My question for today fits in with the national holiday we celebrate this weekend. It’s about the event occurring on July 3rd and July 4th, 1776. My question is this: If you were alive some 234 years ago – and a member of the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia – would you have signed the Declaration of Independence?
Would you have been a conservative delegate in that Congress – one who desired to preserve the existing relationship of the colonies with their rightful ruler, George III? Would you have left the meeting – as did those who wanted to continue the status quo rather than to become a traitor?
Or being a liberal desiring change, would you have been willing to be a traitor to the crown, to the king of England, whose rightful power was derived from God – as it had been for hundreds, if not thousands of years of history? Remember: the divine right of kings had been in existence since very ancient times. Would you have been willing to put your signature on a document that called the king a tyrant to be overthrown? After all, this Declaration of Independence listed all of the “wrongs” the colonists believed King George had committed – and why there should be independent states.
Would you have agreed that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?” Today’s scripture readings agree with this point of view. These readings do not support the status quo, they are in favor of change … in favor of a new life for the oppressed.
In our first reading we hear the words spoken by the Prophet Isaiah addressing those Israelites held in bondage in Babylon. Isaiah spoke of a return to Jerusalem over which the LORD GOD would spread peace and prosperity like a river. A place where they would be nurtured as would a child by its mother. A place of comfort and acceptance.
Those colonists who first ventured to the New World some three hundred years ago, saw America as the “New Jerusalem” … a land where “[their] hearts shall rejoice and [their] bodies flourish like the grass.”
● A place of new hope for the ages.
● A place where they could escape from the repressions which had held them back.
● A land where they could seek a new life for themselves and their families.
Through their own hard work over the ensuing years, they were able to fulfill this promise and form a new nation, a nation with the motto: “e pluribus unum …. out of many, one.” It is from our long tradition that, in 1938, FDR began a presidential address to the Daughters of the American Revolution with the words: “My fellow immigrants …”
It is with this tradition of being a nation of immigrants that – in a recent letter to all priests and deacons – Cardinal DiNardo encouraged all Catholic homilists to address the concerns of immigration on this Fourth of July weekend, the time of our annual celebration of our Independence, of our willingness to change from a known past to an unknown future.
Yes, July 4th would be a good time to recall how in the 1700’s the people of Ireland arrived here as indentured servants, working off their immigration costs in order to become citizens of this nation.
● To recall the 1800’s when the French fled the sometimes deadly results of their own revolution to come to the United States.
● To remember that the Irish and French were soon followed by the Germans who, looking for a better life, settled the American frontier from Pennsylvania to the mid-west and Texas.
It is also time to recall how, in the early 1900’s, the newly imposed quota system for immigrants limited the numbers from Eastern and Southern Europe arriving in New York City or Galveston. It was during this period that my own grandparents came to Ohio from Poland and from Italy. They spoke no English. They came here for a better life. Obviously I’m glad they did.
However, it was not a problem-free life in which my grandparents, my American-born parents and I lived out the hopes and dreams of my grandparents. In the early 1900’s, Ohio was the site of Ku Klux Klan threats against Catholics, especially first-generation Catholics. The KKK tried to toss my mother out of a window at school, because she was a Roman Catholic who supposedly followed a foreign leader, the Pope.
The discrimination I endured was more subtle. It occurred only after I introduced myself to others, especially adults. When I said that my name was Pat Camerino, the usual response was: “Really … you don’t look Italian.” I was never sure how to respond to such a comment. I could not understand how I quickly moved from being accepted – to being viewed as somehow associated with the Mafia in Niles, Ohio: the industrial town where I was raised.
Unfortunately, some sixty years later, although the situation has changed for me as a Italian-Polish-American, it has not changed for recent immigrants from Mexico or Latin America or from South-Asian countries such as Viet Nam. In fact it may not have changed from the time when Jesus sent out his 72 friends to the towns who had not yet heard his teachings. The words he spoke to his friends could just as easily be said about these recent migrants: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few, so ask the [foreman] to send out laborers for his harvest. Go on your way, behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals, and greet no one along the way. Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’ If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment.”
Yes, many of the residents of the towns the disciples entered did not accept them … just as many who arrive in our towns and cities are not accepted. And yes, there are those who might say: but Jesus was talking about his disciples, not about illegal immigrants or even those with documents that show they are legal immigrants.
And yes, there are differences between those who do not follow the law and those who do. There was also a time when “workers without papers” were called WOPS … a term many applied equally to my American-born parents. Yes, the legal status of migrants is important. However, as Cardinal DiNardo and other Houston religious leaders have pointed out … many of our current immigration policies and practices do not allow a humane and fair implementation that would allow for an increase in the legal immigration of those either fleeing repression and danger – or those seeking to improve the way of life for their families, as did my own grandparents.
Another religious leader, Saint Paul, believed that the teachings of Christ set us aside from prior associations which bound us. Saint Paul reminds the Galatians that it was neither circumcision (which identified all Jewish males and which once bound them to the Laws of Torah) nor un-circumcision (which identified all Gentile men) – that now mattered. Rather peace and mercy are to be shown to all who practice the teachings of the crucified Lord Jesus Christ. The sign of the cross now unites all who follow him.
Two hundred and thirty four years ago, members of an assembly meeting in Philadelphia said that certain truths are self-evident … that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with the rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. They were courageous leaders who were willing to sign a document stating this and, thereby, becoming traitors to the existing order. They were willing to look to a different future, a changed future, in which these words might became a reality for everyone.
Today we are not called to sign such a world-changing document. But as followers of Christ we are called to accept our brothers and sisters and state: “The kingdom of God is at hand for you.” Yes, for all of you.
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time; July 4, 2010
Is 66:10-14c; Gal 6:14-18; Lk 10:1-9 (shorter form)