Tag Archives: holy resistance

“Justice shall flourish” – Living Advent

reflections, , , , , , ,

This morning I attended (virtually) an immigration court hearing for a gentleman detained at Delaney Hall awaiting an opportunity for due process regarding his irregular status. The judge and government attorney were in the court room. The respondent was online from a very dreary closet sized room at the detention center. His attorney, and some other community supporters were online. It was quick – in fact I am grateful my nun training kicked in and led me to log in early, because when I logged in the hearing was already in process before the scheduled start time.

Before the hearing, I prayed with the readings for this second Tuesday of Advent. From Isaiah 11:

A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
and from his roots a bud shall blossom.
The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him:
a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
A Spirit of counsel and of strength,
a Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD,
and his delight shall be the fear of the LORD.
Not by appearance shall he judge,
nor by hearsay shall he decide,
But he shall judge the poor with justice,
and decide aright for the land’s afflicted.

And from Psalm 72:
He shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor;
the lives of the poor he shall save.
Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.

Justice is not flourishing in our time for many families, especially our immigrant brothers and sisters. Today I read about some troubling developments in a post by the National Immigration Law Center that should concern those seeking justice for the afflicted of our day. ICE is trying to take away bond eligibility for long-term residents. Fortunately, just before Thanksgiving a district judge blocked a July ICE policy memo declaring that anyone who entered the country without permission is not eligible to request to be released from detention to bond, no matter how long they have been in this country. And in rare cases where bond is issued (it is a complicated process and 80% of people in detention do not have legal counsel), ICE regularly appeals the judge’s bond decision, which automatically blocks the person’s release while the appeal is pending. Due process is being systematically withheld in the supposed land of the free. Cruelty is the point, and it seems the design is to make life miserable while immigrants who have not committed (or been convicted of) any crimes are held in prison for months awaiting their day in court to address their violations of civil immigration law.

Now for some good news. The gentleman whose hearing I attended virtually today to show community support did have legal representation. He has been a law abiding resident of this country for eleven years, working and paying his taxes. He has two US citizen children. And today, the judge approved his bond at $7,000. That is a huge burden, but thankfully there are community groups who provide bond support for immigrant families. Please join me in praying that the government does not appeal the judge’s bond decision and that this gentlemen is released from detention soon and reunited with his family while he navigates the legal system and seeks to regularize his immigration status.

Living Advent means that we must realize that part of how justice and peace shall flourish is through our actions, our prayer, our advocacy, and our presence. May we live in active Advent hope and work for the day when the words of Isaiah and the psalmist are fulfilled.

Advent in a time of chaos

reflections, , , , ,

Last Advent I was introduced to Alfred Delp, a German Jesuit and member of the resistance to the Nazi Regime. He was imprisoned and executed in 1945.

The following is from a Homily he gave on the 1st Sunday of Advent in 1941 (from Advent of the Heart, a collection of his seasonal and prison writing.) It certainly has significance for those of us living Advent in the United States in 2025.

“Perhaps what we modern people need most is to be genuinely shaken, so that where life is grounded, we would feel its stability; and where life is unstable and uncertain, immoral and unprincipled, we would know that, also, and endure it. Perhaps that is the ultimate answer to the question of why God has sent us into this time, why He permits this whirlwind to go over the earth, and why He holds us in such a state of chaos and in hopelessness and in darkness—and why there is no end in sight.  …

He does it to teach us one thing again: how to be moved in spirit. Much of what is happening today would not be happening if people were in that state of inner movement and restlessness of heart in which man comes into the presence of God the Lord and gains a clear view of things as they really are. Then man would have let go of much that has thrown all our lives into disorder one way or another and has thrashed and smashed our lives. He would have seen the inner appeals, would have seen the boundaries, and could have coordinated the areas of responsibility.

Instead, man stood on this earth in a false pathos and a false security, under a deep delusion in which he really believed he could single-handedly fetch stars from heaven; could enkindle eternal lights in the world and avert all danger from himself; that he could banish the night, and intercept and interrupt the internal quaking of the cosmos, and maneuver and manipulate the whole thing into the conditions standing before us now.”

