“All these migrants crossing the border! They’re destroying our country!” she proclaims, just arrived from Christmas mass, where the whole congregation rejoiced the arrival of Jesus. The hypocrisy shocks me silent, my heart screaming “Jesus was a migrant, for Christ’s sake.” The next chapter in this merry-making-gift-giving story includes his parents’ flight from oppression, how they sought refuge in a foreign country to find a better life for their child. Or didn’t you read that far? Do your holiday prayers exclude empathy and compassion, do unto others, Matthew 25? Did you forget the ALL of the purpose of the child?
©2023, Jen Payne. IMAGE: Flight Into Egypt, by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1923.
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