January 15, 2010
Indiana Franciscans, religious communities pray for immigrants and immigration reform
By MARY ANN HUGHES (Message staff writer)
Immigrants and immigration reform have been the focus this week during prayer vigils attended by over 600 Franciscan men and women throughout Indiana.
The Franciscans of Indiana, who minister in over 80 parishes, schools and health care facilities, are also signing post cards which will be sent to their U.S. representatives as well as to Sena-tors Richard Lugar and Evan Bayh. The cards ask legislators to support comprehensive immigration reform.
National Migration week was designated by the Catholic Church to call attention to people forced from their homes and displaced because of war, natural disasters, climate change and economic necessity.
“The Christian God is a God of immigrants, indeed an Immigrant God,” said Franciscan Brother Bill Short, theologian and historian from the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif. “[St.] Francis often reminded his followers of the biblical injunction that we are ‘aliens and exiles, pilgrims and strangers’ on earth.”
Franciscan Sister Jane McConnell is a chaplain at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Evansville. This Monday she joined fellow Franciscan Sisters and lay associates at a prayer service designed to “raise our awareness of our migrant brothers and sisters among us.”
The prayer service included the following prayer:
“We gather to join Franciscans in prayer for immigrants in our midst.
“Our prayer calls attention to the suffering of our sisters and brothers who have come to us as immigrants. They are among the most vulnerable members of our society. Immigrants come here nowadays — just as our ancestors came a few or many years ago, seeking a better life for themselves and their families.
“As our forbearers came to work, so current immigrants contribute to our common good through their labor. We are proud of our Catholic Church’s dedication to serving and advocating on behalf of immigrants for over 500 years in the Americas and for over 400 years in our own country.
“As Franciscans, we feel a special kinship with those whose destiny is not stable, who have undergone social displacement along with their physical mobility. Some see today’s immigrants, especially the undocumented, as vaga-bonds and outsiders. We know how Francis and Clare and their followers also heard such slurs applied to them. We happily join in solidarity with the poor, the leper, and the scorned because we embrace the poor and humble Christ who, though he was in the form of God . . . emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. (Philippians 2:6-7)”
The Monastery of St. Clare is located on the southwest side of Vanderburgh County. Sister Jeanne Maffet serves as the prioress there. She said the Poor Clare sisters were also praying for immigrants and immigration reform this week.
Franciscan Sister Bridget Arnold teaches second grade at St. Joseph School in Vanderburgh County. She and her students talked about Jesus who was also a “migrant.” She explained to them that “he traveled from place to place,” and she encouraged her students to “welcome people from other places and listen to their stories.”