Bilingual Prayer Service Focuses On Immigration Reform

Nativity Parish held a bilingual prayer service Sept. 18 as part of the 40 Days of Fasting and Prayer for Immigration Reform. Dozens of parishioners gathered to celebrate Hispanic heritage and pray for comprehensive immigration reform.

Pastor Father Henry Kuykendall joked, as he welcomed those who attended the service, that he was taking the night off. Nativity Pastoral Associate Daughter of Charity Sister Sharon Haskins led the prayer service, which featured a passionate homily from Brother Moises Gutierrez of Indianapolis.

The service opened as worshippers processed with a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Brother Moises delivered his message in English and Spanish, moving almost seamlessly between the two languages as he focused on the event’s Gospel reading, from Matthew 25:

“For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome; naked and you clothed me; sick and you visited me; in prison and you came to see me.

“… I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.”

“The message we have to get from any passage in the Bible is life,” Brother Moises said. “How can I see life in this passage?”

As it relates to this gospel reading, he suggested that doing for others as Jesus described enables us to feel alive, “We feel we are Christians,” he offered. “My prayer is, God give me the opportunities to welcome strangers, chances to feed the hungry, the opportunities to visit the sick because I will feel alive.”

“It’s not easy to do these things,” he added. “I have people who walk with me, who tell me in different ways, ‘you can do it.’ And so, how can we help each other to understand and walk with my brothers and sisters who are immigrants? We must help each other develop these skills. Jesus knows how we will feel when we do these things.”

Those in attendance then heard from two Hispanic immigrants who related stories of those who helped them get to America, and those who helped them establish themselves after they arrived. One of them, a mother, recalled having someone tell her that her then-5-year-old son would never have the chance to go to college because he was undocumented.

Seventeen years later, mother and son both have the documentation necessary to live and work in America, and the now-22-year-old young man earned his college degree earlier this year.

“Because of my situation,” his mother recalled, “I was not able to go home when my mother became ill and passed away. I wasn’t able to tell her goodbye.

“Today, God has blessed me with the chance to work in a home for senior citizens,” she added. “I am able to comfort and take care of people as they prepare to leave this life. God has given me the blessing of being able to take care of them in the ways I could not take care of my mother.”

The service included hymns and prayer petitions in Spanish and English, including a prayer for migrant families.