{"id":3565,"date":"2024-12-02T23:15:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-02T23:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.maryknollsociety.org\/magazine\/?p=3565"},"modified":"2025-12-31T15:19:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T15:19:53","slug":"an-oasis-in-the-borderlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.maryknollsociety.org\/magazine\/an-oasis-in-the-borderlands\/","title":{"rendered":"An Oasis in the Borderlands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The arid, rugged terrain of El Paso, Texas<\/a>, could be described as inhospitable. El Pasoans, however, are anything but.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this border city, Catholic missioners, volunteers and advocates have historically heeded the call to help the stranger and feed the hungry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Maryknoll Father Raymond Finch<\/a>, a New Yorker from Brooklyn who served Indigenous communities in Peru and Bolivia for more than 25 years, that call is a foregone conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s central to the Gospel message,\u201d he says. \u201cYou were a stranger in other lands. Welcome the stranger in your land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2022, Father Finch, 76, has served at Cristo Rey Catholic Church in El Paso<\/a>, after completing his second term as superior general of the Maryknoll Society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His arrival to El Paso coincided with a post-pandemic migration surge that was overwhelming shelters. By Christmas Eve of that year, hundreds of migrants were sleeping on the streets as temperatures dropped at night as low as 18 F.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cristo
Cristo Rey parishioners Claudia D\u00edaz and Gloria Ibarra (left, right) prepare hot meals for migrants and refugees staying at shelters in El Paso, Texas. (Courtesy of Gloria Ibarra\/U.S.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe people in the parish here, and most people in El Paso \u2014 and I was very impressed with this \u2014 responded to help,\u201d Father Finch says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of them is Gloria Ibarra, a parish staff member at Cristo Rey. She runs a ministry that provides hot meals every Tuesday for two migrant shelters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initiative began in 2018 when Ibarra received a call for help from Martyrs Hall shelter<\/a>, at the time a makeshift emergency shelter located on property owned by the Diocese of El Paso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ibarra says she \u201cjumped\u201d at the opportunity to serve. Seven other parishioners joined her.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur ministry started by us buying food out of pocket,\u201d Ibarra says. \u201cWe would prepare breakfast or lunch and take it down to the Diocese.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team prepares up to 130 hot meals in the parish kitchen of the St. Oscar Romero Center, named as such by Father Finch. They cook with migrants\u2019 needs in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey probably haven\u2019t had something homemade,\u201d Ibarra says about the migrants on long journeys. \u201cSo we always provide things like spaghetti, salad and a piece of bread or Mexican cuisine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now with a team of 10 members, the parishioners transport the meals to Martyrs Hall shelter. Holy Family Refugee Center<\/a>, the other shelter being served by Ibarra\u2019s team, sends volunteers to pick up the food at the parish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ministry allows Ibarra, 62, to fulfill a dream she had held since high school: to be a missioner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t get to be a missioner abroad,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I\u2019ve come to realize that missionary work is where you are, where God calls you. We all have a mission.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Monsignor
Monsignor Arturo Ba\u00f1uelas celebrates a Mass to pray for an end to border violence at the foot of the Santa Fe bridge to Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez. (CNS\/Christ Chavez\/Rio Grande Catholic\/U.S.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Working with Father Finch, she says, has \u201cenhanced that vision.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople in the parish do what they can,\u201d Father Finch says. \u201cMy job as a pastor here is to help them live their faith, deepen their faith, go out and spread that faith. Hopefully I can encourage them, inspire them and, once in a while, give them direction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ricardo Lopez has been a parishioner at Cristo Rey since he was a teenager. Now at 62 years old, he serves there in various ministries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lopez expects to be ordained as a permanent deacon for the Diocese of El Paso<\/a> in January of 2025. Then, along with a group of about 120 people, he will go on pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee. As a native of El Paso, he has witnessed the \u201cspirit of welcome\u201d that Pope Francis encourages for the Jubilee year<\/a> in the hospitality of his people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe way we look at it is that we are called to serve God\u2019s children,\u201d Lopez explains. Regardless of newcomers\u2019 immigration status, he says, \u201cit\u2019s up to us to provide, to serve them with open arms. Our parish community strives to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maryknoll has had a presence on the U.S.