All human life is sacred ... even the life of a Syrian refugee
July 29, 2019 at 12:37 p.m.
”For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me …” Matthew 25:35
I am Syrian.
My mother was Syrian. Her mother and father were Syrian … immigrants who came to this country to make a better life for their families.
So when I regularly see the images of Syrian refugees, leaving behind everything to escape violence and tyranny and widespread evil in their own country to seek refuge and safety among other people in other lands, I cry for them.
When I hear that more than half the governors in the U.S. have decided to close their states to refugees, I cry for us, as we consider turning away innocent people whose faces we have never seen and whose stories we have never heard.
Our human nature means that we will all be plagued by thoughts of fear and prejudice, at one time or another. Our Christian beliefs call us to push past those thoughts, ensuring that they never form a basis for our decisions.
Being a Christian is not easy. It requires us to think with the mind of Christ and see with the heart of Christ. It requires that we bring our reason, intelligence and common sense, not just our emotions, to every situation to ensure that all people have an opportunity to live in communities of care and safety.
Experience continues to teach us that evil not only begets evil but seeks to grow evil in hearts and minds, to find sustenance in the food of our fear. We must be vigilant that the evil of terrorism does not fuel the evil of intolerance, prejudice, racism and a willingness to abandon those most in need.
When we allow our fear to corrupt our humanity, and embrace the result, we can no longer identify ourselves as followers of Jesus Christ, who was very clear about the greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
His teaching is simple and clear. We are the ones who have added the limitations, the exclusions and the addendums.
Refugees walk a sacrificial road … a road most of us will never have to travel, a road of overburdened temporary camps, want and uncertainty.
John Burger, writing for Aleteia, explains that “some 54 percent of the world’s refugees have lived in exile for more than five years, often without freedom of movement or the right to work. For such refugees, the average length of exile is around 17 years. These long-term displaced are expected to wait for a so-called durable solution, by which some state, whether their own or another, can reintegrate them into peaceful society. As a result, their lives are put on hold.”
How, I wonder, do they maintain hope?
Two lights in the midst of the turmoil, and political discussions about the future of Syrian refugees, are Catholic Relief Services, which continues to offer aid and assistance in resettlement, and the Knights of Columbus, who recently donated $500,000 to help CRS educate refugee children in Jordan – both organizations rooted in the Gospel, promoting the sacredness of human life and the dignity of the human person.
I am grateful, and my Syrian sisters and brothers are grateful, that our Church continues to be a beacon of hope for those in need.
Mary Morrell, writer and editor at Wellspring Communications, may be reached at [email protected] and Twitter @mreginam6.
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”For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me …” Matthew 25:35
I am Syrian.
My mother was Syrian. Her mother and father were Syrian … immigrants who came to this country to make a better life for their families.
So when I regularly see the images of Syrian refugees, leaving behind everything to escape violence and tyranny and widespread evil in their own country to seek refuge and safety among other people in other lands, I cry for them.
When I hear that more than half the governors in the U.S. have decided to close their states to refugees, I cry for us, as we consider turning away innocent people whose faces we have never seen and whose stories we have never heard.
Our human nature means that we will all be plagued by thoughts of fear and prejudice, at one time or another. Our Christian beliefs call us to push past those thoughts, ensuring that they never form a basis for our decisions.
Being a Christian is not easy. It requires us to think with the mind of Christ and see with the heart of Christ. It requires that we bring our reason, intelligence and common sense, not just our emotions, to every situation to ensure that all people have an opportunity to live in communities of care and safety.
Experience continues to teach us that evil not only begets evil but seeks to grow evil in hearts and minds, to find sustenance in the food of our fear. We must be vigilant that the evil of terrorism does not fuel the evil of intolerance, prejudice, racism and a willingness to abandon those most in need.
When we allow our fear to corrupt our humanity, and embrace the result, we can no longer identify ourselves as followers of Jesus Christ, who was very clear about the greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
His teaching is simple and clear. We are the ones who have added the limitations, the exclusions and the addendums.
Refugees walk a sacrificial road … a road most of us will never have to travel, a road of overburdened temporary camps, want and uncertainty.
John Burger, writing for Aleteia, explains that “some 54 percent of the world’s refugees have lived in exile for more than five years, often without freedom of movement or the right to work. For such refugees, the average length of exile is around 17 years. These long-term displaced are expected to wait for a so-called durable solution, by which some state, whether their own or another, can reintegrate them into peaceful society. As a result, their lives are put on hold.”
How, I wonder, do they maintain hope?
Two lights in the midst of the turmoil, and political discussions about the future of Syrian refugees, are Catholic Relief Services, which continues to offer aid and assistance in resettlement, and the Knights of Columbus, who recently donated $500,000 to help CRS educate refugee children in Jordan – both organizations rooted in the Gospel, promoting the sacredness of human life and the dignity of the human person.
I am grateful, and my Syrian sisters and brothers are grateful, that our Church continues to be a beacon of hope for those in need.
Mary Morrell, writer and editor at Wellspring Communications, may be reached at [email protected] and Twitter @mreginam6.
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