From July 11 to 14, a Continental Seminar was held in Panama called “Migrants, Refugees and Displaced Persons”, organized by CLAR (Confederation of Latin American Religious) in which Inés Barés of the Confraternity of Translators of Panama, Juan Reaño of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Peru, Fr. Gregory Gay C.M. in Panama and Irene Cruz of Vincentians in the Border/Diaspora of Guatemala participated.

Personally, I can say that this Seminar was an encounter with Jesus, it moved my energies; the empathy was so great that I could not stop crying. To meet Jesus in our migrant brothers and sisters makes us rethink our role as Christians, as Vincentians. Could it be that we have Jesus inside a bubble? Do we have Him solitary in the Sacrament of the Altar? Forgetting that Jesus is there, precisely in our brothers and sisters who, in order to save their lives or that of their loved ones, decide to leave the fruit of a lifetime of work, thinking of having a peaceful retirement, without any shocks, and overnight, you find yourself fleeing in the middle of the night, because the organized mafias, the dictatorial governments, have decided to take your life or that of a loved one. And there, in the middle of the dark and deep night, hiding in a river, asking God not to be found, you decide to flee, because your partner has just been murdered and they are going after those who are left; or when they declare you a terrorist enemy of the government for teaching young people to think critically and analytically, the only option is to run away with what you are wearing. It is useless to have obtained university degrees, to dedicate yourself to higher education, to work in hospitals, to be a correct citizen. The instinct to preserve life makes you seek refuge, help, protection, from the nearest country, hoping to be welcomed, integrated and what you find is that, due to human greed, your need has been quoted very high on the stock market, turning you into a bird of prey, with the dollar sign written on your forehead, and the foreheads of your partner and your children.

Where are the words of that parable of Jesus: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me into your home. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you came to visit me. I was in prison and you came to see me”. To the astonishment of the righteous and their questioning of the King, the King replied…. “Truly I tell you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me”; but there is also the condemnation of those who do nothing for the least of these: “You cursed ones, go away from me and go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels!

I wonder; do we not see the Holy Family fleeing in the middle of the night? Are we selling overpriced water for the migrants? Are we overpricing the price of the ticket that will take the migrants to safety? Do we see our brothers crying out for help and sell it to them? Our migrant brothers and sisters are the suffering face of Jesus, who seeks shelter and refuge, the Jesus who seeks to restore the rights that have been taken away from him; the Jesus who has been outraged before the eyes of all?

May the reading of this article sensitize us, make us more empathetic, move us to leave selfishness behind; may we organize ourselves to demand from our governments, who are part of the ordeal of our migrants, to create laws that respond to the changing needs of human mobility, to drastically condemn public servants who enrich themselves at the expense of the need of those who flee from violence, political persecution and so many other causes. Let us organize ourselves in our parishes and look for the needy, as our Confraternity sister Ana Pelicó does in Philadelphia or as migrant families do, who know this pain and put together food pantries, get clothes, medicine, jobs for our migrants in Maryland. Let us be part of the solution.

In this Seminar all religious and lay people left with the commitment to make visible that it is urgent to work in networks, that it is urgent that we work together, regardless of charism, the important thing is to mitigate the suffering of those who migrate, to help them to make their journey safe, to ask for fairer laws for those who wish to stay and to integrate into the new society.

It touched my heart to listen to the stories of the families who opened their hearts and shared their experiences with us: “Nobody taught us how to migrate”; “They charge us 60 dollars to take us by bus”; “There is a crime if a private person takes us in his vehicle”; “I am a university professional, since I came here, I cannot work in what I graduated, so I had to reinvent myself and learn to make curtains and to make bags with recycled material”; “They won’t let me set up a stall in the market, I have to run away when the market guard arrives, so that he doesn’t take away the sale and the money I invested in it”; “We had to leave because of my daughter’s illness, in my country there was not enough for the special food my daughter needed”. Of all the testimonies shared, none of them asked for alms, with dignity and serenity, what they asked for was only the opportunity to be allowed to stay and integrate into society as productive people. Stories of survival and struggle.

In the Seminar we also agreed “Not to speak of migrants without migrants”, “Let them be the protagonists of their history and of our salvation”; “Because it will be the poor who will open the gates of heaven for us”.

Let us remember that God has given us specific gifts and talents that we should use for the good of others and for the glory of God.

By Irene Cruz