Over the summer, during the weekday Masses, we have been reading from the Book of Exodus. Early on we hear of how a new Pharaoh, “Who knew nothing of Joseph, came to power in Egypt.” He reduced the Hebrews to slaves building the store cities of Ramses and Pithom.
Because the Hebrews were more prolific than the Egyptians, he commanded all his subject to “Throw into the river every boy born to the Hebrews, but you may let the girls live.”
Earlier this summer, we read in Genesis the story of Joseph. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and was resold in Egypt. There he eventually rose to power in the court of Pharaoh, and when his family faced a drought-induced famine in Canaan, they emigrated and settled in Egypt. At that time, the Pharaoh was not a native Egyptian; rather the Hyksos, a Semitic people, had invaded Egypt and they had taken power. But when the Egyptians regained power, they drove out the Hyksos. The Hebrews who had remained behind were distrusted for they were Semites, and so they were enslaved.
The Exodus story turns to Moses. Early on we see the love that parents have for their children and how Moses’ mother would not give up her baby son to be killed. Rather, she hid him for as long as she could. She then hatched a plot in an attempt to save him. She put Moses into a waterproof basket and had Moses’ sister, Miriam, take him down to the Nile and placed the basket in the reeds near where one of the Pharaoh’s daughters often bathed. When this young woman saw the basket, she had her handmaid fetch it for her. There she found a crying baby boy. Her heart was moved, and she decided to adopt the child. But she needed a wet-nurse. Moses’ sister stepped forward and said she knew of a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. Pharaoh’s daughter agreed and Moses’ mother got to nurse her own child for the next two-and-a-half to three years.
The account of Moses reminds us of the love that parents have for their children and how they will do desperate things to save them. We have a similar situation on our southern border as parents flee violence in Central America to try to save their children.
One parishioner, who has gone to Honduras often to visit his Jesuit brother who has lived there for 30 years, has compared the chaos in Honduras to that of Somalia. There is no law and order – rather gangs and corrupt officials rule the roost. Some 98 percent of murders are never solved; in fact, most are not even investigated. The murder rate in Honduras and Nicaragua is on the same level as the rate of killing in Syria, Yemen and Somalia, all nations at war.
If you were a parent, what would you do? Would you be like Moses’ mother and try anything to save your child? If you were Jesus, what would you do? Catholic social teaching tells us that persons have a right to migrate to support themselves and their families. It also tells us that refugees and asylum seekers have a right to claim refugee status and have their claims considered by a competent authority. The United States is a signatory on the United Nations resolutions that support these rights. Interestingly, the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights was written with the help of Jacques Maritan, a Catholic Neo-Thomist philosopher, and was applauded by numerous 20th century popes. If one is a Catholic and an American politician, what should one do? What should we do and their constituents?
Perhaps the least that we can do is to pray with Catholic Relief Services and the U.S. bishops:
God of Compassion,
We seek your protection and comfort for immigrant families.
For families separated by violence and destruction, forced to flee their homes and everything they know; for the asylum-seeking families separated in the name of border security; for parents who send their children alone to a new land in the hope of building a future for them; for families separated here in our country by deportation; provide solace and peace to these families. Comfort them in their time of sorrow. Guide those in positions of power toward compassion.
Grant us the courage and compassion to be a presence of welcome, of radical hospitality for the most vulnerable in our midst. Amen.
Jesuit Father John W. Michalowski is parochial vicar at St. Peter Church in Charlotte.