"He taught me how to watch, fight and pray"

This is one of those times that I find it difficult to be a Catholic blogger. For the first several years of my efforts here, I posted daily and opined about everything. Frankly, after a few years I grew exhausted. But I don't think I can call myself a Catholic blogger without posting something about what is happening along the southern border of the United States. Our government is effectively placing immigrants in concentration camps, detaining them in overcrowded conditions and all that goes along with that, heat, noise, filth, etc. Family unity remains imperiled. I am abhorred by what is happening. No matter what one thinks about immigration across our southern border, which, since 2008 has dropped rather sharply, I would hope we all agree that people, families, including women and children, should be treated humanely.

When you consider the risk people who try to cross into the United States take by so doing, you gain some insight into how awful the conditions they are fleeing must be. People immigrating from Central America, like the young father and his daughter from El Salvador, Oscar Alberto & Angie Valeria Martínez, who drowned, are fleeing horrific conditions. Moreover, the conditions Central American refugees/immigrants are fleeing are the result of political and societal circumstances that are the result of U.S. policy toward that region dating back well over a century or more. Let's not forget that the Salvadoran gang MS13, members of which our president has called "animals," was borne on the means streets of L.A., not San Salvador.

Today the Church throughout the world observes the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Appropos to the crisis on our border, which is not brought about by a high influx of immigrants but our government's treatment of those apprehended, the Gospel for today's Solemnity, taken from the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, is Jesus's parable of the good shepherd (Luke 15:3-7). The good shepherd is the one who leaves the 99 and goes after the one who is lost. Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso is demonstrating what this means in a very concrete. Bishop Seitz is personally escorting asylum-seekers across the U.S. border. Bishop Seitz has described this country's treatment of immigrants as "an affront to human rights and human dignity." Like widow of Zarephath, who took the prophet Elijah under her roof during a time of drought and famine on the promise she would continue to have enough food to feed her and her son, there is just enough good news in the Church these days to keep me from despair (see 1 Kings 17:7-16).

I know Mavis Staples singing Bob Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody" was our traditio just two weeks ago. Nonetheless, our traditio for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is Mavis sing the Gospel tune "O Happy Day" with late, great Aretha Franklin. Jesus is One who taught me to watch, fight, and pray. I should do this rejoicing everyday. Well, I am working on the rejoicing bit. Jesus is gentle, kind, and patient with me. I live in the hope that someday rejoicing will be my whole existence. For now, I am a work in progress.