Fleeing West: finding God among the poor and most vulnerable
Submitted by Katie Warner on December 19, 2018 – 3:32pm
[Image: “Refugees: La Sagrada Familia” icon by Kelly Latimore, contemporary iconographer]
Melissa Marley Bonnichsen, Director, Leadership Formation, Institute for Social Concerns, December 2018.
“In the poor [vulnerable], we find the presence of Jesus, who, though rich, became poor.. in their weakness, a saving power is present. And if in the eyes of the world they have little value, they are the ones who open to us the way to heaven. They are our passport to paradise…”1
She did not yet understand the fullness of what was happening when he told her, but she believed him and obeyed. Quickly she packed the child’s clothes and the gifts that had been given. How much could she bring? Where would they go? What would happen when they got there? Too many questions for a chaotic moment like this.
They would flee.
She lifted prayers as she gathered the child in her arms.
No nos dejes Dios, te necesitamos
Do not leave us God, we need you
As they made their way out onto the road she could feel her heart quiver. Today they were leaving their home and the life they had made here together. Their unlikely story had brought them to this unlikely place and their beautiful boy had been born in this land, but the celebrations had ended and the reality of death and violence was all around them. With their feet they would set out on a journey in search of safety and shelter in a distant land.
Debemos irnos o lo encontrarán y lo matarán
We must leave or they will find him and kill him
The baby, we must save the baby, he had said.
She no longer needed to be convinced to leave–they would walk, and like Los Magos, they would take the road less traveled–through the desert and rocky terrain–to an unknown land where they would seek refuge and asylum.
Each step a prayer, like peregrinos or santos, hoping for miraculous intervention and a safe permanent home.
Each step a prayer, millions of prayers
1 million steps from Bethlehem to Cairo
5 million steps from San Pedro Sula to Tijuana
Somos peregrinos en un viaje . . . denos la bienvenida mientras
buscamos un hogar seguro y descanso
We are pilgrims on a journey . . . welcome us as we seek a safe home and rest
During Advent, the vision of the Holy Family traveling through the desert by night, fleeing the king’s army as they desperately do all they can to save the child King Herod seeks to destroy, is a far different scene than the one we are used to retelling of sweet songs and Jesus in the manger. The scene of fleeing to Egypt, you will find, is outrageous in light of the birth of the Messiah but perhaps not surprising.
Mary, like the prophets before her, foretold of the fall of the powerful with the birth of her son, a baby who would be King of Kings and the Savior of the World. After his birth they found themselves on the run from a madman so enraged with fear and jealousy that he would shed the blood of the innocent, separate children from their beloved parents, and stop at nothing so he can maintain his grip on power.
Here, Mary and Joseph are running with our God, clutching him as they run through the darkness seeking a new home that is safe from chaos and destruction as asylum seekers, refugees, and migrating pilgrims. They are not alone but among others who have fled and would end up losing their babies.
The remarkable reality of the incarnation is that God became one of us to make a way for us, becoming the most vulnerable among us–a poor, migrating infant born of a young woman. As the world waited for a Messiah in the form of strength and power like David the warrior king, God came in the fragility and vulnerability of Moses, a baby set adrift out of desperation and survival. Through this choice we see God’s intentionality – not through riches and power would God save his children, but through the earnest of heart, the dedicated, the outcast and the poor. In this perfect paradox, humanity is made aware of the nature and heart of God. In turn we are called to love the poor because in loving the poor we love God2 and ultimately, as the Holy Father reminds us, to know the poor of this earth is to know the power and way of God.3
If the God of the heavens has chosen to enter into humanity in the most vulnerable of ways, in the most chaotic, violent, and precarious moments of time, what then does this mean for his followers? Perhaps it means that our calling is to know the ways of the poor and vulnerable, to walk with them in the darkest and most violent of moments in order to know intimately the sacredness of God among them and to focus on the full context of the Christmas story from Nazareth to Cairo.
Loving and serving the poor among us only increases our service and faith and moves us closer to God. To know the vulnerable, the weak, the suffering, and the fleeing and their plight, is to know the God of the most high and to know Jesus who as God is found in the most unlikely places of human existence – among the poor, wrapped in swaddling clothes, awaiting his dedication, and as an asylum seeker on the run with his refugee family in tow.
At his July 2015th meeting with educators at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, the Holy Father asked the crowd gathered these two essential questions:4
Life itself challenges us to answer these two questions:
What does the world need us for?
Where is your brother [sister]?
As you ponder your role in the Christmas story this Advent consider Pope Francis’ challenge to us:
If God could embrace this experience, can I also embrace the plight of the most vulnerable among us?
What then does the world need me for?
Who then is my brother and my sister?
Perhaps they are fleeing west.
1 Pope Francis, homily from the Celebrated Mass on World Day of the Poor, Vatican City. November 19th 2017.
2 Matthew 25: 31-46
3 Pope Francis, homily from the Celebrated Mass on World Day of the Poor, Vatican City. November 19th 2017.
4 Pope Francis, Meeting with Educators, Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, Quito, 7 July 2015)