PrintWithin the JPIC team, it seemed important to live Holy Week in special communion with people in migration...
Indeed, exile, whatever the reasons, makes more than 100 million people live today in a real Easter, a crossing, a passage through deadly borders. And if we take a closer look, it is the whole life of a migrant that resonates with the Paschal mystery.
Between the two, cries of agony and the joy of the Resurrection, a double movement is imposed on us: to join them by all possible forms of hospitality (of the heart and of daily life) and to learn from them.
"It is a blessing for us to be close to people who suffer." Dorota Stoklosa rscj, provincial of Poland, during the zoom on the war in Ukraine (3/4/22).
Lord, help us to make their pain as our own.
Images: Wikimedia Commons
The Easter of people in migration
"When his time had come"... At a decisive moment, to leave... Plunging into the exodus...
"We hesitated for a long time and at one point it was no longer possible" (a persecuted family in Bangladesh) "we had to flee very quickly" (Theona married, 3 small childrens, fleeing Syria)
The sentence falls... intractable. "The attack on us was only a matter of time. Believe those who say, "I want to kill you". And yet it is impossible to be ready for that. (Natalia, Kiev)
Surrender to the hands of the smugglers and sink into the darkness of the migratory route... And freely decide to give one's life to the hope "my life sucks from taking it", even if hostility rages.
To die to a familiar daily life (cultural references, tastes, places, social condition) and to leave relationships with loved ones...
On the cross, "Here, it's hell. Constant bombings" (Lyudmila, Mariupol, Ukraine). "To love to the extreme". Many testimonies are offered to us on the gestures of solidarity that can exist in extreme situations or on the always intact desire to bring something of oneself to others: "to give the beauty of each day to others" says Naïma.
"Father, why have you abandoned me? This sentence resounded in the mouth of the daughter of Léona, when her family had just left their country abruptly: "Why did God want us to lose our home and have nothing"? I really looked for the answer in my heart," said Leona, "so that my child would not doubt God, and I thought of the future that would be better than what we were living, being completely homeless with our 8 year old child: "God does not want us to be unhappy, but this way, we understand that there are people who do not have enough to eat on this earth and we will always be with them. Your heart is enlarged to situations that you did not know my daughter, you will love more".
"In the crucible of trial, communion is often the order of the day and openness to the other is surprisingly present. The desire remains burning "to help those who have less and suffer more" shares Sergio.
The light of the first morning is very slow to appear on the horizon and yet these people teach us to live with courage today and with an unfailing hope. Soon, "the dawn of a new day" will appear (Uygen).
Click here to read the Echoes from People in Exodus.