Immigration issue goes beyond politics, should prompt reflection on spirituality

<p>How do you view the immigration crisis on the U.S.-Mexican border? For many, this is a political crisis. It is the latest battleground between Trump and the Democrats, one that will fuel the upcoming mid-term elections.</p>
<p>For others, the immigration issue is an emotional one. On one side are those in the streets who demand that immigrant families be reunited and that America once again become a haven for the oppressed. On the other side are those who are fearful that our country could be overrun by criminals intent on bringing mayhem to our country.</p>
<p>For a growing number of Americans, however, the immigration crisis is a spiritual issue. We recognize that this issue is a test of faith. How we respond to this test will shape the nation we will become.</p>
<p>Several years ago, a friend called me in obvious frustration. He had a beef with a recent sermon that our priest had given. The sermon focused on our task as Christians to look beyond ourselves to the needs of others. The priest’s specific point was that adequate health care should be available to everyone.</p>
<p>My friend wanted me to agree with him that the priest had no right to “preach politics.” There is one line in my friend’s rant that I will never forget. I paraphrase, but this is the gist of his sentiments: “I don’t go to church to hear about politics. I go to church for spiritual reasons, to ask God to help me and my family.”</p>
<p>I know my friend is far more compassionate than what he revealed in that statement. I know he said what he did in anger. But I also know that what he said in anger is what lurks too often in my heart and, I suspect, in the heart of many people of faith. In our heart of hearts, we believe God exists to meet our needs and the needs of those close to us.</p>
<p>This is simply another way of describing what Christianity calls original sin. That universal error is to believe that everything and everyone, including God, should revolve around me and my desire for a happy and comfortable life. I suspect the reason so many young people are turned off by organized religion is that they sense this deep-seated self-centeredness in us religious folk.</p>
<p>On vacation recently, I attended a church service in which we were invited to pray together one of the best known prayers of St. Francis. This happened during the weeks when the evening news began every night with a story about the immigration and border issue. The images from the border, the wall and the detention centers were in my mind and I suspect in the mind of many others present in that service.</p>
<p>As I began to recite the prayer, I realized St. Francis’ words were ones I couldn’t recite lightly.</p>
<p>Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.</p>
<p>G.K. Chesterton described St. Francis as a person who saw everything clearly because he saw everything upside-down. I think it’s also true that St. Francis lived his saintly life “inside-out.” Instead of living as he once had, for his own pleasure and comfort, he chose to live “inside-out,” living to heal others, especially those in greatest need.</p>
<p>The haunting image this prayer leaves me with is St. Francis standing in his raggedy robe on our border with Mexico and saying, “Don’t you see? You will solve this issue only when you confront that other wall, the wall within your own heart.”</p>