Dead, missing migrants worldwide remembered during Mass on US-Mexico border
According to the missing migrants project 5,610 migrants are missing or dead all over the world, 314 of them on the US Mexico border and more than 4,000 in the Mediterranean.
Saturday bishops and priests from across the borderland gathered at the edge of the Rio Grande to celebrate the annual border Mass and honor all those lost.
Flags from all over the world reflected on the river’s slowly moving waters. Dozens of people from the borderplex stood along the riverbanks celebrating Mass, taking a couple of hours to come together in the same place where only a week ago hundreds of families saw each other for the first time in years.
“A border can be a place of encounter, a place of bridges, Where there is orderly movement back and forth, but where we all benefit when there is movement,” said El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz
In the crowd was an Argentinean nun who has worked in Syria, helping minister to citizens in war-ravaged Aleppo.
“he people of Syria and Iraq don’t want to leave their land behind, but families are forced to migrate after their homes are bombed,” said Sister Maria de Guadalupe.
The bishop’s homily concentrating on how people can imitate Christ and surpass the borders in their lives to help others and be an example to others, using the Mass as a sign of unity and reconciliation.
“Kindness should prevail, and people should understand what migrants are going through that pushes them out of their own countries,” Sister Maria Guadalupe said.
The Border Patrol reporter that in 2015 240 people lost their lives along the US-Mexico border, 97 in the Rio Grande Valley sector and two in the El Paso sector.
