October 5. SEE. Good Samaritans. Building a civilisation of love.  Anti-foreigner demonstrations wracked our country earlier in the year.  Protests focused on illegal foreign nationals and their families from neighbouring countries calling for their deportation. Authorities were unhelpful in many cases as chaos reigned for some time during the coldest weeks of winter.  Many refugee families were displaced and fled, some returning to their home countries. Others found refuge at embassies where locals, churches and charities contributed towards their basic needs.  Was the situation politically instigated? Was the concern about foreigners stealing jobs from locals sufficient cause?  Was the situation just and the plight of children, mothers and fathers forced to abandon the lives they had created reasonable?  Where was our common humanity and the recognition of the dignity of every person, as our Constitution guarantees the rights of every person who lives here?  Was this incident a modern day Good Samaritan story gone bad?

A personal memory comes to mind.  In 1994 – the 1st International Year of the Family, we, Chris and Toni  Rowland, Fr Francois Dufour and our daughter Desiree, were in Rome at this time participating in the 1st World Meeting of Families with the theme “The Family, Heart of the Civilisation of Love.”  See the image Rome 1994. Pope Leo has chosen the focus of a civilisation of love in Magnifica Humanatas.    

JUDGE. Reflect, share. Scripture: “A man was going own from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers……  Read the parable of the Good Samaritan. Luke 10:25-37. Pope Francis:  Migration is a sign of the times to be understood in terms of its negative effects on family life. A pastoral programme addressed not only to families that migrate but also to those family members who remain behind is required.  AL46.  Love can never be just an abstraction.  By its very nature it indicates something concrete: intentions, attitudes and behaviours that are shown in daily living. MV9. Pope Leo: Migrants are people with dignity, resources and dreams, who have the right to be treated with respect and to ask to become active members of the societies that welcome them. Social justice in this area entails two complementary commitments: protecting the rightful hopes of those forced to leave by ensuring safe and legal routes, dignified conditions for receiving them, and genuine pathways to integration.  MH 81. Today, we must resolutely recover the vision, of the civilization of love, no naïve utopia, but a demanding project, which consists in translating charity into structures of justice, giving institutional form to fraternity and regarding others — whether individuals or peoples — as allies necessary for building the common good. MH 186

ACT AND PRAY.  As appropriate in the context of the anti-migrant protests of our day.