Maybe the reason that God and prophets are so intent on insisting we love our neighbor is that, in practice, it doesn’t seem to come naturally to us at all. Culture seems to push us further into our own ambitions and preoccupations, so that even opportunities for self-giving are turned into self-congratulation. Simone Weil, the brilliant and troubling French philosopher, knew that to love or even notice another was an uphill climb. 

Weil went to great lengths to understand “the stranger” ontologically, spiritually, and materially. This concern was deeply intertwined with her theology, in which she viewed God as the embodiment and singular source of goodness. Breaking with the traditional Judeo-Christian view of creation – God bringing order to chaos – Weil believed that God withdrew from creation, leaving a void where Goodness once existed. In order to love, Weil wrote, one had to access this missing Goodness. 

Weil believed that to exercise true compassion and sympathy – to understand a misfortune that one is not currently experiencing –  was a task that was unnatural in its discomfort and effort. The exercise of free will being the strongest desire in a person, any instance of self-denial is indeed a superhuman effort. “It is not surprising that a man who has bread should give a piece to someone who is starving,” Weil wrote, “what is surprising is that he should be capable of doing so with so different a gesture from that with which we buy an object.” Love, therefore, with no desire for an emotional or material return was at its very least counter intuitive.  

In order to truly love another, to even notice another, one has to summon Goodness from the source, from the God that has retreated. In doing so, love comes directly from God. As Weil describes in her essay, “To Love Your Neighbor:” “Compassion and gratitude come down from God, and when they are exchanged in a glance, God is present at the point where the eyes of those who give and those who receive meet.” In her work, Gravity and Grace, Weil writes that to love another is to experience “love which has passed through God as through fire.” 

Despite her strong belief that virtue and goodness are only possible through the help of the Divine, Weil’s own life indicated that love of neighbor was a serious practice that transcended emotion or piety. “Philosophy,” she once wrote, “is exclusively an affair of action and practice.” From her self-imposed teaching salary that capped at France’s unemployment benefits; to the seven months as a factory worker in order to experience the sufferings of the working class; to her time as a volunteer for the anarcho-syndicalists in the Spanish Civil War, Weil strove to understand and love her neighbors.

Weil found these experiences humiliating in every sense; to the present reader, they are undoubtedly troubling in their naivete (it’s also impossible not to notice that only a person born into comfort would think of inflicting poverty upon themselves). The value in Weil’s understanding of love for neighbor is in her desire and attempt to remove the distance between herself and another, understanding that “it is God in us who loves them.” 

Adapted from A Rosary for Vulnerable Migrant Populations by Justice for Immigrants

The Rosary is a Scripture-based meditation. It begins with the Apostles’ Creed, which summarizes the great mysteries of the Catholic faith. The Our Father, which introduces each mystery, is from the Gospels. The first part of the Hail Mary is the angel’s words announcing Christ’s birth and Elizabeth’s greeting to Mary. The Mysteries of the Rosary center on the events of Christ’s life. The repetition in the Rosary is meant to lead one into restful and contemplative prayer related to each Mystery. The gentle repetition of the words helps us to enter into the silence of our hearts, where Christ’s spirit dwells. 

Today, let us pray the Fourth Joyful Mystery using the following meditation:

Simeon and Anna created a welcoming community when the Holy Family came to the temple. They were rewarded with the recognition that they had seen God’s Holy One. We are challenged to create welcoming communities in our own churches. We pray for the grace to recognize Jesus present in each immigrant and stranger. 

Moises Sandoval is a little known New Mexican scholar, but his deep knowledge of our country’s most populous “strangers” is indispensable. Born in New Mexico at a time when many still rode horse-drawn buggies and spoke an archaic Spanish that native speakers would struggle to understand, Sandoval experienced the increasingly common feeling of being both outsider and native – deeply Mexican, but American by birth. Sandoval spent his life and career documenting the growing Catholic population in the United States, which increased due to large-scale migration from what had become Mexico, and Central and South America.

Sandoval focused on bringing the reality of these hispanic migrants to the attention and conscience of American Catholics. A prolific contributor to Maryknoll Magazine, and founding editor of its Spanish language counterpart, Sandoval reminded readers of the migrant spirit and history of Christianity – Christ the itinerant, or the Isrealites in Egypt. Furthermore, he challenged the popular liberal “melting pot” approach of assimilation that the church and state encouraged of immigrants, encouraging an embrace of Hispanic migrants, their culture, language, and specific religious practices. 

Sandoval’s history and love for Hispanic Catholics can be fully enjoyed in his work, On the Move: A History of the Hispanic Church in the United States.

Dolores Mission is a Jesuit Parish in Los Angeles. Although it’s well-known for once being the parish of Fr. Greg Boyle, the founder of Homeboy Industries, the parish offers a lesser known model of community through its Guadalupe Homeless Project. Founded by parishioners in 1988, the project was spearheaded by women of the parish who made meals for the many Central American men and women who landed in LA after fleeing violence in their home countries. Eventually, the parishioners, with the support of the church’s leadership, decided to open up the church at night to offer families a safe place to sleep. Today, the main sanctuary offers shelter to 45 men each night, while women are sheltered separately. The project has expanded to include more services for residents, such as English language classes and job training, with the goal of transitioning residents into permanent housing. Nevertheless, the community is still intimately involved and supportive of the project, and parishioners make dinner for residents to this day.

John August Swanson: “Each Time I Think of You” depicts a crying Madonna and her child, surrounded by a supporting community. The Spanish caption below the image is a quote from a Guatemalan refugee mother and reads: “I don’t know when I’ll be able to see my children again. Every minute that I’m separated from them is anguish.”