I’ve heard it said that the Christian faith is meant to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” In today’s readings, we see examples of the latter.

In the reading from the Book of Wisdom, the “wicked” make a plan to harm “the just one” because his good deeds and very presence among them make them aware of their own failings. Similarly, in the Gospel passage from John, Jesus’s enemies plot to kill him because his words and miracles make them so uneasy.

I work in the field of immigration advocacy, which is an extremely uncomfortable space right now. In this climate of anti-immigrant sentiment, many of us are being criticized for speaking what we know is the truth: that most immigrants in the United States, far from being dangerous or criminals, are hardworking, cherished members of our communities. From a basis of faith, we cry out that migrants are precious in God’s eyes, created in God’s image in likeness, and worthy of respect.

As Pope Francis has repeatedly taught, migrants’ presence in our midst reminds us all of an uncomfortable — but critical — truth: that none of us is fully at home in this life. All of us are on a journey back to God. He calls migrants a “contemporary icon of God’s people on a journey.”

And he emphasizes it again in his Lenten message for 2025:

“It would be a good Lenten exercise for us to compare our daily life with that of some migrant or foreigner, to learn how to sympathize with their experiences and in this way discover what God is asking of us so that we can better advance on our journey to the house of the Father. This would be a good “examination of conscience” for all of us wayfarers.”

We are all wayfarers in this life. If this is true, how do we treat our fellow wayfarers — particularly those who are vulnerable people on the move, migrants in search of safety and freedom?

This Lent, let us remember that we are all called to identify with migrants, and because of this, treat them with the utmost dignity and respect. Living this out, and speaking this truth, may be uncomfortable, but it is critical for the Christian life. After all, this is how we hope others will treat us — with the very mercy that God will embrace us with at the end of our journey.

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Anna Gallagher is Executive Director at Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC).