by Ian Mitchell, CST Education Coordinator for the USCCB Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development
Who is my neighbor? It’s a question that seems as old as the hills, and as timely as the latest cries from an “Occupy” encampment or protest in any major city. It was the question that provoked Jesus’ famous story of a traveler who stops to inquire about a wounded person in the street, and ends up saving his life. But what does it mean for you and for me at the start of an election year that promises to be more vicious than any that has gone before it, during an ever-deeper economic crisis, and amidst the flickering flames of new wars while the fires of present ones still rage? It’s a question that drives us in search of people and lessons that can help us find our bearings in troubled times.
Have you ever heard of the Lost Boys of Sudan? The name caught on in the 1990s to describe several waves of thousands of children, mostly but not all boys, who were uprooted from their villages in the south of Sudan by a brutal civil war, and ended up as refugees in Kenya. About 10 years ago I was privileged to get to know some of these so-called “Lost Boys” in Syracuse, New York, where as young men they were trying to make a new start under very tough circumstances, in a very different country. They taught me a lot by their deep perseverance that helped them make their way to work through snowy Syracuse nights, or kept them in college despite traumatic histories and empty pockets. They taught me a lot about the power of sticking together and supporting one another in the midst of crisis. They also taught me about the value of groups like Catholic Relief Services that provided lifelines of food and medicine to refugee camps that sheltered these children on the run from war, and Catholic Charities that helped them adjust to life in the United States. Eventually 3,800 of these young men were resettled in the U.S. with the help of groups like the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services. Countless everyday Catholics—at parishes, in schools, in their workplaces—directly assisted these refugees and also engaged in advocacy on their behalf.
When we allow ourselves to honestly encounter people in trouble, we also discover unexpected gifts. Most immediately, we might actually be able to do something to improve their situation. But was that all that Jesus meant by telling us to “Go and do likewise” in the story of the traveler assisting a wounded person in the street? There is also the possibility that such meetings will also spark a real experience of compassion – literally “feeling with” – that we all too easily gloss over. This sets the groundwork for realization of our own participation in the wounds of those we desire to help, which changes everything. No longer is it enough to only respond person-by-person to the troubles around us. Rather, we realize the need to also address systemic causes, and that we must join with others to mobilize for justice.
Catholic social ministries like Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services, and many others continue to save lives directly in small ways and big ways, at home and abroad, every day. But their encounters with suffering people have also helped us as Church to learn from suffering neighbors like the Lost Boys of Sudan how we must mobilize for deeper healing and more thorough transformation—in structural and systemic ways—of the community we share with them. This weekend, more than 15 national organizations and more than 400 leaders in Catholic social ministry will gather in Washington, D.C. to refresh our minds, hearts, and spirits to act with and for people who are poor, suffering, and vulnerable. We will learn and pray about poverty-focused international assistance; the struggle with rampant roots of conflict and migration; homelessness and joblessness; striving for just economies; restoring healthy ecology; war and human rights; freedom to practice faith in this and other countries; and many more challenges we face together. We seek clearer vision, more energized imagination, more united voices to call others to a shared response – including our legislators on Capitol Hill. May we find along the way that all of us, travelers and strangers alike, are a little less “lost” than before.
