This October 4 we celebrate the Feast of Saint Francis at the house of the Father of Mercies. On this date we commemorate the meeting of “Brother Francis” with the Most High and Good Lord. This disciple of Jesus lived and acted in a way that today gives us a light for these times of structural injustice that produces large impoverished majorities, destruction of our common home, and violence against the innocent. It therefore generates a large number of forced migrants to leave their “homeland”. Let us return to the inspiration that Brother Francis left us, his existential and spiritual proposal for today:
A first proposal is to have the conviction and faith that “sister mother earth” sustains us, sustains and cares for our lives, that we are inhabitants with the creatures in this common home. This conviction led Francis to believe in God the Creator, to develop a relationship in reverence with all that was created, to experience the goodness and wisdom of God in each creature, to be a brother to creatures and not one who uses creatures as merchandise for your financial gain. Many extractivist companies have deprived communities and populations of their territories, their heritage and their home, causing the forced migration of peasant families.
Another proposal arises from the conviction and faith of being a younger brother with the men and women on the road. Francis experienced fraternity as a living gift, where each human being is valued in their dignity, diversity and originality as a person. Francis believed that each human being is an image of the Creator God. Forced migration sends the message that life is worth nothing; rights are violated, and the poor and defenseless are victims of armed groups. The fraternity of which we speak has political dimensions which lead to overcoming the racism and xenophobias that come from groups based on fascist and neo-Nazi ideologies.
Francis’s inspired proposal is inclusive of what is generally excluded, integrating what has been discarded by society and the Church. This is based on that symbolic gesture of hugging and kissing the leper, which led Francis to change “the bitter into sweetness of body and soul,” that is, that the option for the excluded will mark our bodies and hearts. Migrants with irregular status are treated with contempt, exploited and stripped of their rights as human migrants, and that is why the Franciscan attitude and commitment is to integrate and defend each migrant on the journey.
Francis’s inspired proposal is inclusive of what is generally excluded, integrating what has been discarded by society and the Church. This is based on that symbolic gesture of hugging and kissing the leper, which led Francis to change “the bitter into sweetness of body and soul,” that is, that the option for the excluded will mark our bodies and hearts. Migrants with irregular status are treated with contempt, exploited and stripped of their rights as human migrants, and that is why the Franciscan attitude and commitment is to integrate and defend each migrant on the journey.
Francis sought out a meeting with the Sultan of Egypt Malik al Kamil, confident that, if he walked stripped of military power, hierarchical status and a warlike act, he would find a brother in the sultan. Francis took the first steps for the encounter to take place with a different culture and religion. This was a meeting, marked by the simplicity of being a brother and friend. Migration is an ancient human practice which recreates the meeting of cultures, where, being of different languages, beliefs and meanings, new populations have been established. Francis invites us to go to meet the OTHER as brothers and sisters who only carry the greeting of PEACE AND ALL GOOD.
Br. Martin on the road over the train tracks, Guaymas – Sonora
At this time of the migratory drama, the Franciscan Network on Migration (RFM) has emerged by inspiration of the Spirit in these Latin American lands, and it’s Good News in these lands that are soaked in innocent blood. Individuals become migrants as they flee from the situation of injustice, poverty and violence to which they are subjected. They became migrants with only a glimmer of hope to live in peace again. The RFM counts on the lives of franciscan people who put their body, intelligence and heart at the disposal of solidarity, being brothers and sisters of those who travel the roads as strangers and pilgrims: the migrants.
The RFM has places and spaces that are on the “migratory route”, made available to the institutions of the Franciscan family. It is about being like that young man in the Gospel, who offered his “five loaves and two fish” so that the miracle would occur that everyone would feel at home and eat their fill (Jn 6,9). The RFM is a collective construction of feelings, intuitions and actions that bring life to migrants who are looking for a home that welcomes them, this is achieved on the basis of fraternity, in creative solidarity every day that “brother sun” rises. The RFM is a hopeful dream that begins to have the charismatic and audacious dynamism inherited from Francis and Clara de Asís, thus, a proposal that seeks to respond with humility and generosity to the cry of, “where is your migrant brother and sister?” The RFM is beginning, as the poet and singer said, that dreams are made “without permission”, of the powerful and oppressors of this story.
René Arturo Flores, OFM
RFM – El Salvador Team
Cover image: Ilustração Franciscana