Jesus, Mary & Joseph as Refugees

"Get up, take the child and his mother with you, and escape into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, because Herod intends to search for the child and do away with him. So Joseph got up and, taking the child and his mother with him, left that night for Egypt"(Matthew 2: 13-15).

Mary was present in all the defining moments in the life of her Son. As a result to the threat to the life of Jesus by Herod, Mary, Joseph and Jesus became immigrant refugees in Egypt. How many immigrant refugees are there in the world today? Jesus and His parents had the refugee experience.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: "Christ's whole life is a mystery of redemption. Redemption comes to us above all through the blood of his cross, but this mystery is at work throughout Christ's entire life:

- already in his incarnation through which by becoming poor he enriches us with his poverty;
- in his hidden life which by his submission atones for our disobedience;
- in his word which purifies his hearers;
- in his healing and exorcisms by which 'he took our infirmities and bore our diseases';
- and in his resurrection by which he justifies us;

Christ's whole life is a mystery of recapitulation. All Jesus did, said, had for its aim restoring fallen man to his original vocation:

When Christ became incarnate and was made man, he recapitulated in himself the long history of mankind and procured for us a 'short-cut' to salvation, so that what we have lost in Adam, that is, being in the image and likeness of God, we might recover in Christ Jesus. For this reason Christ experienced all the stages of life, thereby giving communion with God to all men."