By Ann Coady
Mi 5:1-4a | Heb 10:5-10 | Lk 1:39-45
“And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” –Luke 1:43
Sometimes an encounter with a person fills me with wonder and gratitude and opens my heart to long-lasting friendship. It is a spark of the divine. I have experienced this in my work with migrants and refugees often. I feel what they have told me: “Diós te puso en mi camino.” “God placed you on my journey.”
In my 45 years of accompanying migrants, I have been graced with many “Elizabeth and Mary” moments and built lasting friendships.
One such friend was Marta, the mother of three young boys, who was isolated in our community. I was asked to accompany a parish volunteer on a home visit as a translator. Marta needed food, which the parish provided, and I helped enroll her boys in school after confronting the superintendent for denying the right Marta’s boys had to study there. Marta and I became fast friends, and we remained friends even after she became a Jehovah’s Witness and worried that I would not be accepted into the Kingdom.
And then there was Dora. Dora had five children. We used to squeeze them all into our van and take them to Mass on Sundays, with a treat of New York bagels afterward. Dora’s oldest died of cancer a few years later, at age 17, possibly due to poisoning from the chemicals he was exposed to while helping his dad in his landscaping business.
Ceci was from El Salvador. Her traumatized kids jumped under the bed every time they heard a car backfire. On one occasion I loaned her money. She was anxious to pay me back but had trouble getting the money together. She asked if I would accept repayment in pupusas, and I agreed, grateful not to have to cook on Fridays after working all week. Our family ate pupusas every Friday. Though our youngest complained, asking me why I couldn’t have helped an Italian woman who could repay us with pizza.
Carmen showed up at our Wisconsin free clinic, very thin, weak, sunburned, and limping. She was the last one in her group descending a rope over the border wall when someone yelled “la migra!” The coyote cut the rope and she fell, badly spraining her ankle. Everyone fled, leaving her alone in the desert and unable to walk. Three days later a Border Patrol helicopter flew over, looking for bodies. When the ground patrol found her, they were surprised she was alive. She is now with relatives, gradually recovering.
And always there is Miriam. Miriam showed up at my office on the day before Thanksgiving with her infant in a stroller. She was staying with a family that was being evicted that weekend. I called Catholic Charities, the Parish Outreach Office, the county’s Social Services…everyone had left for the holiday. I called my husband to ask if she might stay with us just until Monday when offices reopened. She ended up staying for months, until she could find childcare, employment, and housing. She struggled mightily raising this baby, who is our godson, and is now twenty-six years old. Even though we now live half a country apart, we still talk weekly by phone to stay in touch. Last Saturday she called to tell me that she had finally passed the citizenship test and will be sworn in later this month. Oh, how I wish I could be there!
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” And who am I that the bearer of the Sacred One has come into my presence, and I have recognized her?
Ann Coady is a Maryknoll affiliate. This reflection was originally published in the 2024 Advent Reflection Guide: One Family of God.
Featured image: Maryknoll Lay Missioners and Maryknoll Affiliates are creating a collaborative community in El Paso, with a leased house available for affiliates and returned lay missioners who provide volunteer service at migrant shelters on the border. (Courtesy of Maryknoll Affiliates/U.S.)
Questions for Reflection
Has someone in your life come from far away to offer you comfort and joy? Or has your journey and arrival brought joy to another?
What was it about that encounter that spoke to you, brought you hope, or gladdened your heart?
Prayer
Help us to remember, O God, that you call us to welcome, protect, promote and integrate.
“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
Touch our hearts with courage as you have with our brothers and sisters in Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, Ethopia and Uganda who have opened their doors most widely to your searching and migrating people.
And from the rubble of Aleppo a seven-year-old girl tweets, “Dear children, never lose hope. You are future of this world, we suffer now but we shall overcome. We are weak now but we shall be stronger.”
R: Every stranger who knocks on our door… brings an opportunity for encounter with Jesus the Christ.
—Ann Carr, Maryknoll Affiliate
