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Reflection: Stand up if you were not born in the UK please?


The Jungle, Calais - home to many unaccompanied children

The Jungle, Calais - home to many unaccompanied children

Canon Pat Browne, parish priest at Holy Apostles, Pimlico, gave the following homily this Sunday.

Over the summer many of us have been able to get away to warmer climes. Some of you went to places like Italy and Greece. I went to Malta. The sun was shining, the sea was warm and inviting, the food was good and the people were hospitable. But all the time I was in Malta I was very aware of others who had made their way to that place too. The emigrants who had crossed over from Libya in small boats and dinghies. Hey were the lucky ones. Hundreds died in the attempt and were drowned in that same sea where I was enjoying swimming.

Malta is only about 26 miles long. It is very small and has a population of 400,000 people. Yet it is here that those fleeing poverty , yes, and often persecution are arriving. Italy and Greece too. And these countries are not getting nearly enough help to cope with the numbers that are arriving. The response of some countries including our own is to say "keep them away" and to build wall's and fences to prevent them getting in.

There is a lot of scaremongering going on. May I ask you to stand up if you were not born in the UK please?

This week it has been announced that over eight million of those people who live in the UK were not born in this country as if that were some great sin against British Society. But who are we talking about?

WE ARE the UNITED KINGDOM! All of us contributing to this society in our own way - our skills, our values, our decency and our taxes. And those who are fleeing persecution and torture and yes, some poverty also are similar. Arriving here looking not just for shelter but for the opportunity to offer their skills, their experience, their decency and their taxes in exchange for protection, a job and a way of living that will enable them to support their families.

This week some Syrian Refugees wrote love letters to Angela Merkel. Why? Because she has overturned the Dublin agreement which says asylum seekers have to apply for asylum in the first country at which they arrive. She knows that Greece, Malta and these other countries cannot be expected to take on that burden on their own and so her German Government is open now to saying that they are prepared to take up to 800,000 of these desperate people. This is courageous of her and brave and these Syrian refugees are grateful.

Is there any politician in this country of any party who might be deserving of such a love letter from a person fleeing persecution. I cannot think of even one. There is a shameful silence in this country.

Yes about 600,000 people came to the UK last year. But 200,000 of these were on student visas, paying to study here and paying their board and lodging and who will return their own country when they qualify. Another 300,000 are here on a work visa given them because of the skills they have to offer, paying income tax and spending much of their hard=earned cash recreationally as well as on basic needs. 80,000 are Brits returning home after being abroad, 90,000 are coming to join their families here. ONLY 25,000 were here to claim asylum.

The numbers crossing Europe and seeking to live now in Germany, Scandinavia, France and the UK are enormous. There is a big problem and I do not know what the answer is. But I know what it is NOT. We cannot turn our backs on people in such need.

This is politics surely? What has it to do with religion?

Pontius Pilate washed his hands of his responsibility for the life of Jesus and Jesus died. We as citizens cannot allow our government to do the same in our name, to those people who are dying in their hundreds. Just picture that lorry load of 71 dead bodies including children. And the 200 who were drowned off the coast of Libya on Friday.

The psalm today raise the question: "Lord Who shall be admitted to your tent?" The answer is: He who acts with justice. He who does no wrong to his brother.

In other words he who does not turn his back on his brother in his need.

You must do what the word tells you and not just listen to it says St James in that 2nd reading. What does that same word talk about? ...coming to the help of orphans and widows when they need it...

In the Gospel today Jesus is very angry. All the Pharisees and Scribes can worry about is whether his disciples have washed their hands before eating. Get a life! Says Jesus. Get real. You put aside the commandments of God to cling to human traditions.

Let us not, in our generation, be guilty of the same thing. The REAL commandments of God are these - love GOD...AND YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOURSELF. And that includes these people in their need.

There is a parish Basildon which is collecting essentials like blankets, trainers , jeans and cooking utensils for the people at Calais. Let us do the same. If you have any such things bring them in next Sunday.

Better to do a little, no matter how small it is if it helps.

Edmund Burke once wrote

All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing!

Listen to the homily here: www.holyapostlespimlico.org/?p=6826

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