Seek the LORD. Seek justice, seek humility. Speak no lies.

The LORD keeps faith forever, gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets captives free.
The LORD protects strangers.

Consider your calling, brothers and sisters to be blessed,
to see the world the way the LORD sees the world.

Blessed are the poor, those who mourn, & who are meek.

Executive actions on Wednesday authorize the construction of a southern border wall and restrict people from certain Muslim countries from entering the United States.

On Friday, another executive order barred refugees from boarding U.S.-bound flights. Immigrants were being detained at U.S. airports. In response to lawsuits, federal judges around the country issued stays of the deportations for “all people stranded in U. S. airports.”

These executive actions cannot be reconciled with the Scriptures. Nor with what it means to be an American.

Cardinal Tobin of our neighboring Archdiocese of Newark was more direct. He said:

“Closing borders and building walls are not rational acts. Mass detentions and wholesale deportation benefit no one; such inhuman policies destroy families and communities.

“In fact, threatening the so-called ‘sanctuary cities’ with the withdrawal of federal funding for vital services such as healthcare, education and transportation will not reduce immigration. It only will harm all good people in those communities.”

The cardinal went on to say what has made America great was “confident kindness” in our history of welcoming those who sought refuge even when new peoples “were met by irrational fear, prejudice and persecution.”

My mother was an Apache Indian whose people were almost completely exterminated.

My father is the son of Mexican immigrants recruited to the United States to build railroads connecting Chicago to California during World War I, only to flee violence against Mexicans once the war was over. He came back.

And, I’m here.

We all have an immigrant story because that is America’s story so we should always be careful and deeply thoughtful about our approach to immigration.

This country, our country has never been perfect, from slavery to discrimination, to destruction of lands and peoples, and to every assault possible on the dignity of the human person.

Still, like you, I love this country because its people aspire to true greatness, to “confident kindness” as Cardinal Tobin said. Confident kindness is unafraid to resist every kind of evil or every lie that falsely promises security and peace and comes from knowing we are never more blessed than when we are kind to one another.

The Beatitudes are God’s declaration of confident kindness to all people, in a particular way, to those who suffer. They are also a call to consider, brothers and sisters, how we stand up for those rejected by the fearful and powerful.

In opposing walls, seek the LORD. We must resist the urge to build walls ourselves between our fellow citizens, family members, or an entire government operating with executive actions, even if they want to.

Surely political divisions threaten to suffocate our unity with one another. Walls never work! Walls of alternative facts cannot draw us together nor can the illusion of addressing serious and complicated humanitarian issues with a stroke of a pen.

Walls are more than an immigration policy issue; they represent a walling off of our hearts. We proclaim that the suffering of others has nothing to do with us. It becomes easy to dismiss the very humanity of others in the name of peace and security. When we wall off our hearts, we are not human to each other! Walls never work!

The kindness of the Beatitudes calls us, rather, to rejoice and be glad and to stand up for the blessed of the kingdom of God, where heaven and earth are united in the love and mercy of Jesus who walked among us and still does.

Rejoice by lawyering at JFK Terminal 4, by marching peacefully, here or in DC at the White House or in the March for life, and letting your voices be heard by our new government.

Rejoice also, with beauty, with honesty, with music, with love because these are the only things that have ever changed the world for the better.

Shortly after the Pulse gay nightclub shootings in Florida, Lin-Manuel Miranda, the actor and writer of “Hamilton,” a musical about a great immigrant to the United States, gave a short Tony Award acceptance speech in the form of a sonnet:

We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger

We rise and fall and light from dying embers

Remembrances that hope and love lasts long

And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love

Cannot be killed or swept aside, …

Now fill the world with music love and pride

In these uncertain days, let the scriptures which have jumped off the page this evening, seep into your heart: blessed are you when you fill the world with confident kindness which continues to make our country great.

Rejoice and be glad!

Paulist Fr. Gilbert Martinez is the pastor of our mother church, the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, in New York City, where he preached this homily on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017.