As we approach Advent and prepare to welcome Christ at Christmas, let us ask ourselves: “Who is the Christ that we neglect to welcome?”
In the meditation garden at St. Peter Church is a tablet commemorating St. Alberto Hurtado. This Chilean Jesuit was the founder of the Hogar de Cristo, the Home of Christ, which grew to become a network of shelters for the homeless throughout Chile. Father Hurtado heeded Jesus’ words that “Whatever you did to the least of my brothers and sisters you did to me” (Matthew 25:40). He said, “I hold that every poor man, every vagrant, every beggar is Christ carrying His cross. And as Christ, we must love and help them. We must treat him as a brother, a human being like ourselves. If we were to start a campaign of love for the poor and the homeless, we would, in a short time, do away with the de-pressing scenes of begging, children sleeping in doorways and women with babies in their arms fainting in our streets.” Father Hurtado called on others to help him, saying, “Christ doesn’t have a home! Don’t you want to give Him one?”
Like Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin the Zwicks and others in the Catholic Worker movement, Father Hurtado welcomed Christ in the poor and homeless and gave them a home. He also helped to found a Catholic workers union so that workers might be treated justly. Understanding the Eucharist, the sacrament of communion with Christ and our neighbor, Father Hurtado knew well that Christ is not only present in the poor, but “Christ is also present in those who stand in solidarity with the poor.” Years later, it is that solidarity St. John Paul II would stress in his writings on the Eu-charist.
Who is the Christ that we neglect to welcome? That is the question that each age and each nation of Christians must answer. This question is given to us not only in the Gospels and the epistles, but in the Church Fathers and in the en-cyclicals of the popes. It is the question that Pope Francis reminds us of when he said, “Every stranger who knocks at our door is an opportunity for an encounter with Jesus Christ, who identifies with the welcomed and rejected strangers of every age.”
We can also look to the saints and holy persons of our country and our day. Two of our American saints, Mother Cabrini and John Neumann, came as immigrants to the U.S. in the 19th century and spent their lives in service to the immigrants – many of whom were refugees fleeing poverty, starvation, political oppression or violence in their home countries. They call us to look again at those on our borders and in the refugee camps of the world. Why – in a country with near full employment and that has a great need for workers in agriculture, nursing homes, food processing plants, and other labor intensive workplaces – are we not granting the necessary work visas and eventual citizenship? Why have we not allowed those from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, who translated for and assisted our troops, to come with their families to the U.S. when their lives are threatened in their home countries?
Who is the Christ that we neglect to welcome? Mother Teresa cared not only for the poor and dying, but for the ba-bies and appealed to mothers not to abort their children but to bring them to her for care until they were old enough to be on their own. How is it that one political party welcomes the unborn but neglects the mothers and their children with the medical and food aid that they need, while the other party turns its back on the 800,000-plus children who are aborted and then supports medical and food aid for those who are born? Polls show that most Americans are un-comfortable with the number of abortions and want to reduce those numbers and want to end late-term abortions in all but the most extreme cases.
Who is the Christ that we neglect to welcome? The recently deceased Jean Vanier brought together those with special needs and those who are multiply-handicapped and those who do not have these handicaps to live together in loving communities. Too often we use our jails as holding pens for those suffering from mental illness or other handicaps. How do we welcome all – for all are children of God and brothers and sisters to us? As Pope Benedict XVI said in “Deus et Caritas” (“God Is Love”): “Love of God and love of neighbor have become one: in the least of the brethren we find Jesus Himself, and in Jesus we find God.”
Will we welcome the whole Christ at Christmas and throughout the year?
Jesuit Father John Michalowski is parochial vicar of St. Peter Church in Charlotte.