Immigrants, Ex-Pats, and Strangers

Immigration is a problem, not only because the immigrants are strangers, but because we are afraid of them. Yes, we don’t know them, but it is the fear that overcomes us, and makes us hostile to the stranger. Will they hurt us, our children, our way of life? Are they criminals? Do they have strange, dangerous ideas?

Every night Michael read from the lives of the saints. Each saint was unique to his or her time and place He had a multi-volume set near the bed, and his night time routine included hours of reading and prayer. His comments on the life of Andrew Kim incorporate an overall view not only of world history, but of the nature of man.

He also looks into his own family history as a third generation Finn and considers how his immigrant background broadens his view of the world and brings insights into the flow of human history.

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The feast of St. Andrew Kim

When you look at the life of Andrew Kim, he left Korea. His father was a martyr.  He left Korea.  He was educated outside of Korea and then he came back.

He didn't have to come back.

If you look at the history of the world, it's migration.  The story of my mother's family was that they came to the United States from northern Finland, but also from northern Norway, because my great grandfather got tired of fish.  So they moved to the United States where they could eat meat.

People move all the time.  We have situations.  The history of the missionaries going into various places in the world.  We have people throughout the world today who are seeking to go somewhere else to make their lives better for whatever reason: for political reasons, religious reasons, economic reasons, family reasons… all over.

In each of these movements that we have going on, movements tend to engender at the least contempt, uncertainty, fear on both poulations, of what is going to happen.  What is it going to be like when I go from northern Norway to northern Minnesota?  They have 10,000 lakes.  They have lots of fish.  I've never understood that.  It gets really cold.  What is there?

They were called names when they came.  That is part of movement.  That is part of what is involved.  It is part of migration.

And we see with Andrew Kim, here was an educated man.  And I am sure many of the other companions that died were educated people.  They could have gone somewhere else.  They could have gone into China.  They couldn't get into Japan.  Theoretically they could have gotten into the United States, although the United States... well no, at the time the United States were accepting Asians because they needed someone to work on the railroads.  There were places to go.  Why didn't he go?

And at the same time, why do people go somewhere else to bring the Faith? 

And it really comes down to an interesting question.  What is migration?  What is the purpose of migration?  And the bottom line is first, the primary purpose of migration is to get somewhere better!  The climate is changing.  All of a sudden you are in the middle of a desert, instead of living somewhere where there is food.  What do you do?  You move.  It's called migration.

So migration involves two populations.  There is the uncertainty of moving from one place which you know, to another.  I mean, I remember moving from Los Angeles to Houston.  It was mind-boggling.  This small town that I moved to (Houston is a very large city), was just, "Wow, these people are different!"

But many times it also involves, "Wow, you Poles don't speak the right language.  You sound funny.  That food you eat the sausage, it's just really strange."

All of this is what occurs.

Then you have the migrants, people who go, "What are you going to do?"  "What am I going to do?"  "What's going to happen?"  "Am I going to be able to find a job?"  "Why are people calling me names?"  "Why are they making fun of me?"

I think the reality is Our Lord Jesus Christ is wholly human.  What is one of the very first things that He did in his life very, very early?  He migrated.  He went to Egypt.  Ultimately He was raised in Nazareth.  Read the gospels.  He's all over the place.  "Who is that hick with an accent from Nazareth?  Why is he telling us all these things?" 

Just like in the United States, if you come from Sweetwater, Texas and you go to New York, and say, "Hey!  I'm from Texas!" a bunch of New Yorkers are going to go, "Uh huh, whoa!"  Worse than that, if you walk into New York from Texas and you go, "Hey, how are you doing?", the first thing that they do is check… "Does he have a gun; where's a policemen?"  "Why is he being nice?"  That's the nature of humans. In the United States is the history of migration within its own borders.  Incredible.

But, with St. Andrew, who decided to stay with his people… with those who leave… for those who help them… this is our humanity.  It is an integral part of being human.  And, being an integral part of being human, the reality is, that our location has a great deal to do with our opportunities to be holy.

If we were living in various countries, right now, as an openly Catholic person, you would have ample opportunities to become a martyr.  Maybe not to be killed, but to be a martyr.  If you had lived in Dallas, Texas one hundred years ago, you would have been discriminated against by the virtue of the fact that you were Catholic.  You weren't Baptist.

“Who are those people?”, you would probably have been going, "Who are those people and why are they associating with a bunch of Mexicans?  Why would anybody do that?"

By human nature, we move, we react to people who move, and when we move, we face situations that are new, and many times, that are dangerous.  The reality of our human existence, and I say it time and time again because it is just the very core part of my theology as a Catholic, is that the humanity of Christ gave us the opportunity, through His death, to take our own humanity and use it as a means to sanctify ourselves and to spend all eternity with Him in Heaven.

Is our humanity, when faced with migration, going to give us, like St. Peter Claver, the opportunity to help those in need, those who have moved?  Is it the opportunity like Dorothy Day to help the workers, many of them who were immigrants into the country?  Is it the opportunity to say to ourselves, " I love my neighbors, but I don't really like them when they have...  a different language, different food, different color?”  Am I rejecting my humanity and my opportunity because of my reaction to the other, denying loving thy neighbor?  Or is it an opportunity that is being given to us by God to demonstrate to Him and to the world what it means to love your neighbor?

Whether you are here and people are coming or you are leaving, the reality is that in everything in our lives, including migration, is a gift to us from God to spend all eternity closer to Him in Heaven.  To change ourselves in such a way because in our reaction, in our dealing with others who by definition are not in our easy definition of neighbor, but are different.

Is it not, in fact, a gift from God, to allow us to become holier, to show to God and to the world what it means to love our neighbor?  And is it not possible that in the divine scheme of things, when God makes man someone who is going to wander around and migrate, that in fact this migration may be a tremendous gift to every one of us by the opportunity that we are given either as the migrant or as the recipient of the migrant, to become holier, to show what it means to love our neighbor.  To separate the sheep and the goats.  To prepare ourselves to spend all eternity in Heaven where the very definition of the relationship of God to us is love, that the very distinctions that we perceive in our humanity through migration will disappear.  And we are called to live our lives to make those distinctions disappear and to prepare ourselves to spend all eternity with God in Heaven.

September 13, 2019 2