Food for Thought

This year, a group of U.S. bishops celebrated Mass in Nogales, Ariz., close to the iron slabs that line the border between Mexico and the United States.

May 02, 2014

This year, a group of U.S. bishops celebrated Mass in Nogales, Ariz., close to the iron slabs that line the border between Mexico and the United States.

In the U.S., the term a person uses to define those who have crossed this border (and how they have done it) depends on the political side of the fence you’re on. Boston’s Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley offered a different term to use, one that’s based on the Gospel.

“They are our neighbours,” Cardinal O’Malley said, reminding the faithful that one “cannot love God without loving your neighbour.”

The Mass noted the countless neighbours who have perished in the treacherous desert as they tried to cross the border, as well as the neighbours who make a safe crossing yet encounter suffering in a new land.

“We come here today to be a neighbour and to find a neighbour in each of the suffering people who risk their lives and at times lose their lives in the desert,” Cardinal O’Malley said.

Like the Samaritan who helped the traveller on the road to Jericho, we, too, have an obligation, Cardinal O’Malley added.

“Pope Francis encourages us to go to the periphery to seek our neighbour in places of pain and darkness,” he said. -- CNS

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