Immigration advocate, Jose Antonio Vargas, wrote on his Instagram the following words during the outbreak of COVID19 in the US: “My fellow Americans. You can’t go here and there. Your life has limitations. You adapt to changing circumstances. Welcome to undocumented life.” This pandemic has not only disrupted our lives in a major way, but it also gave us a taste of how marginalized people in our society has constantly lived in separation, limitation and persistent fear. We are living right now in solidarity with our undocumented brothers and sisters. We are separated, limited in our mobility and fear that things might get worse.

Ezekiel, in the first reading writes to an exiled people living in a foreign land. The exiled Jews lived in separation from Israel and left a destructed temple in Jerusalem. Psalm 137 writes, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.” Like undocumented persons, they suffered greatly and adapted to cultural pressures on unfamiliar territory. We are in solidarity with them as well, transcending time and space. Truly, what we experience now overcomes social boundaries, legal statuses, and time differences.

To us all, whether documented or undocumented, isolated today or in the time of the Babylonian captivity, the promise of God echoes with hope and a joy-filled future. The prophet writes, “I will take the children of Israel from among the nations to which they have come and gathered them from all sides to bring them back to their land.” He exhorts them to maintain adherence to the covenant and cling to hope that suffering will end, and reunification will happen. We heed the words of the prophet and believe that we will be taken out of our isolation and be restored as a holy people. We will be changed by this experience and perhaps gain more empathy for our neighbors.

As we end our Lenten Journey, we begin Holy week like an exiled people celebrating the Passover feast on different land. Even though we cannot physically gather in the Chapel, may we take solace in the words of the prophet that God is dwelling with us.