May we find our way to stillness this Advent. May we see these times with the eyes of God, as they really are. May our hearts grow restless and move us to courage, compassion, and responsible action in love.

May We Be A Sanctuary

events, prayer, social sin, , , , , , ,

This morning a small group of us prayed outside the gates of Delaney Hall, the for-profit immigrant prison operated by GEO Group in our name. We gathered outside for a simple prayer service while the first group of families were forced to wait on an active driveway outside the gates for the chance to visit their loved ones detained in this 1,100 bed facility. This was the second week of the Let Us Pray Sunday morning prayer service outside Delaney Hall. Different faith traditions will be leading prayer each week. This week’s prayer was in the Christian Tradition and organized by Pax Christi NJ.

We began singing the song, Please Prepare Me, praying that we might be a sanctuary for the families and their detained loved ones.

We then listened to the word of God: Jeremiah 17: 5-11, Romans 12: 1-12, and Matthew 11:28-30. I was then honored to offer a brief reflection on the scripture readings, which is copied below. It was a beautiful experience of church with friends and strangers praying together that we may find refuge in God and be rooted in love.

Reflection by Susan Francois, CSJP – Delaney Hall (August 31, 2025)

Scripture: Jeremiah 17:5-11, Romans 12:1-2, Matthew 11:28-30

Chances are, right now, you have a piece of paper or a coin in your pocket with the words “In God We Trust” written on it.  Our currency has carried these words since President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a law making “In God We Trust” our official national motto in 1956.  The context of this law, of course, was the Cold War. The inclusion of the motto on our nation’s money was seen as a response to the anti-religious stance of the Soviet Union.

We just heard proclaimed words from the prophet Jeremiah, in which he reminded his community to trust in God, not people and not money.  His preaching was in a different context. He was worried that the people were placing their trust in the wrong things and turning their hearts from God.  He wanted them to understand that actions have consequences.  He predicted (correctly as it turns out) that they would be exiled to Babylon.

I can’t help but wonder what he’d make of our context today.  Take the last line from the passage from Jeremiah, where he compares a partridge that broods but does not hatch to those who acquire wealth unjustly.  In the end, they are just fools. Unjust fools.

The building behind me is operated by GEO Corp under tax-payer funded 15-year $1 Billion contract.  GEO’s own press release announcing the deal in February proudly predicted that the “contract is expected to generate in excess of $60 million in annualized revenues for GEO in the first full year of operations.”  

And yet, even with all this profit, families with small children, pregnant mothers, and elderly relatives of persons detained behind these walls are not provided with a safe place to wait for the chance to see their loved ones before they are deported.  They are required to wait hours in the hot sun—and with this being Labor Day weekend, we know colder and wetter weather is around the corner—without shelter, without access to a bathroom even. I suspect that the prophet Jeremiah would have looked at this private-for-profit prison operation and declared that the GEO shareholders are earning their wealth unjustly.  

Let’s shift Jeremiah’s focus from those detaining our migrant brothers and sisters to their faithful loved ones who come to stand at the foot of these gates today.  Despite the odds, despite the difficulties, no doubt even in despair, they come each weekend in hope to spend a few moments with their loved ones.  “They are like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream.  It does not fear heat when it comes, its leaves stay green.”

The leaves that sustain them, I suspect, are rooted in love.  Love for their husband or wife, son or daughter, mother or father, brother, sister, or friend who are inside these walls.  Love for each other. Those of us who have been privileged to volunteer here these past few months have seen so many actions of kindness and love between strangers on this driveway. Volunteer to visitor. Visitor to visitor. Visitor to volunteer.  

By our very presence—as visitors, as volunteers—we are refusing to conform to this age of inhumanity where cruelty seems to be the point.  We trust in love, and my Christian tradition teaches that God is love.  Jesus, God-with-us, love incarnate, invites us in the passage we heard from Matthew’s Gospel to find sanctuary in his love, where we will find rest.

May we be love.  May we be loved.  May we be sanctuary for one another.  May we trust not in the unjust laws of men or the unjust pursuit of profit through human suffering, but in the love of God.

