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In the winter of 1940, when the jail was a single building housing fewer than 2,000 inmates, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department pulled out all the stops.
The Salvation Army led hymns under the supervision of a prison chaplain. Not satisfied with just one music option, the sheriff also allowed a choir and five-piece band to participate.
For dinner, the prison serves a holiday feast of candy, salad, fruit, mashed potatoes and gravy, gelatin (as the Times spells it), and even roasted veal with sage dressing. It was done.
The prison population is now much larger, with more than 12,000 people in custody, but this year’s festival is less elaborate, with grilled chicken instead of roasted veal and a guitar player and vocalist playing music. provided.
About 200 people, including men from the nearby Twin Towers facility, packed into the third-floor chapel at Men’s Central Prison for this year’s Christmas Mass.
(Ringo Chiu/For the Times)
But on Wednesday, when Archbishop José Gomez of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles held a celebration, about 200 people packed into the wooden pews of the modest third-floor chapel at the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles. The men were still full of smiles and tears. Christmas mass held every year at the prison.
“This is a special day,” Jeff Nestler said after the memorial service, tearing up and struggling to explain his second Christmas in prison.
Under normal circumstances, the 68-year-old would have been spending the holidays with his daughter and grandchildren. But since April 2023, he has been in county jail awaiting trial on murder charges that he hopes will be dismissed.
Christmas in prison is “the worst,” he says. But like everything else in life, “it’s really what you make it,” he added.
Jeff Nestler (left) was one of the inmates who became emotional while celebrating Christmas Mass inside the prison on Wednesday.
(Ringo Chiu/For the Times)
Having worked on Navy submarines for more than a decade, Nessler knows how to make ends meet in difficult situations. Since coming to prison, he has taken 24 academic classes and earned his high school diploma, even though he already has a GED. Now he wants to become a teacher’s assistant.
“You find what you need to do to get through it,” he said.
And on Christmas, that means attending mass.
The Archbishop’s Christmas Mass has been a staple at Men’s Central Jail since at least the early 1970s, when Peter Pitches was sheriff and the Beaucher Street confinement was a few years earlier. After 50 years, the facility seems aging and on the verge of closure, but the holiday tradition continues.
Gomez, then a new archbishop, first presided over the service in 2011, when Lee Baca was just beginning his fourth and final term as sheriff. Baca’s successors carried on the tradition until 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. After a hiatus, Gomez returned in 2022 and again presided over an hour-long mass before walking through the jail with Sheriff Robert Luna.
This year, Luna was sitting near the front of the chapel with his wife and several uniformed prison officials.
“We’re here to give hope,” Luna explained afterward. “You are here because you want to send a message that everyone is important.”
Gomez, who can be seen to the right of the front of the chapel, has been officiating at Christmas Mass since becoming archbishop in 2011, but there was a two-year hiatus during the coronavirus lockdown.
(Ringo Chiu/For the Times)
After hearing Gomez’s sermon, the men, some from Men’s Central Prison and others from the Twin Towers Correctional Facility across the street, lined up for communion, returned to their seats with smiles on their faces, and some paused. Some subtly caught the attention of their friends. other dorms.
When the music changed to “Joy to the World,” an elderly man began singing quietly, pretending to conduct an orchestra with one hand while sitting in a wheelchair with the other.
As the service ended, the gentle songs melted into “Feliz Navidad,” and the men became animated, some singing along in near-screaming voices, others clapping their hands and hugging their neighbors. did.
Afterwards, apart from the official chicken dinner, they returned to their dorms or apartment complexes to watch movies, play cards and plan prison feasts. Nessler said she plans to throw in some soup packs to enhance the meals in the dorms.
He said the “spread” includes prison burritos, various creative ramen recipes, and questionable versions of kimchi that rely heavily on store-bought pickles.
Prison staff also helped, albeit unwittingly, by distributing care packages filled with staples such as ramen noodles, cookies with cream, and instant coffee.
Luna said that aside from whatever gifts the staff might give her to ease the pain of the holidays in prison, she has one wish for the men who came to Wednesday’s service. Next year it’s them. ”
The inmates received Holy Communion before the mass became festively celebrated at Feliz Navidad.
(Ringo Chiu/For the Times)
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