Praying With the Headlines

In the season of Lent, or the approximately six weeks leading up to Easter, Christians often take on practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in order to grow closer to God through repentance and renewal. One way we can engage in prayer though this season is through intentional prayer for others, particularly the marginalized and impoverished among us.

So often, we breeze through the news, unable to absorb the tragedy contained in our headlines. This Lent, we invite you into the practice of slowing down and praying with headlines, particularly about immigration. We will use the news as a medium to imaginatively pray with and for our immigrant brothers and sisters – and so grow in love, compassion, and nearness to God and one another.

Praying With the Headlines: Lives Lost at Immigrant Detention Facilities

Begin by adopting a posture of prayer, wherever you are. Sit back, relax your body, and take a few deep breaths.

Breathe in, breathe out. Know you are in the presence of God.

God, we ask you to help slow our minds and expand our hearts to attend to the suffering of our immigrant brothers and sisters.

Now read these passages from this news story from the El Paso Times slowly.

"Mexico's National Migration Institute reported at least 39 people died and 29 were injured and were in 'delicate-serious' condition late Tuesday. Viangly Infante Padrón watched in fear as the waiting area of a Mexican immigration center where her husband was detained began filling with gray smoke. Mexican authorities ushered her and other waiting women outside.

"Seven hours earlier, she said, Mexican immigration agents began rounding up anyone who appeared to be a migrant, including her Venezuelan husband, Eduard Carabello, who was selling roses on a street corner. As the smoke choked the waiting room, she begged authorities to do something. 'I screamed, Open the door!' she said. 'That whatever the case, they are human beings and deserve to live. And they let them burn inside.'

"A Mexican woman named Gladys waited on a concrete bench outside the immigration center Tuesday afternoon for news of her detained husband, a Honduran national. She saw the news of the fire and said she hadn't heard from her husband since he was detained by Mexican immigration authorities when the couple was expelled by U.S. authorities, after they attempted to cross the border. 'I came to see if they'll give me information, if they were holding him here,' she said, asking that her full name not be used. 'His phone isn't working. I know nothing. His mother and father, they're also asking.'"

Picture yourself on that bench with Gladys and Viangly.

Just earlier that day you had seen Viangly's husband when he tried to sell you a rose while you walked around the neighborhood.

You didn't know Gladys' husband, but she'd told you all about him as you'd both been living in tents in Ciudad Juárez near the border wall as you awaited word on a possible asylum appointment.

Now there was no talking to be done, just wailing and crying as you all helplessly watched the smoke and flames rise from a building where migrant friends, known and unknown, were trapped in a fire.

It's all too overwhelming to bear. This exact kind of danger and injustice is why you left your home to begin with, but now it seems to follow you wherever you go.

Safety and freedom are elusive, and you begin to think again about the immigrants trapped in the burning building in front of you.

You wonder, "Will this happen to me next?"

Or will you be one of the lucky ones who is able to get an asylum appointment?

And even then, if you get asylum, will you be safe once you arrive in your new home?

Breathe in, breathe out. Try to imagine the pain and trauma these people must have felt as they witnessed such a tragedy.

It is not the first horror they've experienced on their journeys to seek asylum, but their bodies and souls feel the pain acutely as the hopes and dreams of many were lost or diminished in the fire.

Recognize how brutal and unfair this all is. Exhausted people fleeing dangerous and violent situations only to be caught up in more instability and peril.

Forced to live in permanent jeopardy and insecurity, where their next steps could lead them into disaster. They are condemned to live in a world with few fair choices.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Hold these people facing the unexpected and tragic loss of loved ones in your mind and heart.

Remember those, named and unnamed, who died in the fire this week at the migration center in Ciudad Juárez.

Remember those, named and unnamed, who have died or been condemned to interminable waiting in other detention centers while trying to reunite with their families.

Remind yourself that God knows each of their names and their stories.

Christ loves them deeply, hears their cries and weeps with them.

"You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book."
- Psalm 56:8 -

"Jesus wept."
- John 11:35 -

Offer up the prayers you have for these families in great need.