December 2007

'No Room At The Inn'

There is so much richness in the Christmas story which bears a message that is particularly pertinent to the challenges that we face in welcoming our growing immigrant population.

Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus Himself allowed themselves to be taken for strangers and refugees. This reality should teach and speak to us about the gift that today’s immigrants are to our Church, especially as we seek new means and methods of evangelising our land.

From hearing those terrible words, ‘No room at the inn’ to the hurried flight into Egypt, the Holy Family identified themselves completely with all those in Britain and many other countries who find themselves exiled. This can come about for political or religious reasons, or simply searching, as we all do, for a better way of living and a decent job.

What does it mean to be a genuine friend of the poor, or of a refugee, not in a professional sense, but to make them welcome in your home? What does that mean for our parishes – how can they be places where the stranger feels at home, not patronised or put up with for a while because we’re Christians, or treated as some kind of exotic animal?

To welcome the stranger is to welcome Jesus. Perhaps one of the best ways we can share the true meaning of Christmas is to consider how our parishes can become evangelising communities where we hear the stories of the immigrants, value who they are, serve their needs, allow them to evangelise us, and work alongside them to evangelise our society.

For more, please see:
www.caseresources.org.uk/resources/Immigration.htm

Image sources: www.freshplaza.com/.../Illegal-Immigrants-C.jpg and www.nativityparish.info/images/nativity41300.gif