Art from a 2010 National Migration Week poster
This week Catholics in the United States are observing National Migration Week, January 8-14. We are asked to walk in solidarity with the millions of migrants, refugees and immigrants who leave their countries to escape violence and poverty and to seek opportunity and hope.
During this election year, we are bombarded with negative and divisive messages, and in many immigrants are targeted.
As we begin this week, let us all, no matter what our particular faith or nationality, remember the immigrants among us. Consider joining the Justice for Immigrants Campaign. For more information go to http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org/index.shtml.
BLESSED ARE
Blessed are those who are on the move, transforming exodus and flight into energy for a new search. From the victims will come the protagonists of history.
Blessed are those who, forced to wander without direction, with wisdom learn and teach the lesson for the road. They will be the architects of a new time.
Blessed are those who suffer pain, nostalgia, loneliness, yet know how to make of every arrival a new beginning. They shall act with faith, hope and love.
Blessed are those who open borders and mix anthems, flags, races and creeds. Without discrimination, they make the world everyone’s home.
Blessed are the wayfarers of the roads. In the tears, sweat and the work of their hands they prepare a tomorrow of justice and right.
Blessed are those who open the door to pilgrims, making solidarity the passport to our common homeland. They are constructing new citizenship.
Blessed are those who foment encounters and re-encounters, sowing peace. They will harvest flowers and stars in the new heaven and the new earth.
Blessed are the excluded, without opportunities, without voice. They will be the first guests in the great banquet, where bread will not be lacking on anyone’s table.
“Blessed Are” by Fr. Jose Alfredo Goncalve (Brazil) is from Prayer Without Borders, ©2004, Catholic Relief Services
