Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. For December, our contributor is Father Seamus Walsh of St. John’s Catholic Church in Grand Marais and the Holy Rosary Catholic Church of Grand Portage.
“After they (the Wise Men)
had gone, an angel of the
Lord appeared to Joseph in a
dream, and said, “Get up, take
the child and his mother and
escape with them to Egypt,
and stay there until I tell you;
for Herod is going to search for
the child to kill him.” So Joseph
got up, took mother and child
by night, and sought refuge
with them in Egypt, where
he stayed till Herod’s death.”
(Matt. 2:13-15)
Our picture of Christmas calls up images of shepherds, wise men, farm animals, angels, Mary and Joseph. These scenes will be reenacted all over the globe by children this Christmas, and our hearts will grow lighter, and hopefully, more loving toward each other.
But there’s another side of Christmas that has parallels in our own day – refugees and the forced migration of people. When we think of the first Christmas, we don’t often remember that Mary, Joseph and their Child were also forced to flee for their lives and live in exile. Today, there are approximately 16 million refugees throughout the world – people who have fled their homeland because of unending war, a fear of persecution, or the threat of death.
Most of us have immigrant ancestors—I’m an immigrant myself—and Minnesota has welcomed a huge number of immigrants and refugees.
Did you know that 1.1 million people immigrated to the U.S. during 2008; and 16,000 people immigrated to Minnesota.
In 1890, 40 percent of Minnesota’s population was foreign born. Today, 6.6 percent of our state’s population is foreign born.
Today’s immigrants leave their homes for the same reasons as Minnesota’s early immigrants – persecution, oppression, family separation, poverty, drought and globalization.
Minnesota students and families speak more than 103 languages and dialects.
In 1896, Minnesota’s election instructions were printed in nine languages – Czech, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish and Swedish. Today, Minnesota’s election instructions are printed in six languages – English, Hmong, Russian, Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese.
What must be our response as Christians to refugees and immigrants? Jesus called us to welcome the stranger and reminds us that what we do to one of our brothers and sisters we do to him. We are called to recognize Christ in every newcomer and to respect the dignity of all human beings, regardless of their legal status. People have a right to leave their countries of origin when persecution, famine or war threaten their lives and their rights to work and worship. When people make the difficult decision to leave their homelands in search of a better life for themselves and their families, we are called to assist them.
Yes, we must recognize the right of sovereign nations to protect and control their borders. But, we must at the same time recognize the inherent dignity of every human being; that we seek to reunite, stabilize and strengthen families; ease the path to citizenship for our undocumented sisters and brothers who are living in the United States; provide access to basic necessities; embody due process protections; and reflect an awareness of the social, political and economic causes of migration.
Christmas asks a lot of us.
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