This Sunday, September 29, is the 110th World Day of Migrants and Refugees. Since 1914, Catholics around the world have marked the final Sunday of September as an invitation to hold in prayer the countless women, men and children forced to leave their homes due to conflict, persecution and socioeconomic hardship.
This year’s theme, shared by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, is “God Walks with His People.” This is an evocative image, one that reminds us that God is both on the move and intimately present in each member of our human family — no matter where they’re from, where they’re going or where they lay their head at night.
In considering the invitation of this World Day, my mind goes first to the opportunities I’ve had to visit with migrants and refugees. When I began my work at the Jesuit Conference, I had the privilege to journey to Amman, Jordan. While there, I spent time at the Jesuit Center listening to the stories of displaced folks from countries as varied as Somalia and Yemen, Sudan and Iraq — to name just a few. More recently, I’ve traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border, where I visited the team at Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries. I met a family from Venezuela, and heard their earnest hope to begin anew in the US. They have children who deserve education — and a safe place to pursue their dreams.
These two experiences have been pivotal to my own formation, my own understanding of issues affecting migrants and refugees. But as I reflected on these distinct moments, I realized something: In both, I was the one going out. I was visiting these folks, and then — importantly — returning to my own life.
This isn’t a bad thing, of course. It’s good and right to leave our places of comfort and enter into those that make us uncomfortable, that allow us to come alongside others and journey together.
But here’s the thing I realized in my own prayer: There’s a crucial missing piece. And it’s obvious. Key to our accompaniment of migrants and refugees is our sense of welcome, our shared hospitality, our commitment to the Gospel value of making joyful room for the stranger.
We go out to meet those who are on the road, yes. But so, too, must we make room in the proverbial inn of our own lives, our own communities.
God walks with his people. We meet God there on the road, and we prepare a place for God here in our homes. It’s a two-step dance. As I reflect on my own story, I can see one of those steps more readily than the other.
What about you? How do you make room for the migrant, the refugee, the displaced, the stranger? For God’s own holy self?
I invite you, as we prepare for this World Day of Migrants and Refugees, to take this question to prayer. To aid you in your reflection, members of our Ignatian family have teamed up to offer a beautiful series of audio reflections and prayer resources. You can find those here.
“God not only walks with his people, but also within them, in the sense that he identifies himself with men and women on their journey through history, particularly with the least, the poor and the marginalized. In this we see an extension of the mystery of the Incarnation.” — Pope Francis, Message for the 110th World Day of Migrants and Refugees