Poetry for our times – Adrienne Rich

poetry,

What Kind of Times Are These

(By Adrienne Rich)

There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill

and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows

near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted

who disappeared into those shadows.

I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled

this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,

our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,

its own ways of making people disappear.

I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods

meeting the unmarked strip of light—

ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:

I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you

anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these

to have you listen at all, it’s necessary

to talk about trees.

Copyright Credit: Adrienne Rich, “What Kind of Times are These” from Collected Poems: 1950-2012. Copyright © 2016 by The Adrienne Rich Literary Trust.  Copyright © 1995 Adrienne Rich. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc..

Source: Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995 (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1995)

A friend shared this poem with me this morning, and so I share it with you. In these times where we stand and who we listen to, and what we choose to see are important.

Won’t You Rise Up?

reflections, , , , , , , ,

Today’s Gospel reading is one of my favorites, and so timely. From Matthew:

“As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep. They came and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ He said to them, ‘Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?’ Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. The men were amazed and said, ‘What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?’”

There is a beautiful song reflecting on this story by The Porter’s Gate, “Wake up Jesus,” in which the singer Liz Vice laments soulfully at the end: “How can you sleep when we’re in need. Won’t you rise up? Won’t you rise up?”

This morning in prayer it dawned on me … I need to be the one to rise up. You need to be the one to rise up. We need to be the ones to rise up. That’s how this whole Christianity thing works. They will know we are Christians by our love.

Our love for families who are separated by inhumane immigrant detention efforts.

Our love for the estimated 14 million people who will die over the next five years due to cuts in US international humanitarian relief funds.

Our love for the children and families who will lose food assistance if the budget bill goes through. Even Fox News admits 3 million people could lose benefits to combat hunger.

Our love for the estimated 12 million people who will no longer be covered by health insurance with cuts to Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.

The storms keep coming and lives are literally at stake.

Will we rise up as our lawmakers prioritize greed and misguided ideology over life and human dignity?

Will we be Christ and use our God given agency to calm the raging seas, each doing our bit, contributing to the common good?

Will we be awake to the suffering of human beings, present to their pain and ready to act to rebuild our social fabric?

My prayer this morning is for Christ to guide me/us, to sustain me/us, and to inspire me/us to action.

May it be so. May WE rise up.

Peace Be Still by He Qi

Inhumane Profits

ethic of resistance, social sin, , , ,

Imagine this scenario. Your daughter is a newlywed. While she is not a US citizen, her husband is, and she is trying to navigate the legal system to adjust her own status. She shows up at the immigration office for her regularly scheduled appointment, from which she does not return home. You finally make contact to learn that she is being held in immigration detention at Delaney Hall, a private for-profit prison run by GEO Group under a 15 year contract granted by the Trump Administration in February worth $1 Billion. You call the detention center to learn about visiting hours, yet the phone number listed on the website is disconnected. The GEO website and the ICE website both say that there are daily visiting hours, but when you make your way to the warehouse-like building where your daughter is detained, located on a highway with a nearby sewage plant and industrial estates spewing toxic smells while tractor trailers barrel by, you learn that daily visitation has been cancelled and you can only visit now on Saturday and Sunday. So you manage to come back on Saturday morning, only to be barred entry again because you are wearing open toe shoes on this summer day.

This is not a made up scenario, but the story I cobbled together this morning after greeting this mother outside the gates of Delaney Hall after she had been denied entry. In the end she was able to visit her daughter because I lent her a pair of shoes that Sister Sheena and I had brought with us for this very situation. The guards are able to bar visitors if they judge that they don’t meet the dress code, which in addition to open toe shoes can include sleeveless tops or shorts/skirts that are deemed to be too short. Other visitors who lined up outside the gates this morning to lay eyes on their loved ones were turned away for other reasons. Some thankfully were able to enter the facility to see their loved ones. About an hour later I saw these folks leave the facility, their faces showing a mix of emotion as they rushed back to their cars. I held each of them in prayer as they walked by.

