The Messenger - September 2008 - People on the Move
By Fr. Patrick Hume, SJ - 01 September 2008
The Pope’s Intentions: This month the Pope asks us to pray ‘that Christians defend the rights of refugees, forced to leave home and country because of war and oppression’.
The latest figures from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) show that there are almost ten million refugees in the world. 12.8 million people are classified as ‘internally displaced’, meaning that they have lost their homes but are still within their country of origin. Along with asylum seekers, repatriated refugees and Stateless persons, these people are known to the UNHCR as the ‘Population of Concern’. Their estimated number stands at 32.9 million.
Recently, I was posted to Africa. 30% of the Population of Concern originates from this continent; half of them mere children and teenagers. One of the young people I met there, John, is among these teenagers. He fled his country as a young boy with his mother after his father had been killed by the local militia. In flight, he lost his mother and was cared for by an uncle and aunt. His sisters were scattered to different destinations; one of them died before her tenth birthday.
In all this tragedy, John struggled to continue his education while living with his aunt. He lived in what can only be described as a mud hut, which had neither electricity nor running water. He slept on the floor.
But his spirit was strong. When he got up in the morning, he made sure to be dressed in clean clothes, even if they were worn every second day. At school, he had to wear black shoes which were always shining despite the dust and dirt in which he lived. Whatever trouble he faced, he met each day with a vigour that was based on faith.
Like all Africans, John believed in God. It is impossible not to believe when you live in Africa; every faith except atheism has a place there. John had faith in God and people, despite his tragedies. Eventually, he lost his aunt and was cared for by neighbours who found money for him to continue his education. His whole dream was to be educated and to care for his sisters and friends. He wanted to repay others’ faith in him.
I wonder if John would survive in Europe? His view of the family seems old-fashioned in our world. He has had to adopt parents, sisters and brothers. In Africa, brother means something broader than a boy born from the same womb. Mother is much broader than the person who carried you before birth. Family is more embracing, more like the way it was in Europe long ago.
When John speaks of his brother, he refers to a friend whose parents have taken care of him. This friend’s mother and father are spoken of by John as his own parents. Then I hear of other brothers and parents. They multiply, filling the gaps of his being an orphan. Fellow refugees care for each other in ways that we can only dream of or aspire to as Christians. In this way, John shows us how to accept change as we face our own losses in life’s journey. We become the pupils of refugees.
Refugees occupy a prominent position in our Christian tradition, in the narratives of both the Old and New Testaments. With only a little overstatement, we could characterize the Old Testament as a book about refugees. The Jewish people experience exile in Egypt and then Babylon, seeming to be forever on the move, pilgrims lost in a desert. They were consoled by the Bible, which read: ‘You shall love the stranger, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt’ (Deut.10:9).
Shortly after the birth of Jesus, we hear that his parents, Joseph and Mary, had to flee from Herod for fear of Jesus’ life. Egypt once again proved to be a secure and hospitable place for the Holy Family as it had been for their ancestors. Seeking asylum in a foreign country thus has a long and honourable history.
These stories of honourable refugees should inform our own perception of refugees coming to Ireland in recent years. Sadly, we hear much grumbling as the numbers arriving have increased. Are they ‘honourable’ refugees? Can we compare them to Jesus and his ancestors?
Might John not be considered honourable? I could tell you about Mary who lives in a troubled region on the border of Uganda and Sudan. She has lost several members of her family to AIDS. All she has now is a mother confined to a wheelchair by the ravages of this disease. Mary is only sixteen, yet must bathe and clothe her mother, and has had to abandon school in order to become a carer.
I marvel at the grace in Mary’s suffering. Her eagerness to be of assistance to others as well as her mother is startling, and she does this with a constant smile. She has learned to value the moment of relations with her mother. I am forced to ask myself if I have not more to learn about life from Mary than she has from me?
We pray this month that Christians will defend the rights of refugees, forced to leave home and country because of war and oppression. Following our biblical heritage, we might feel called to defend them because our ancestors were once in exile - just like we seek to feed the hungry because our ancestors once faced famine. We might also seek to care for them because they are made in the image of our Creator (Gen.1:26); each stranger is the face of Christ (Mt.25:34,43) whom we are called to welcome with hospitality.
Unfortunately, we can forget that the image of Christ calls us. However, this lapse of memory can be healed when we come in touch with our own loss.
To have moved or not in childhood depends on our parents. Some of us never move house as we grow. From womb to tomb, life is lived around the familiar fireside, with well-known family and friends. We do not know what it is to be a stranger in a foreign land. Yet as we grow from childhood to adulthood, we may live in the same house and town but we can face many unfamiliar experiences. We are strangers to new feelings and must find some place of hospitality.
Other children are obliged to move. Folk wisdom suggests children adapt. However, they too, discover as they move from town to town with their parents that they are strangers, at once suspect and exotic. Old friends give way to new, as the old home yields to the new hearth. We are simultaneously strangers and friends. How does one move from ‘outsider to being ‘us’ and ‘them’? This tension between ‘us and them’ is lived by everyone, be it north side or south side, town or country, native or foreigner. We are all, at times, the outsider.
As young adults, we are faced with new struggles: new work, new places, new people. Some leave home and begin what can be called the lifemaking pilgrimage. As pilgrims, the travels can lead us far from our place of birth, or maybe just into the unknown territory of married life or the ever-changing single life. All of us face change. Here too, we face a migration, a letting go of the past for unfamiliar new experience. For some, this is an evolution, a gentle migration; for others, this can be a revolution, a rough exile - becoming a refugee in a foreign land.
How do we as Christians face this life pilgrimage, this migration which affects us all spiritually? Can we find anything in the Bible which points to a remedy? Can we see any hope in the lives of others who have gone before us or who travel as fellow pilgrims? Are there ways in which our own experiences can be focused to assist fellow migrants?
When we reflect on the times in our lives when we felt lost or like a stranger, even among our own; when we are attentive to that dark sense of exile in growing up or growing old, then we might hear more clearly Pope Benedict’s Intention for this month. In prayer, we can rediscover Jesus the refugee and the refugee within us all.