April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
REFLECTION
Musing on migration and Mother Cabrini
Psalm 146 says: "The Lord secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets captives free....The Lord gives sight to the blind. The Lord raises up those who were bowed down; the Lord loves the just. The Lord protects strangers. The fatherless and the widow he sustains, but the way of the wicked he thwarts. The Lord shall reign forever; your God, O Zion, through all generations. Alleluia."
Mother Cabrini came to this country from Italy to minister to the needs of the many immigrants who came at the beginning of the 20th century from Eastern and Southern Europe. With radically different languages, cultures, foods and so on, many struggled to fit into this new world.
People like Mother Cabrini ministered to the people of their national heritage; national parishes were erected to enable the faithful to celebrate the sacraments in their language and to maintain their cultural feasts and religious practices, and to find a place where the words of Psalm 146 would become real.
So many of the immigrants were looked down on because they were different, Catholic, and did not "fit in." Like many of our current immigrants, there were incidents of overt and latent prejudices by those whose families were also immigrants to this country.
It can be easy to forget, with the exception of the First Peoples, we are all immigrants to this land.
As the Catholic community, the ancient mandate of the covenant and the mandate of the Gospel call us to take care of the poor, the widow, the orphan and the alien. Are we not all aliens in this world, because our true home is with God eternally in the promised land of heaven?
Jesus was clear, in my opinion, that His brothers and sister were to be aligned with the disenfranchised, the poor and those cast away by society: "As often as you do this to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it to me" (Mt 25). Are these words the mandate of the Gospel, or just a nice sentiment?
My own grandparents came from Poland, looking for a new life, during the time Mother Cabrini came to this country. Like countless others, my grandparents came to the land of promise and opportunity because they knew life in the old country would not get better.
As I have been told, they believed in the dream that this country promised. They came not on a plane or in first class, but in the less comfortable places on a boat. They worked hard, raised families and contributed to this country by the sheer determination to make their lives and this land a better place.
Many of our immigrants, legal and illegal, came to this country with the same risks, hardships and struggles our ancestors did. This is reminiscent of the journey from the slavery in Egypt to the promised land of Israel - a hard and long journey because of the promise of something better, a new opportunity promised by God.
I've heard it said that legal and illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from people. The same could have been said about my grandparents, too. I heard the following statement somewhere and it rings true: "There are not long lines of Americans wanting to pick apples, work in the hot fields harvesting foods or wanting to work for sub-minimum-wage jobs."
There are migrant workers working on the dairy farms, picking apples and working in menial jobs because no one else will do it. We do not need to go far to see this; it is right here in the Albany Diocese.
The next time you are in the grocery store or buying clothes, think about who picked the vegetables or fruit you are about to buy and who sewed the new shirt you are wearing. Look into the faces of those who clean rooms in hotels and motels, serve in fast food restaurants or do other menial jobs, and ask yourself: Who are they and where are they from?
In the eyes of Mother Cabrini, the psalmist who wrote Psalm 146 and Jesus Himself, that person is our brother or our sister in Christ......they are Christ Himself.
(Father Konopka is director of the diocesan Consultation Center and sacramental minister for St. Clare's parish in Colonie and the Capital District Psychiatric Center in Albany.)[[In-content Ad]]
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