Today’s readings have a singular theme: welcoming the stranger. It is no exaggeration to state that nothing is more biblical than welcoming the stranger. This injunction appears from the opening pages of the Sacred Scriptures to the last pages.
It was Jesus himself who said: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”1 The inspired author of the Letter the Hebrews urged early Christians “not to neglect hospitality” because by extending hospitality to all “some have unknowingly entertained angels.”2 In his Regula, or Rule, Saint Benedict instructs the brothers: “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ…”3
God often reminded his Chosen People, Israel, to welcome the stranger among them and to treat foreigners in their midst justly: “You shall not oppress a resident alien; you well know how it feels to be an alien, since you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.”4
In our uniquely Christian scriptures, we are reminded that before putting on Christ we “were ‘no people’ but now you are God’s people; you “had not received mercy” but now you have received mercy.”5 In other words, as Gentiles on whom God has taken mercy through Christ, the Canaanite woman is us. Who are we, then, not to extend the mercy we have received to others?
God has only ever extended one covenant to humanity: “You will be my people and I will be your God.”6 Through Jesus Christ, this covenant is open to all. What it means to be God’s people is to keep God’s commandments.
What does God command? “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”7 This prompts the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus’s most famous answer to this question, found in Saint Luke’s Gospel, is the Parable of the Good Samaritan. In its essence, the Law is but the means to the end of loving God with your whole being by loving your neighbor as you love yourself.
“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother,” we read elsewhere in the New Testament, “he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”8
Christ and the Woman of Canaan, by Peter Lastman, 1617
The Samaritan’s neighbor was the robbed and beaten Jew who likely despised him and of whom the Samaritan was likely not a priori very fond. Your neighbor is the one who needs your help. As Christians, we are to “make” ourselves a neighbor to those in need.
We cannot succumb to what Pope Francis has identified as a culture of indifference. Indifference to the plight of those who flee war, persecution, corruption, lack of education, etc. Nor can we participate in what the Holy Father has dubbed a throw-away culture, one in which even human beings are expendable.
In our American context, we must distinguish patriotism from nationalism. Because U.S. citizenship is not rooted in blood and soil, ours is a nation of immigrants, the proverbial melting pot. This diversity contributes to our country’s greatness. Nationalism, which often manifests as racism and xenophobia, is, therefore, antithetical to U.S. patriotism.
Our commitment to follow Christ trumps all other loyalties. Christianity is either universal or it is nothing. In free societies, Christians are to pursue the common good of everyone. It has been observed that a nation’s greatness is best measured by how it treats its weakest members. If we take the scriptures seriously, let alone claim to be a Christian nation, our greatness is also measured by how, not whether, we welcome those who seek entry.
This is beautifully expressed in words from Emma Lazarus’s poem, The New Colossus. This poem was engraved on a bronze plaque and attached to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903. The poet places these words on the lips of “A mighty woman with a torch”-
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries sheMonsignor Luigi Giussani, in a passionate speech delivered in Saint Peter’s Square, perhaps taking his cue from today’s Gospel, insisted: “The true protagonist of history is the beggar: Christ who begs for man’s heart, and man’s heart that begs for Christ.” Christ begs for your heart through the person in need, through the immigrant and the refugee, many of whom are our sisters and brothers in Christ.
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”9
1 Matthew 25:35.↩
2 Hebrews 13:2.↩
3 Rule of Saint Benedict, 53:1.↩
4 Exodus 23:9.↩
5 1 Peter 2:10.↩
6 Jeremiah 30:22..↩
7 Matthew 27:37.39; Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18.↩
8 1 John 4:20-21.↩
9 The New Colossus.↩
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