Washington-Baltimore Regions Learn How to "Welcome the Stranger"

 

What our Church and members of our Order are doing to help refugees and migrants was the topic when knights and dames of the Washington-Baltimore regions attended a Day of Reflection, “Welcoming the Stranger,” on April 8 at Our Lady of Mercy Church in Potomac, MD. 

 

Joan Rosenhauer, executive vice-president, U.S. Operations, of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) quoted the Bible, the Catechism, and Catholic social teaching to show that caring for those in need is as important to personal salvation as receiving the sacraments and proclaiming the Gospel. 

 

“Our lives will be judged by how we care for the least among us,” she said, “and this is a call from our Lord to each and every believer.”

 

CRS, she said, serves 100 million people in 104 countries, helping to prevent displacement, but also assisting migrants and refugees. About 65 million people in the world---the largest number since World War II---are displaced and in need. In Syria alone, “a whole generation of children have been traumatized---yet they are the ones who will have to rebuild,” she said.

 

Mrs. Rosenhauer said the work is always about individuals, and that through them, we can make a personal connection.  Among these individuals, she mentioned a 12-year-old girl in Ethiopia who spent every day of her life fetching water before CRS installed a well in her village. Now she can go to school to acquire skills to become a self-sufficient adult. Another woman, when asked what good thing happened to her last year, she said that none of her children had died.

 

Madeleine Lacovara, a dame of the American Association who works for Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS), talked about the women and children she has met in a refugee camp in Kenya that is about the size of Salt Lake City. There, people of many different cultures come together.

 

 “People who are refugees and migrants are only looking for what we already have----safety,” she said. “This is the biggest challenge for our generation.”

 

JRS, she explained, provides education to the displaced and needy in 34 countries.

 

Dame Barbara Patocka of the Federal Association said that her parish, Holy Trinity, in Washington, DC, is sponsoring the resettlement of a Syrian refugee family in the U.S.  Seventy-five parishioners, among them many young adults, are contributing in various ways.

 

“People at Holy Trinity have learned what a joy it can be to welcome the stranger,” she said.

 

So what can we do to help?

 

CRS on its website cites the acronym PLAG:  Pray, Learn, Act, Give.  

 

Pray “The Prayer of the Other” on the CRS website.

 

Visit the websites of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Migration and Refugee Services, Catholic Charities USA, and CRS Ministry Resource Center. Jesuit Refugee Services (JRSUSA.org) has a special section, “Walk a Mile in My Shoes,” which tells what it is like to be a refugee.

 

Share the stories of individual refugees with others whenever you can.

 

Purchase clothing, foodstuffs, gifts, and home goods from CRS’s Ethical Trade Center (ethicaltrade.crs.org).

 

Tell your Congressional representatives that you care about the plight of the displaced by joining the USCCB’s Catholics Confront Global Poverty (confrontglobalpoverty.org) online.

 

“We all have to be responsive,” Mrs. Rosenhauer said.  “We don’t all have to do everything, but each one of us can do something.  It does make a difference.”