麻豆约拍

A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Sarah Teather, UK Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service

Good morning.

I spent yesterday with our outreach team in Harmondsworth Immigration Detention Centre. Detention is for most of those we support a shattering experience. But over the years of providing pastoral care to people held in this situation, we have learnt not to assume we know what is most troubling people, without listening carefully.

One of my colleagues took a phone call some months ago from someone in detention. He was deeply distressed at being separated from his five year old daughter as her birthday approached. 鈥淪he鈥檚 going to think I鈥檝e forgotten about her and don鈥檛 love her anymore. Is there anything you can do to help me send something so she鈥檒l know I鈥檓 thinking of her?鈥�

Unsure how to respond, my colleague took down his address, and went to look in our cupboard. She retrieved a toy from the stock of gifts donated for Christmas, and carefully wrapped it, as she would for her own family, adding a card for the girl saying the gift was from her dad and he loved her very much; she put it in the post, wondering if it was enough.

He called back a few days later: he鈥檇 spoken to his daughter, and she was ecstatic because the parcel had arrived. He called to tell us how much it meant to him. It was another emotional call, this time for him and for my colleague.

Those refugees we and others accompany have had so much of their lives stripped painfully away. But sometimes, from them, we glimpse truths we have forgotten: that love longs for expression even in separation; that the simplest of acts can communicate tenderness; that giving gifts creates ripples into lives beyond our imagination鈥�.
Lord, give us open hearts to give and receive in freedom, and in hope.

Amen.