, Science and Reason, Ignatius Press, 2024
I want to revisit something I wrote about at this time a few years ago. Late in the afternoon of December 11, 2018, I was at my desk in the prison Law Library where I use two computer systems side by side. Neither can be used for my own work …
The Church now steers us from titles for Mary such a Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix. Our Lady of Guadalupe presents us with another: “The Very Pathway to Eternity.”
He Has His Mother’s Eyes: The Vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe — Beyond These Stone Walls
The Church now steers us from titles for Mary such a Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix. Our Lady of Guadalupe presents us with another: “The Very Pathway to Eternity.”
December 10, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae
“The Blessed Mother is not only beyond the Earth, but also beyond the stars. She is not only Mother of the world, but Mother of the heavens — or as we might say today, Mother of the Universe. The child that she bears would therefore be not only the Savior of the world, but also the Savior of the heavens — and the Universe. In view of this, we can rely on Him and her not only for help but for the teaching that transcends all time — the very pathway to eternity.”
— Father Robert Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D.,
Christ, Science and Reason, Ignatius Press, 2024
I want to revisit something I wrote about at this time a few years ago. Late in the afternoon of December 11, 2018, I was at my desk in the prison Law Library where I use two computer systems side by side. Neither can be used for my own work …
A prison concert by composer Eric Genuis and his outstanding musicians made Advent spirits soar for a prisoner priest and an old friend whom you have come to know.
The Music of Eric Genuis Inspired Advent Hope — Beyond These Stone Walls
A prison concert by composer Eric Genuis and his outstanding musicians made Advent spirits soar for a prisoner priest and an old friend whom you have come to know.
December 13, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae
“Music is a language with the profound ability to stir the heart, inspire the mind, and awaken the soul .”
— Pianist and Composer Eric Genuis
Note from the Editor: The above image shows Eric Genuis and his ensemble performing his composition The Butterfly at a Concert of Hope in Ft. Collins, CO.
+ + +
I have, over time and of necessity, become somewhat attuned to signs and wonders here at Beyond These Stone Walls. As Advent loomed, there was no shortage of them and little time to ponder them. The wonders began in the weeks before Advent began. I was descending the multiple flights of stairs from the prison law library where I work as a clerk when, at the bottom, I heard someone call my name.
It was the Director of the prison’s Recreation Department who stopped me. He asked if I know …
For the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception:
A theological expedition into Salvation History reveals a startling truth about the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament and the identity of Mary, Mother of God.
The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God — Beyond These Stone Walls
A theological expedition into Salvation History reveals a startling truth about the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament and the identity of Mary, Mother of God.
December 21, 2021
Most long time readers of these pages might guess my favorite among the canonical Gospels. Back in 2019, I wrote a post entitled “St. Luke the Evangelist, Dear and Glorious Physician.” In part, it profiled a 1959 book by Taylor Caldwell that I read at age 21 during my novitiate year as a Capuchin. Several years later, life took me in another direction to diocesan priesthood, and then down darker roads that seemed to have a will of their own. These were roads of betrayal and false witness that sent me ever further from the dream of my vocation to priesthood as I first envisioned how it would be.
That story is told in small snippets in multiple places. One day, I will compose the whole story. For this post, suffice it to say today that one book always stood out in the back of my mind as a story of Divine …
Popular 1980s daytime television hosts like Oprah, Geraldo and others injected repressed memory into pop psychology bringing unjust harm to a multitude of innocents.
Oprah, Geraldo, and a Psycho-Therapist: A Perfect Storm — Beyond These Stone Walls
Popular 1980s daytime television hosts like Oprah, Geraldo and others injected repressed memory into pop psychology bringing unjust harm to a multitude of innocents.
December 3, 2025 by Fr. Gordon MacRae and the False Memory Syndrome Foundation
Just as I was preparing to type this post, an alert reader informed me that my name is mentioned in a brief but brilliant article by William A. Donohue, PhD, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. The article, “What Happens When Truth Doesn’t Matter” appears in the November 2025 issue of the Catholic League Journal Catalyst. It tells a fascinating but disturbing story about a wealthy woman who had developed a best-selling memoir recounting her newly emerged memories of being raped by a middle school teacher 37 years earlier when she was 12. The story emerged with the help of a psychotherapist and the influence of a psychedelic drug called MDMA. The story propelled her memoir, promoted by Oprah Winfrey and other daytime …
Advent begins a time to release ourselves from the grip of Earthly powers to prepare the Way of the Lord and make straight His path.
Advent of the Mother of God — Beyond These Stone Walls
Advent begins a time to release ourselves from the grip of Earthly powers to prepare the Way of the Lord and make straight His path.
