Aliens in America: Day 26

Alien Homecoming 

‘As aliens, live in reverent fear’ (1 Pet. 1:17). 

Aliens know who they are. The roar of the world—political and otherwise—can’t drown out the truth of belonging to Jesus and His friends. A political party victory cannot grant us that truth any more than a loss can take that away. In the welcoming face of a brother or sister, communion binds away familiar shadows of exile. I experience this daily at Mass.  

Before the Body—both Host and host of friends—I re-experience homecoming. It’s a place and a face, many faces, in truth. Who we are as members of Christ supersedes national citizenship and membership in any political party. I am Christ’s—He mirrors the true self I must realize with them, flawed fellow members as aspirational as me.  

Alienation runs deep in us, so we need real identity reiterated again and again. Scripture helps: ‘You are no longer aliens and foreigners, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone’ (Eph. 2:19-20).   

We must gather. A lot. For Jesus to become solid in our foundations, we need the Church, and fellow members need us, Jesus-in-the-flesh, to encourage them. New mercies can be ours daily—the Cross and altar, a corporate prayer, a grief or laugh shared, the Word declared and consumed. Jesus raises our personhood to Himself, toward the Divine.  

Good deal. The Church exists for the ‘care and responsibility of people’ (St. John Paul II). Any person. In that way, the state is wise to encourage the flourishing of faith communities. I appreciate how Trump has championed churches that serve the greater culture, especially through Christian schools. Church answers the alienation that the state cannot assuage, especially with Her services to the poor and most vulnerable. 

Our parish is an occasional home for a homeless woman who loves Jesus and serves the church in a variety of ways. Groups of congregants bring multiple bags of groceries for the poor and distribute them. A young man rejected by his wife is finding his footing again through daily congregating; same for a woman emerging from a mental health crisis. I sit behind a father trying to love a daughter who wants to become his son. Most congregants gather to regain clarity and compassion to better serve the greater community awaiting them.  

We serve people daily who are unsure of their dignity and their destiny as representatives of Jesus Himself. Our crisis today is anthropological. We no longer know who we are. The state can neither inspire nor impose that meaning. Ultimate questions of selfhood are philosophical and spiritual and must be informed by the Church. Christians can and must know these answers and make them known, even if they are rejected. Aliens alive to real identity have authority and responsibility. 

For example, American public schools are rife with false ideologies about the sexual identities of youth. Educators pride themselves as wise and just for confirming unformed lives as ‘gay’ or ‘trans’: both foolish and dangerous. We as Christians must ensure clarity for children making sense of her femaleness and his maleness.  

Why? We have answers. We cannot impose a creed, but we can confirm the dignity of what it means to be male or female. Christian presence in the public square grants the vulnerable a fighting chance to grow out of alienation into clarity of being.          

‘The Christian faith doesn’t imprison changing socio-political realities in a rigid schema…In constantly affirming the transcendent dignity of the person, the Church’s method always respects freedom. But freedom attains its full development only by accepting the truth. In a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation and man is exposed to the violence of passion and its manipulation…The Christian upholds freedom and serves it, constantly offering to others the truth which he has known (Jn 8:31-32)’. (JPII, ‘On the 100th Anniversary…’ 46)  

‘Please grant peace to an America in transition. Restore the discouraged. Temper the triumphant. Jesus, we thank You for freeing us from alienation for true personhood. Make firm our gathering with the saints in these tumultuous days. Make us rock-solid in who You have made us to be. Our lived experience of true personhood is life for the world. May the world around us take its cues from Your truth about humanity. May our freedom become a gift to others.’   

‘Jesus, You are the King, and we are first citizens of Your Kingdom. Would you free us for You in this election season, not to hide but to shine? You’ve always asked nothing less from Your elect whom You have made ‘strangers in a strange land’ (Ex. 2:22). Here we are, a people who don’t know what to do but who look and listen to our King.  

“Father of all holiness, 

guide our hearts to You. 

Keep in the light of Your Truth 

all those You have freed from the darkness of unbelief. 

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son.”’ 

Amen 

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