Building Peace with Justice

Building Peace with Justice is a brief, weekly bulletin reflection on Catholic social teaching written by members of a Rochester Diocese Public Policy sub-committee. This is the reflection for February 21:

Today’s Gospel for this first Sunday of Lent offers a compelling call to discern and act on what is important. The temptation to self-concern, self-importance, self-sufficiency can blind us to the reality that we are one human family. The United States has consistently received immigrants, refugees, exiles and the persecuted from other lands seeking liberty and opportunity for themselves and their children. In their joint pastoral letter, Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope, the Catholic Bishops of the United States and Mexico teach, “We seek to awaken our peoples to the mysterious presence of the crucified and risen Lord in the person of the migrant and to renew in them the values of the Kingdom of God.”

How would/should this awakening shape our perspectives on immigration issues?