Welcoming and accompanying migrants

Recently, Monsignor Daniel Flores, Bishop of Brownsville, received a letter from Pope Francis, thanking him for the multiple ways that the people of God in his diocese are accompanying migrants at the Texas-Mexico border. Pope Francis wrote: “I have no doubt that the current situation [of migrants] should impel us to seek the promotion and integration of those who share the same condition in which the Lord found himself.”

Welcoming and accompanying migrants who are fleeing violence and searching for a more humane way of life for themselves and their families is the loving work of all God’s people, not just those living along the southern border.

The collaborative efforts of OSP-IHM sisters, associates and friends testify to the importance of encountering the migrant wherever he/she may be—on the border, in the classroom, in our churches and in our neighborhoods.

How we respond

How are we OSP-IHM sisters, associates and friends responding to the plight of migrants from our own backyard?

• Sisters at Camilla Hall (Immaculata), Our Lady of Peace (Scranton), the IHM Senior Living Community (Monroe) and the Oblate Sisters of Providence motherhouse (Baltimore) hold in prayer the needs of migrant women, children and families.
• Students at Marian High School, Birmingham, Michigan, where the president is Monroe IHM Lenore Pochelski, collected money to purchase school supplies for migrant children who will be entering the US school system for the first time and in the middle of the school year.
• Immaculata IHM Eileen Reilly has been volunteering with the New Sanctuary group at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia where she receives asylum seekers bused from the border, serves as their translator and gives compassionate care to them while they make contact with their sponsors.
• Scranton IHM Donna Korba will be accompanying Marywood University students to the border in March 2023. They will serve side-by-side with the OSP-IHM Border Community at the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, and the Casa del Migrante in Reynosa, Mexico.
• During the Fall of 2022, the OSP-IHM Healing Racism Committee invited sisters and associates to attend three meetings to address the issue of advocacy for asylum seekers. The participants have written a letter to the governors asking them to work together in welcoming migrants to their states. The letter, which will be distributed once new governors have taken office, will be made available for those who wish to sign it.
• Donations from sisters, associates and friends help feed families living in migrant camps in Reynosa, Mexico, make basic medical and hygiene supplies available for families at the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen and provide art and school materials for migrant children.

The OSP-IHM Core Community in McAllen, Texas, is grateful to the larger OSP-IHM family for their collaboration and the creative and multiple ways inwhich they engage to welcome and accompany migrants both at the border and throughout the US.