I was able to greet the woman whose story I tell above to return her shoes. She and her son-in-law told us that her daughter is doing ok. They were holding back tears as they thanked us for the loan of shoes and more importantly for our kindness. They told us how much it meant to them that those detained at Delaney hall are not forgotten. I promised to pray for both of them and her daughter.

My friends, horrible things are not only happening in our name, but corporations are making a profit, paid by our tax dollars, on this inhuman treatment of our immigrant brothers and sisters. This attack on human dignity is incentivized. We cannot be silent. We must pay attention. We must listen to and tell the story. That is why I held aloft a sign that I made during my prayer time this morning – “History has its eyes on you.” Sheena held a sign that said “For Profit Prisons are Immoral.”

For the past ten weeks a faithful group of ordinary folks, including Pax Christi New Jersey, have been standing witness outside Delaney Hall to keep “Eyes on ICE” and provide support to the families attempting to visit their loved ones. They offer clothing when needed to pass the dress code, water and snacks for those who have travelled far to stand in line outside in the heat, and information sheets with helpline numbers for immigrant aid organizations. Perhaps most importantly they show that there are good people who are watching, standing witness, and calling out this social sin with real life consequences and who want to offer support. I hope to join them whenever I can. Sadly, this inhumanity for profit is happening just a twenty minute drive from my home.

This for profit prison is convenient for the immigration industrial complex because of its proximity to Newark Airport. “The location near an international airport streamlines logistics, and helps facilitate the timely processing of individuals in our custody as we pursue President Trump’s mandate to arrest, detain and remove illegal aliens from our communities,” said acting ICE Director Caleb Vitello when GEO was awarded the contract in February.

While we were there this morning, we witnessed a van full of immigrants leave the facility, escorted by unmarked vehicles, presumably on their way to a deportation flight at the airport. We were able to just see the men inside through the tinted windows. Hopefully they could see us outside as I held up a sign saying: “Fathers, we see you. We are fighting for you and your families. Stay strong!”

Political Theater at a Human Cost

nonviolence, reflections, , , , ,

This week I finally had a chance to visit the Roman Colosseum, something that has been on my bucket list ever since my high school Latin days. It is certainly a magnificent sight and a colossal site to behold, even filled with hordes of tourists like myself during a June heatwave.

Walking through the remains of this stone structure, echoes of the countless human lives lost in the name of empire and entertainment sounded in my heart. As I stood at the cross overlooking the sight of their torture in the arena, I prayed with and for them. I prayed too with the memories of those who watched, jeered, and cheered, and for the political leaders who orchestrated it all for propaganda and ideological purposes.

I couldn’t help but make connections to what is happening at home in my own country even as I stood there in Rome. Today’s people on the margins are being sacrificed for political purposes, whether through the siphoning off of life-saving food and medicine at home and abroad, or deporting and detaining our immigrant brothers and sisters while ignoring the constitutional right to due process. Tears are being shed and lives disrupted and even taken. And for what? Political ideology at best and nefarious intention at worse, with real human impacts at a scale that only history will truly measure.

I for one feel the need to speak out, to pray, and to act. I am in solidarity with the people in peaceful protest on the streets in Los Angeles and across the country. Although I will still be out of the country, my Congregation is one of many that will be represented on June 24 in Washington, DC and in echo events in New Jersey and Washington State for the Sisters Speak Out event, a prayer and public witness for immigrants and a just economy. https://sistersspeakout.my.canva.site/

I am praying daily with the Sisters Speak Out Rosary guide which you can download here. It has special Sorrowful and Joyful mysteries written for this moral moment.

Finally, as events unfold in my nation this weekend, I am proud to be part of the elected leadership team of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace as we have issued a public statement in support of nonviolent action. We also express our profound concern about unjust action against immigrants, the deployment of military forces in our own nation, and the display today in our nation’s capital.

“Consistent with our mission as agents of peace through justice, we reject the false belief that national strength derives from military power and reject the militarization being used to quell domestic demonstrations.”

Persecution and human suffering in the name of political theater is social sin, pure and simple. I say not in my name. I resist and reject it. And I pray for the heart and soul of my nation and all those whose lives are being disrupted and lost.