EVERYBODY'S CHALLENGE - Jesuit Refugee Service | USA

The criterion of the authenticity
of our faith
Peter-Hans Kolvenbach SJ
A homily on Matthew’s Gospel 2: 13-18 at the European Congress of Jesuit
Alumni and Alumnae in Brussels, 19 August 1993
The theme of today’s Gospel is that the refugee, the migrant and the
exile is the Lord himself. Whenever they benefit refugees, actions
that are effective touch the very heart of God.
Jesus, the Son of God, finds himself at odds with the political
powers as soon as he is born. His frail and defenceless family is
forced to reach for the only defense available, namely flight into
a strange land. And it was not only to provide him with relative
security that the Lord God called his son out of Egypt, the land of
slavery. In his own personal experience, Jesus fulfils the destiny
of his own people and of so many other peoples. He experiences
emigration, immigration, flight, exile.
Once the chosen people had entered the Holy Land and settled
there, the word of God ceaselessly reminded them that God had
brought them out of another country, and for this reason they should
be ready to receive other peoples as migrants. We should give a
welcome to all who flee wars and famine, as did Israel of old, and
to all who are forced by political hardship or economic exploitation
to seek shelter.
When Job announces that he will allow no sojourner to pass the
night without shelter (Job 31:32), he is in fact receiving the image and
likeness of the God whose heart is open to welcome the oppressed.
The Old Testament records this special love of God for the stranger,
the marginalised, the orphan and the widow (Ps. 146:9). Because
this welcome is a core aspect of God’s identity, the Law of Israel
prohibits xenophobia or racial discrimination. Refugee, immigrant
or exile, each is first a human being, a son or daughter of our Father,
a brother or sister of Jesus the Lord, in whom the Spirit of God shines.
Jesus showed clearly that his Father’s love for the weak is the
distinctive characteristic of our God. He sought to share the life of
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