The national and world news has been a little different in the last week or two. First, I would like to mention the situation in Niger. Where is Niger? It’s in Africa. What happened? There was a coup by the military to take over from the democratically elected government. You might say why does that matter in the United States? (Or whatever country you live in. There are people from other countries who read this blog.) First, as Christians, we are called to be concerned for all God’s people. Secondly, while you may never (or seldom) have heard of Niger, the situation was brought to my attention by a parishioner couple who have a son in our U.S. military who is stationed there. The last I heard our military personnel there are safe but in a dangerous situation (I don’t see much coverage in the news). Let us pray for our military personnel and for the people of Niger.

Next, I would like to talk about two unusual things in the news. The first one is the wildfires in Hawaii. I have never heard of wildfires in Hawaii before. It is being called the worst natural disaster for deaths in over a hundred years. There were problems with the response to the emergency. We tend not to prepare for what we don’t expect to happen. The blame game has already started. There will be plenty of time later for blame. Right now, the focus needs to be on the people who are homeless or otherwise in need after the devastating fires. Sadly, the scammers have already begun falsely soliciting donations on behalf of those in need (If you want to make a donation, Catholic Charities USA has a donation button on their website at https://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/ specifically for the relief efforts in Hawaii). Let us pray for the people in need in Hawaii, for an end to the scammers, and for positive changes to the emergency response efforts to come from this in the future.

The second unusual thing is the Hurricane in California. In a land used to drought and wildfires, a hurricane is almost unheard of. Fortunately, the hurricane lost intensity before reaching land but the remaining storm brought much more rain than they are used to in California and now Nevada. The region is built to handle earthquakes, not hurricanes. We pray for those in need.

Now, I turn to something that is not new in the news but has taken on a new local significance. Illegal crossings at the U.S. Border with Mexico have been a significant part of the news for some time. The issue is polarized between those who would like to wall off the entire border and those who want to help every single person without thinking of what that will take. Reality is in between. We need to ask ourselves why are so many people willing to make the effort to cross the border illegally. What can we do to help the situations in their home countries?

The border crisis has already had some local significance where I live (The Finger Lakes region of New York State) because there are people already living here who have family in the countries the people crossing the borders are coming from. The border crossings are certainly an issue for Texas and other states near the border. The issue of how to help the people crossing the border has been spreading across our country as they transport people to other places in the United States for help. Locally, asylum seekers have begun to arrive in Rochester (where our diocesan offices are). We pray for those who come from situations so bad that they make the difficult journey to the United States to find work and help. We pray for the government officials to stop the partisan politics and end the polarization between sides and focus on what matters, the people.

We pray for each of us, that our eyes and hearts be opened to what goes on the world. We pray that the Lord tell us what we can do to help. Some things seem so far away that we might think they don’t matter to us. They should matter to us. All are God’s children and, thus, our brothers and sisters. Someday we might be the parents with the son serving in Niger. Or things may move closer to us. It doesn’t seem all that long ago that shootings always seemed were something that happened someplace else. Now, it seems like Rochester is having shootings almost everyday. Elmira had been a calm place to live when I was there (2007-2010). Now there have been at least three shootings in the last year or two within a few blocks of the church I was at with many others shootings elsewhere in the city. Ithaca is now seeing more shootings. In Ithaca, some of the violence has been in their downtown area. Pray!

What types of bad situations do you see in your local area that you used to think would never happen where you live? How is the Lord calling you to help? We don’t need vigilantes. We need good police officers. We need good firefighters and emergency medical responders. We need people with a generous heart to offer assistance as the Lord directs.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff