It takes grit to cross a border for a better life, irrespective of laws. This is a reality to which I simply cannot relate. But as I survey the desert landscape around me, dotted with flecks of green and framed by canyons, I think of what it might look like in the dead of night: negotiating the jagged terrain with no protection from the elements. At a weekly general audience in 2021, Pope Francis likened the plight of asylum seekers to the struggle of the Holy Family. “Herod is a symbol of many tyrants of yesterday and today. For these tyrants, people don’t matter, power matters,” he said before giving us a simple call to action. “Protect all those who flee because of war, hatred, and hunger.”
The best I can do is offer up a prayer for those who need it.
—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “One Nation Under God“
by Christopher Heffron
