"Just Thoughts"--What Would Jesus Do?

Just Thoughts: What Would Jesus Do?

[Here is the "Just Thoughts" column for St. Mary's bulletin--June 14, 2015]

In 1896 Charles Sheldon wrote a book entitled “In His Steps.” The subtitle of the book was “What Would Jesus Do?” This book grew out of a series of sermons Sheldon gave in his Congregational Church in Topeka, Kansas. The book, and the concept behind it, had a powerful impact on many people hoping to shape the world according to the words and actions of Jesus. Of course, it isn’t always so simple or straightforward to know what Jesus would do in a 21st Century context. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

It is very useful to try to ask what Jesus would do when justice is at stake. Sometimes the answer becomes stunningly clear:

What would Jesus do when so many people in Painesville go hungry. Well, he’d find a way to feed them! He’d work to change laws and social structures so that no one goes hungry.

What would Jesus do when 100 homeless people are out in the cold and snow on a January night  in Painesville? Why, he would find a way to give them a warm and respectable shelter! He’d find an approach to ending homelessness in the world’s richest country.

What would Jesus do when foreigners and immigrants are despised or discriminated against? Well, that one is easy. He gave us the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37). He commanded us to love our neighbors, love the foreigner, as we love ourselves. Both the Old and New Testaments call for generosity, kindness, and hospitality for the foreigner. So we know clearly what Jesus would do.

Thinking about “What Would Jesus Do” can help us build a fairer, more just society--the New Jerusalem. The Beloved Community. Many people at St. Mary’s keep “WWJD” in mind when they make and serve the Karpos meals for the homeless and hungry every Wednesday and Thursday evenings; when they open the St. Mary’s Warming Center on bitter cold winter nights; when they visit the sick, the lonely, the homebound; when they bring comfort and the Eucharist to those in the Lake County jail. These and other actions, not so public, that serve our fellow human beings the way Jesus did.

A Cleveland Group Fighting to Save Immigrant Children

Yesterday there was a dinner fundraiser of the Cleveland Children's Coalition, a group fighting to save immigrant children in Northeast Ohio. The meeting was at a West Side Mexican restaurant, Villa y Zapata, and involved 20-25 people, among them some of the finest people in the Greater Cleveland area. You cannot save children without saving their mothers. So that is also a focus of the group. And the fathers are also crucial players in these issues. A good example of this is a woman I will call "Evita," from Lake County, Ohio. She is an undocumented immigrant (though she's lived here for 16 years), a PSR teacher in a local Catholic parish, a homeowner, a taxpayer, with four boys who are American citizens. Evita went back to Mexico, an emergency visit, because her mother was dying. Her mother did indeed die; luckily Evita was there by here mother's bedside, to give her comfort and courage.

When Evita tried to get back into the United States, she was captured at the border, and has been imprisoned for about two months in a detention center near El Paso. Her husband is at home in Lake County taking care of the four school-age boys. That is why we care about the children and the mothers and the fathers. Mexican and Central American families are so tight that if one component is missing or damaged (the child, the mother, or the father), then the entire structure can collapse.

The tragic stories these immigrants carry are heartbreaking, and reveal a cruel and truly heartless and illogical immigration policy. We are trying to do something to help the situation.

At yesterday's gathering, we saw some prominent clergy, Fr. Bob Begin (formerly pastor of St. Colman's) and Fr. Rob Reidy of Sagrada Familia parish in Cleveland, many Notre Dame nuns, the astonishing force of nature Sr. Mary Rita Harwood, and some brave lawyers, law students, and their assistants: Svetlana Schroeber, Carmen, and Sara Elaqad.

The organizers included Kate O'Donnell, Maureen Pergola, Joy Macinlay, Sr. Marie Manning, and Kate Uhlir.

There was a good contingent there from St. Mary's Painesville: Linda Coughlin, Kathy Flora, Dan Philipps, Kathy Philipps, Brian Rice, Pat Denny and her son Donny (not exactly from St. Mary's, but we will claim them), and myself. This is a tribute to the social justice focus and energy of our parish. By the way, many people involved with St. Mary's social justice ministries are not Catholic and not officially parishioners--but we love them and they give so much to our parish and the people we serve.

Here are some photos from that gathering:

Sr. Rita Mary Harwood

Padre Rob Reidy, of Sagrada Familia

The program for the fundraiser

Svetlana and Fr. Rob Reidy

Just Thoughts: Immigration

Just Thoughts: Immigration

At the end of the mass held at this year’s Celtic Festival in Painesville, Fr. Tom Johns, pastor of St. John Vianney parish in Mentor, reminded everyone of the July 12th Cleveland Diocese-sponsored “Walk for Justice” for Immigrants. He asked us to remember that the Irish ancestors of the people present were immigrants, and faced great discrimination because of their nationality and Catholicism. There is still a cultural memory of this discrimination--it is not so far in the past.

The Catholic Church in America is a church of immigrants. Catholics were relative late-comers in this country. Great waves of immigration started in the 1840s during the Irish Potato Famine and hardly decreased in the decades that followed. Greater Cleveland’s Catholic population is made up of the descendants of these immigrants: Irish, German, Italian, Polish, Slovenian, Croatian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Hispanic, and others. So Catholics in America should never forget the immigrants, of the past or the present. They are us.

Come to think of it, almost everyone in America comes from immigrant stock. A few of us can trace our roots back to early colonists, but most of us have much more recent American roots. It could be said that Native Americans are the only people who aren't from immigrant stock.

Why do people leave everything behind and move to a new country? Think about it: if you had a good home, a safe environment, a good job, would you move across the ocean to a place where you might not even speak the language? When people emigrate from their native land, it is often out of desperation. It must be the hardest decision.

In the new land immigrants often face daunting obstacles--discrimination, the need to quickly learn a new language, the need for the basics of life, food, shelter, safety. The need for honorable work. Sometimes they feel rejected by the new society. That brings to mind the great line from the gospels: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” The Catholic immigrants, our ancestors, once rejected and discriminated against, are cornerstones of the strong and prosperous America we have today.

We as Catholic Christians must stand up for immigrants, find a just resolution to the dilemmas presented to our society by immigration. If we are successful, the immigrants will strengthen our society--and Church. We at St. Mary’s in Painesville, Ohio, have a great opportunity to work with the immigrants in our midst, and to offer our success as a model for the broader society.