-Mexico border since 1993 with priests, sisters and lay missioners serving at shelters, parishes or immigration advocacy centers. As missioners, they have insight into why people migrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A woman holds a sign for the demonstration named \u201cDo Not Be Afraid: March and Vigil\u201d organized by the Diocese of El Paso to protest anti-migration bills and legal attacks on shelters. (Screenshot OSV News\/Live Streaming Via Facebook\/EE. UU.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Most people \u201clook specifically at the border between Mexico and the United States,\u201d Father Finch says. \u201cBut the border is a border between different parts of the world. It\u2019s a border between north and south, and Maryknoll is involved with both worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The response of the community in El Paso models a Christian alternative to the demonization of migrants and refugees and the militarization of the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor us on the border, solidarity is not just accompaniment,\u201d says Monsignor Arturo Ba\u00f1uelas. \u201cThey no longer become \u2018the migrant\u2019 or \u2018the poor.\u2019 They are a sister or a brother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monsignor Ba\u00f1uelas is an advocate for migrant rights and founding chair of Hope Border Institute in El Paso<\/a>, which documents migration patterns, human rights abuses and root causes of migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The encounter with refugees in shelters, says Monsignor Ba\u00f1uelas, becomes transformative when \u201cyou hear the stories of the people, and experience their humanity, their suffering, their hope, and why they came against all the odds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He relates the experience of a woman with strong anti-immigrant views who visited a shelter. She talked over dinner with a Central American woman who fled north with her two children after her husband was murdered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of a sudden it wasn\u2019t somebody talking to a migrant. It was mother to mother,\u201d Monsignor Ba\u00f1uelas says. \u201cGod is present in that exchange of solidarity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anti-migrant Senate bills<\/a> and legal attacks<\/a> that target shelters have not disrupted that solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On March 21st, 2024, hundreds poured into the streets of El Paso for a demonstration called \u201cDo Not Be Afraid: March and Vigil for Human Dignity<\/a>,\u201d organized by Hope Border Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Volunteers registered at Cristo Rey, and a sign-making party was held at the parish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The march and vigil commemorated the one-year anniversary of a harrowing fire in a detention center that killed 40 migrants in Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez. It also protested a legal suit to shut down Annunciation House<\/a>, a network of migrant shelters where Maryknoll missioners have served.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the central tenant of Christianity for Catholics,\u201d says Father Finch. \u201cTo feed the hungry, to help the needy, to seek Christ in the person who needs our help. To criminalize that would be disastrous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In true El Pasoan character that has been tried and tested, Catholics at the border will continue serving as pilgrims of hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHope never fails,\u201d says Monsignor Ba\u00f1uelas. \u201cIt engenders in us possibilities of love that are bigger than hate. When you struggle with the poor, you march, you work in shelters \u2026 it\u2019s not a painless experience. But when you look at life from the perspective of hope, you [believe] that love is going to win, that justice is going to win. And it\u2019s on its way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Featured Image: Maryknoll Father Raymond Finch and Matachines dancers pose at Cristo Rey Church in El Paso, Texas, on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, celebrated Dec. 12. (Matthew Sim\/U.S.)<\/em>

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At Cristo Rey Parish in El Paso, Texas, Maryknoll Father Raymond Finch helps parishioners live their faith while they help migrants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":3566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_eb_data_table":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,43],"tags":[88,86,89,91,90,87,93,92,94,95,96,97],"class_list":["post-3565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-stories","category-winter-2025","tag-andrea-moreno-diaz","tag-annunciation-house","tag-diocese-of-el-paso","tag-do-not-be-afraid-march-and-vigil","tag-el-paso-texas","tag-holy-family-refugee-center","tag-hope","tag-hope-border-institute-el-paso","tag-martyrs-hall-shelter","tag-maryknoll-father-raymond-finch","tag-migration","tag-pilgrims-of-hope"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAn Oasis in the Borderlands - Maryknoll Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Oasis in the Borderlands - 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