Spiritual Second Chances

Faith & Forgiveness drive sister’s specialized ministry

As Sister Mary Martha Zammatore fulfills her duties as the Diocese of Allentown’s liaison to prison ministry, she’s armed only with her overwhelming sense of mercy of joy, enriching the spiritual lives of the incarcerated men she meets.

She shares her infectious smile and warm-hearted greetings with all she passes in the hallways and cell blocks of Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institutions at Mahanoy and Frackville. For those who long to welcome Christ into their hearts, she teaches them to say the Rosary and pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. She’s even established a modest YouTube channel through which the institution transmitted her spiritual videos to the inmates during the pandemic. Now, others can pray along with her, too.

More often than not, she gets just as much — if not more — than she gives. She cites an uplifting encounter that recently reminded her of God's grace.

At the prison, I had a cart with a box of about 125 monthly ‘Word Among Us’ booklets to hand out to the inmates on my list. It was a cold day, and there was still snow on the ground from a recent storm. As the cart rattled along, I didn’t realize the box was moving off the cart. Before I knew it, all was scattered in the snow, with the cart overturned. I looked at it and thought, ‘How am I ever going to get all this together again?” Quicker than I could even bend over to begin picking them up, an inmate came running out of his housing unit shouting, “Sister! Sister! I’m going to pick them up!” He kept insisting that I do nothing. He saw what happened from his cell window and asked the sergeant on duty for permission to help me. In a distance I saw an officer watching as this ‘angel’ came to my rescue.”

In encounters like those with her “snow angel,” Sister is privileged to witness the good that lingers inside so many that society has otherwise written off. It’s why she has no fear moving in these circles.

“I’ve never been afraid,” she says. “From day one, the Lord spoke to my heart — ‘Just give them your joy.’” And that she does. Add in the guitar she’s rarely seen without and it’s easy to understand how she’s become known as “The Singing Nun.”

Sister has an eye for redemption and, through scripture, song and friendship, often assures the inmates that God, too, recognizes their efforts to repent and renew. “I always tell the men that God knows them and believes in the person he created,” she says. “God doesn’t give up on us.”