mi padre era un...migrante

The boys and girls of the migrant community know all about the uncertainty and the menace of being persecuted and of seeing their parents deported. We adults see a bigger picture, no less menacing: the hardening and criminalization of immigration politics. In this poisonous atmosphere, the families of our migrant community turn increasingly to prayer and to their faith in God who called them to cross this desert as strangers, as witnesses to hope. The children of our community begin to pray just as the people of Israel did long ago: “My father was a wanderer, a migrant” (Deuteronomy 26:6).
In the hiddenness of their lives we are sure that a vocation throbs, a call by the God who comes to transform his people, by the God who brings men and women out of servitude to service.
In Livingston County an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe accompanies every family. They carry it home with them after our monthly Mass together— those same families who are passing through painful trials. Yet here is a challenge: While there is a significant migrant population in this region of the Diocese of Rochester, the number who gather with us to celebrate their faith is still small.
Every pastoral service we offer tries to promote people’s sense of responsibility and participation. Our Catholic Migrant Ministry considers this one of its most ambitious objectives. But because of the conditions in which the migrant community finds itself, this effort has been complex, defying simple solution.
Yet there have been signs of hope, gleams of light…
After a slow, patient process of faith formation, Lucila Romero (pastoral leader of the migrant community of Sodus) watches excitedly as Bishop Matthew presides over the calling-forth and sending of the Migrant Council of the Pastorate of Wayne County. This group’s effort, inspired by Sister Luci, brings its first fruits of service to the community by organizing and coordinating all its Advent and Lenten celebrations. On that Sunday, June 16, 2006, thirteen members of our community were amazed to discover that this work, this mission, had been placed in their hands and that the Bishop himself had put it there.
From then on, these couples are the ones who encourage and shape the community of Wayne County.
Other lights…
Meanwhile, on various Sundays through the year we team up with Deacons Jerry Skerrett and George Dardess, visiting various parishes in the Diocese to preside at Eucharist and to sketch the reality of migrant ministry. So now let me pause to express our gratitude to all the English-speaking communities that have hosted us. Their welcome and solidarity with migrant ministry sustains us and encourages us to continue. And of course I have to add that we have relied on their generous economic support.
Unexpected changes alter our paths. Migrants are accustomed to dealing with events outside their control. The only thing to do is to adapt as best you can and to keep moving ahead. And so with Catholic Migrant Ministry as well: We had to transform its face in Brockport. Right now the community there is welcoming a priest from the Dominican Republic, Fr. Alejandro Berroa Bello. Fr. Alejandro has joined our team in order to serve our community pastorally.
But also in Brockport has emerged a team from the migrant community dedicated to encouraging good liturgy and to planning events for the future. It still has a ways to go, but the team’s enthusiasm and desire to serve are already signs of how the fruits of ministry have been maturing all these years.
At the present time it is Sr. Sue Hoffman who is coordinating our ministry in Brockport, though her commitment is part-time. She and Fr. Alejandro nurture in their turn the vitality of the team of volunteers which has warmly welcomed them and is collaborating with both.
Lent finds us still in the middle of winter, but despite the cold and the snow I still find migrant friends, both men and women, laboring in the fields, pruning trees, and packing the produce of the previous season. They all carry in their memories the meaning of these intense and profound weeks of the liturgical year. “We can’t stop working, but we’ll bear the ashes to begin Lent faithfully.”
I have seen Xochitl and her team in Geneva preparing themselves to gather each week throughout Lent. “Missionary disciples,” is their slogan as well as their path. There is no better time to help bring to maturity the desire in the members of our community to be Christ’s disciples. If there is one thing sure in our community it is this: To the degree to which believers allow their identities as disciples to grow, to that same degree their commitment to mission becomes an imperative.
We make ourselves ready to celebrate both our Lord’s resurrection and our own, despite the fact that the current administration in Washington is not interested in improving the situation of migrant workers.
This Lenten season could be a good time for those who are politically active to influence positively a decision in favor of immigration reform. To find out more about the issue and to discover effective channels of action, visit the webpage of the North American bishops: www.justiceforimmigrants.org