Abstract
Along the US-Mexico border in southern Arizona, a faith-based organization called The Samaritans offers humanitarian aid to undocumented immigrants making their way into the United States. They search for migrants amidst their dangerous trek across dry deserts and desolate mountains, looking for any who might be under duress or in distress. On one occasion at dusk, a volunteer from the Samaritans sat on a ledge and saw a group of 20 immigrants walking along a dry riverbed. He called out from a distance, “Is anybody injured?” “Do you need any food?” “Do you have any water?” Suddenly the group of immigrants stopped. Unsure of who was speaking to them, they did not know whether to run or to hide. After hearing the voice again, they paused, hesitated, and then looked at each other. Then they huddled together and deliberated for a few moments. Slowly the leader began walking toward the Samaritan volunteer and yelled back, “We don’t have any more food. And we only have a little bit of water. But if you need it, we will share what we have with you.”
Portions of this article originally appeared in Daniel G. Groody, “Jesus and the Undocumented Immigrant: A Spiritual Geography of a Crucified Peoples,” Theological Studies 70, no. 2 (June 2009): 298–316. Used with permission of the copyright holder.
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Notes
Rowan A. Greer, ed., Origen (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 245–269. I am grateful to Brian Barrett, who first introduced me to this connection between the physical and spiritual journey in patristic theology. For a critical overview of contemporary scholarship on Origen’s exegetical method, with an emphasis on its moral and spiritual benefit for his audience,
see Elizabeth Ann Dively Lauro, The Soul and Spirit within Origen’s Exegesis (Boston: Brill, 2005). In Homily 27 on Numbers, Origen interprets the historical journey of Israel through the desert along two distinct but inseparable lines: (1) our moral growth in virtue, which begins at our conversion, and (2) our spiritual ascent to God, which culminates in the resurrection as our entry into the Promised Land. By applying Origen’s method to a contemporary theology of migration, this article seeks not only to interrelate their spiritual journey to their physical journey but also to reframe the moral imagination with a view to human dignity, the challenge of making a cognitive migration in regard to “the other,” and to highlight the core issue of human solidarity.
A distinctive quality of patristic exegesis is that it is generally preached. The church fathers<, particularly Origen, developed methods of interpreting scripture precisely for the moral and spiritual benefit of their hearers. For contemporary introductions to patristic exegesis and its relevance for today, see Charles Kannengiesser, “Avenir des traditions fondatrices: La Christologie comme lâche au champ desétudes patristiques,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 65 (1977): 139–168;
John J. O’Keefe and R. R. Reno, Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2005);
Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2003);
Frances Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (New York: Cambridge University, 1997).
Daniel G. Groody, Border of Death, Valley of Life: An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 115–136;
Davíd Carrasco, City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization (Boston: Beacon, 1999), 180.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Heart of Matter, trans. RenéHague (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979), 119–121.
See also Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Ursula King, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Writings (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1999), 80–81.
For more on this topic see Daniel G. Groody and Gioacchino Campese, eds., A Promised Land, A Perilous Journey: Theological Perspectives on Migration (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2008).
Karl Eschbach, Jacqueline Hagan, and Nestor Rodríguez, “Deaths During Undocumented Migration: Trends and Policy Implications in the New Era of Homeland Security,” In Defense of the Alien 26 (2003): 37–52; and United States Government Accountability Office, “GAO-06–770 Illegal Immigration: Border-Crossing Deaths Have Doubled Since 1995” (August 2006), accessed February 18, 2009, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06770.pdf.
Alan J. McIntyre, The Tohono O’Odham and Primeria Alta (San Francisco, CA: Arcadia, 2008), 9.
Throughout the history of Judeo-Christian faith, the desert has been understood as a physical place with religious meaning. Often it is understood as a place of purification and testing, where one either succumbs to temptation or emerges victorious. The classic treatment of the desert spirituality is found in Athanasius, Life of Antony (New York: HarperOne, 2006). See also The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. Benedicta Ward (Collegeville, MN: Cistercian, 1987); and Derwas Chitty, The Desert a City: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism under the Christian Empire (Oxford: Blackwell, 1966).
Louis Alberto Urrea, The Devil’s Highway: A True Story (New York: Little, Brown and Company 2004).
Ignacio Ellacuría, “The Crucified People,” in Mysterium Liberationis: Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology, ed. Ignacio Ellacuría and Jon Sobrino, 580–604 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 580; translation of “El pueblo crucificado, ensayo de soteriologia historica,” in Cruz y Resurreccion, Ignacio Ellacuría et al., 49–82, (Mexico City: CTR, 1978), 49.
Ellacuría, Escritos Teológicos 2:133–35. The title of this article, originally published in 1980, is “Discernir el ‘Signo’ de los Tiempos.” The English translation is from Kevin F. Burke, “The Crucified People as ‘Light for the Nations’: A Reflection on Ignacio Ellacuría,” in Rethinking Martyrdom, ed. Teresa Okure, Jon Sobrino, and Felix Wilfred, in Concilium no. 1 (2003): 124.
Frederick John Dalton, The Moral Vision of César Chávez (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2003), 64.
Robert Lassalle-Klein, “A Postcolonial Christ,” in Thinking of Christ: Proclamation, Explanation, Meaning, ed. Tatha Wiley (New York: Continuum, 2003), 143. I am particularly grateful to Robert Lassalle-Klein for his help in connecting the theology of Ellacuría with the spirituality of migrants.
Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus through the Ages: His Place in the History of Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1999), 1–8.
Stephen Castles and Mark J. Miller, The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World (London: Guilford, 2003).
Scholars throughout history have debated the meaning of elachistōn. For differing accounts of Matthew 25:31–46 and its implications for ethics, see John Donahue, “The ‘Parable’ of the Sheep and the Goats: A Challenge to Christian Ethics,” Theological Studies 41 (1986): 3–31.
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© 2013 Elaine Padilla and Peter C. Phan
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Groody, D.G. (2013). The Spirituality of Migrants: Mapping an Inner Geography. In: Padilla, E., Phan, P.C. (eds) Contemporary Issues of Migration and Theology. Palgrave Macmillan’s Christianities of the World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137031495_8
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