February 26 - St. Francis Sponsored Syrian Refugee Family

The Catholic Standard recently carried an article about how St. Francis of Assisi Parish is working to sponsor a family from Daara, Syria as part of Montgomery County Interfaith Refugee Resettlement Neighbors, which consists of about twenty mosques, synagogues, and churches in Montgomery County.  The Islamic Center of Maryland and Temple Beth Ami are also sponsoring this family.  Mary Kate Ryner, a member of our Pax Christi group told the reporter at the Catholic Standard that the family is in need of assistance with scheduling and attending doctors’ appointments after three years of living in a refugee camp with poor sanitation, no medical care, and a shortage of water.  A nurse who is a member of this parish agreed to accompany them to appointments, since the language barrier makes it difficult to communicate with the doctors.  While we are helping the family meet basic needs, our goal is to make sure that the family can become independent.
I first met the Religious of Jesus and Mary when I was the Pastor of St. Mark the Evangelist Parish, Hyattsville and was struck with their great desire to imitate the example of their foundress, St. Claudine Thevenet.  St. Claudine was moved to compassion and action by the great suffering she saw all around her.  The Religious of Jesus and Mary (RJMs) founded St. Mark’s School when the parish was established in 1958 and have maintained a presence in the parish even after the school had closed.  I am delighted that Sisters Rosemary Mangan and Janet Stolba, both Religious of Jesus and Mary, are assisting our parish in working with the refugee family.  This is particularly important to the RJMs because several of their Sisters are currently working in Syria.  The RJMs had been working in a school in Aleppo and are now based in Damascus, Syria.
Our working with this family and with the Montgomery County Interfaith Refugee Resettlement Neighbors is a concrete way in which we can put into practice a recommendation of our recently completed first Archdiocesan Synod that “the needs and rights of immigrants and refugees be advocated for at the local, state, and federal levels, and that Catholics be educated about the needs and rights of immigrants so that they may be advocated for” (Service Recommendation 8).
Cardinal Wuerl explains why we as Catholics should be concerned about the situation of migrants in a recent blog post:
The plight of migrants and the response of local communities and the nations is something that the Catholic Church is concerned about because it involves people and our efforts toward the common good—in this case, the fundamental right to pursue liberty and justice.  In the face of this kind of challenge, the principles of Catholic Social Teaching can help inform people’s thinking and shed light on what is best concerning the mass movement of peoples.
In the same blog post Cardinal Wuerl reviews what our Lord told us about how we should welcome the stranger in our midst:
As Christians, we begin by examining scripture to see what the Lord teaches.  Jesus says that we should welcome the stranger with compassion, kindness, understanding, peace and love—just as he did in his own time.  While the sheer numbers of migrants on the move around the globe, with some finding their way to our own community, may seem to be overwhelming, as Christians it is vital that we see the humanity in the faces of immigrants that stand behind the statistics and policy responses.
Last month during National Migration Week we gathered as an archdiocese for prayer and advocacy in a series of public events to show our shared commitment to accompanying our migrant and refugee sisters and brothers living in our communities.  But this should not be confined to just one week in the year.  Our assistance to the recently arrived family from Daara, Syria, will be an opportunity to encounter migrants as persons as we help them to adjust in American society and hopefully to grow and prosper here in our land of opportunity.
Until next week,
Fr. John Dillon
Pastor