‘Mary, Joseph! Take Young Jesus!’ is based on Sunday’s gospel lectionary passage
Following Tuesday’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the continued expulsion of asylum seekers from the United States until justices oral arguments on Title 42 in February, the Rev. Carolyn Winfrey Gillette has written a new hymn, “Mary, Joseph! Take Young Jesus!” and based it on Matthew 2:13-18, part of the lectionary reading for Jan. 1, 2023.
In an email, Gillette said she completed the hymn Wednesday. It’s set to the tune BEACH SPRING, which is also used in the hymn “God, Whose Giving Knows No Ending.”
In 2020, the Trump administration put in place pandemic-era limits on asylum, according to an Associated Press report. Those limits are often called Title 42 in reference to a public health law that dates back to World War II. Since the outset of the pandemic, officials have expelled more than 2.5 million asylum seekers on the grounds of preventing Covid from spreading.
Immigration advocates sued to end the policy, saying it goes against U.S. and international obligations to people fleeing to the U.S. to escape persecution.
Last summer the 225th General Assembly passed IMM-08, which among other actions directs the Presbyterian Mission Agency to provide the Church with information “about conditions that precipitate migration, about obstacles to care of refugees, and about detention and deportation practices.” It also requires the PMA to advocate to Congress “for legislative compassion on immigration reform.”
Original source can be found here.
