Passionists Feature Special Issue on Immigration

I was a Stranger – When we think of Mary and Joseph on the road to Bethlehem and then fleeing into Egypt with their new-born child, how simple is seems: find room for them. But when their story multiplies into millions as it does in our time, how complex it becomes. What do we do with so many people moving within a country or between nations today?

We address the complex question of immigration in this issue of Compassion. Undoubtedly, a hard issue to handle, but Christians whose history begins with a journey into a foreign land must wrestle with it. We remember too the challenge of Jesus: �I was a stranger and you took me in?�

There are no easy answers, nor does Fr. Sebastian McDonald provide us with any in his thoughtful article, �Thinking about Immigration.� Christian communities have to search for answers too, and so we visit the Passionist parish of the Immaculate Conception in Jamaica, New York, a city parish that�s home to people of many races and ethnic backgrounds.

We are living in a global society. How do we fulfill the desire of Jesus: “That they all may be one?”

Compassion