What a way to start the New Year! Instead of parties and champaigne, 600 Indiana women and men, who have committed themselves to the way of Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi, prayed and organized others to sign post cards to legislators.  They pleaded to God and their co-citizens to reform laws that divide families, keep millions living in fear, and build more walls between people.  These Franciscans in Indiania, inspired by efforts of the Franciscan Action Network (FAN) to coordinate a common Franciscan approach to local and national immigration policy, joined Catholics around the country in recalling how Joseph, Mary and Jesus fled as refugees to Egypt to escape political oppression by an unjust king. (Matthew 2)

The U.S. Catholic Church, which has served and advocated for immigrants in this country for 400 years, designated January 3-10, 2010, as National Migration Week. This designation serves to call attention to the billion people throughout the world forced from their homes and displaced through war, natural disasters, climate change, and economic necessity.  This year, the children of immigrants and refugees, our modern day “Jesus in flight,” motivated the Indiana Franciscans' prayer and political action.

“The Christian God is a God of immigrants, indeed an Immigrant God,” says Brother Bill Short, OFM, a theologian and historian from the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, California.  “Francis often reminded his followers of the biblical injunction that we are ‘aliens and exiles, pilgrims and strangers’ on earth.”  (I Peter 2,11).  Francis liked to quote St. Paul: “Our Lord Jesus Christ…was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8,9)  For taking the path of living with and serving lepers and outcasts, Francis felt the sting of rejection by the people of his time.  Followers of Francis and Clare today feel a special kinship with today's most “undesireables." They commit their lives to serve the poor, especially those marginalized by society.  Franciscans are expressing their solidarity with immigrants and refugees through their work, their prayer and their citizen action. FAN continues to thrive from the witness and activity of committed local activists like the "Indiana 600" as it seeks to contribute a uniquely Franciscan perspective on how our nation and the world can care for immigrants, migrants, and displaced persons.

As a way of translating Franciscan faith into action, the Franciscans of Indiana, who minister in over 80 parishes, schools, and health care facilities in that state, invited those who attended vigils and prayers to sign post cards to be delivered to their Members of Congress and Senators later this month.  The cards ask legislators to support just, humane, and comprehensive immigration reform now.

For those who might take a good idea even further into the new year, you can view a sample of the organizing letter  (PDF) to institutional leadership, and the English and Spanish versions of the Migrant Week prayer service (PDF) that were used during the week by the organizers.

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Special thanks to FAN member Tom Fox, OFM and FAN Action Commissioner Marge Wissman, OSF for providing the above information and resources.