"Love the Foreigner" - 28th Sunday Homily

I serve on priest council.

About 30 of us who advise the archbishop on important matters of the diocese.

We meet once a month on Thursdays, my day off.

Sometimes it interferes with golf.

But I'm happy to serve.

It's an honor to serve on the council, of course.

So this past Thursday we met.

And as the meeting's going on, I'm thinking it's cruising right along.

Look at the agenda, like the Archbishop is leading he's doing a great job.

We might just finish early, this doesn't happen at priest council.

And then he said, I'd like to talk at length about immigration.

I said, we are not finishing early.

We have not talked about immigration before.

And it went for 45 minutes, but it was really good.

It was really good to hear him speak about it.

This is Cardinal McElroy, course.

and then open up to the priests and I wanted to relay what was said, especially by our bishop.

He said he's working with the administration, especially the vice president, and presenting Catholic teaching on immigration.

Namely that countries have a responsibility to welcome immigrants who are not criminals and they're looking for better conditions.

They need to respect, immigrants need to respect the law of the

country to where they're going.

I think that the country has the right to say who comes in and who doesn't.

I think his eminence is in favor of a secure border because he brought up when he was bishop in San Diego, the open border was a mess.

As he was opening up to the praise for conversation and discussion, he said we need to defend the undocumented.

And then the priests flushed that out as they told stories working with immigrants who were undocumented in their parishes and they are with them, walking with them, praying

with them, praying for them, and helping them to become documented, which I thought is really beautiful.

And in the midst of that, the Archbishop spoke up about a bill in Congress called the Dignity Act, which is bipartisan bill presenting three things.

strengthen border security, help the undocumented become documented, and to update the immigration system in general, which is broken.

Now I did speak at the end of the meeting.

I raised my hand.

I didn't say, hey, I think we're done.

Let's move on.

I didn't say that.

But I said, because a priest before me said, can we just focus on Jesus and what the Bible says about all this?

And I raised my hand and said, well, actually this gospel this Sunday talks about a foreigner.

Jesus highlighted the foreigner as the only one who gives thanks.

But we also have the foreigner Naaman in the first reading who is cleansed of his leprosy in the Jordan River.

Remember to Leviticus 19.

to treat the alien as you would a to love the alien as yourself, for you once were aliens in Egypt.

So I'm taking all this in from Thursday, I think what can we do?

It's a really important issue, this tough situation in our country.

Two things I would suggest we do, or start to do, is to be active.

To provide resources for those who are undocumented in our community to become documented.

We have outreach centers website has immigration resources, particularly with legal services that they can trust.

Also, I think we should contact our local representatives to support this Dignity Act, which the Archbishop seems to favor.

Two, we should pray.

We're starting to pray in small groups like the Rosary at the Grotto the other night during October, praying for immigrants, lawmakers, law enforcement.

And also, I've asked the deacon to include

a regular petition.

That was the discussion the other day to pray for the parishes to pray at Mass regularly for all those involved affected Finally, this Samaritan leper is an example to us.

Someone filled with thanksgiving.

He recognizes the depth of his healing, his cleansing.

was leprosy.

It wasn't just physical.

It was social.

was personal.

It was spiritual to the point Jesus says, faith has saved you.

This man has a deep, deep experience of healing from the Lord Jesus.

And rightfully, he comes back filled with thanksgiving.

That's the model for us as Eucharistic people to recognize what the Lord has done for us in terms of healing and cleansing and peace, addressing our wounds in all these areas, and

really our history as the Jewish people did as we as Christians come to the Eucharist to give thanks for all the blessings, all the ways God has touched us, and be filled with

thanksgiving.