Advent by Father Gordon MacRae
The Gospels According to Matthew and Luke are the Scriptural sources for the events of Advent and Christmas. They have many similarities and some differences. Matthew alone tells the story of the Magi, a story I unfolded here in “Upon a Midnight Not So Clear, Some Wise Men from the East Appear.” Only Luke has the story of Saint Gabriel the Archangel and the Annunciation. It seems that Mary herself was his source for that account and the events to follow. That Gospel passage graces two important Feast Days within Advent: The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12. I unfolded the deeper recesses of that account as well in “Saint Gabriel the Archangel: When the Dawn from On High Broke Upon Us.”
Both Evangelists often present two stories, one on the surface,…
We and the Mayflower Pilgrims owe thanks to the Pope and some Catholic priests for the Thanksgiving of 1621 with Squanto and the Plymouth Colony.
The True Story of Thanksgiving: Squanto, the Pilgrims, and the Pope — Beyond These Stone Walls
We and the Mayflower Pilgrims owe thanks to the Pope and some Catholic priests for the Thanksgiving of 1621 with Squanto and the Plymouth Colony.
Thanksgiving by Fr Gordon MacRae
Growing up within sight of Boston, Massachusetts meant lots of grade school field trips to the earliest landmarks of America. We looked forward to those excursions because they meant a day out of school. The only downside was the inevitable essay. Back then, I had no love for either history or essays. Go figure!
Some field trips are vividly remembered even six decades later. A visit to the deck of “Old Ironsides,” the U.S.S. Constitution in Boston Harbor, stands out as the most exciting. Visits to the sites of the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and Paul Revere’s famous ride also stand out as great adventures in hands-on U.S. history — the essays notwithstanding.
Then there was the trip to Plymouth Rock (YAWN!), the most underwhelming national monument in America. Everyone of us emerged from the bus to …
The Gospel for the Solemnity of Christ the King in 2023 was the Judgment of the Nations, an invitation to Glory and a map for how to get there.
A Not-so-Subtle Wake-Up Call from Christ the King — Beyond These Stone Walls
A Not-So-Subtle Wake-Up Call from Christ the King
The image atop this post is one that we used at the end of my post, “ The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead.” It was written for All Souls Day which just happened to fall in 2020 just days before the most contentious and bitterly divided U.S. election in decades. Its echoes of civil unrest reverberated out of America to circle the globe. So we are using the image again and reposting the link because in the heat of battle a lot of readers missed that post.
The image is a powerful one of Christ leading prisoners through the gates of Dachau — or is it Purgatory? It is a hopeful image, and one that reflects the Mind of God as revealed by the Prophet Ezekiel at Mass on the Solemnity of Christ the King:
—
That describes the Mission of the Church as well, or at least what it should be. I recently received a message from a lawyer who asked if I would be willing to talk with a young priest who has had a catastrophic and very public …
With Jesus before him, Pilate asked the chief priests, ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ They replied ‘We have no king but Caesar.' Only a criminal saw Christ the King.
Dismas, the Good Thief Crucified Next to Christ the King — Beyond These Stone Walls
Dismas, the Good Thief Crucified Next to Christ the King
—
The late Pope Benedict XVI wrote a wonderful reflection about the exchange with Dismas on the Cross next to Jesus. Here is what Pope Benedict wrote in a short meditation entitled “How to Enter Christ’s Kingdom”:
This is the story of Dismas, crucified to the right, Paradise Lost and Found. It is the story of all of us who come to Him bearing our gifts as we might at Christmas, but also bearing our crosses as we must at Calvary.
+ + +
The only hero at Calvary was Christ. The only person worth following up that hill — up ANY hill — is Christ. I follow Him with the same burdens and trepidation and thorns in my side as you do. So do not follow me. Follow only Him.
This Holy Week, one of many behind these stone walls, has caused me to use a wider angle lens as I examine the events of that day on Mount Calvary as the Evangelists described them. This year, it is Dismas who stands out. Dismas is the name tradition gives to the man …
Thanksgiving is a state of mind, not place. Even prisoners can be thankful, if not for being prisoners, then perhaps just for the art of being itself.
Holidays in the Hoosegow: Thanksgiving with Some Not-So-Just Desserts! — Beyond These Stone Walls
Holidays in the Hoosegow: Thanksgiving with Some Not-So-Just Desserts!
I have been hindered from writing a new post this month. This gets a little creepy, so bear with me. On the night of October 31, I was visited in my cell by two brown recluse spiders who were apparently hiding in a shirt that I put on that night because I was cold. Well, so were the spiders and unbeknownst to me they claimed squaters rights to the shirt. Sometime during the night leading to the Solemnity of All Saints, I was bitten twice in the back by two poisonous spiders.
It was a few days before I sought treatment being the stubbornly independent person that I am. Finally the bites evolved into a serious blood infection that now requires all-out war. I now have daily visits to the Medical Unit for wound treatment and new bandaging. I am also on a potent antibiotic. There is some tissue damage. I lost the battle with the spiders, but I am told that I am winning the war thanks to the medical care I am receiving.
…