Boston priest ministers to Iraqi Catholic refugees in Jordan

According to Father [Denis] Como [S.J.], “every day I spend time with these refugees, celebrating Mass for them, trying to explain why the U.S.A. that says their leader is evil to his people, won’t let this same people [emigrate to] the U.S.A.”
“So here I am, without a big printed-out plan of tasks, just ready to walk with these people and listen and make them laugh by yelling out quaint Iraqi phrases,” he states.
Ministering to this community is often emotionally draining, admits Father Como. “I spend time, and lots of prayers, trying to find ways of helping these Iraqis face the fact that they are a ‘people in-between’”.
“My toughest moment is when I am celebrating the Chaldean Mass, facing the people so crowded in the church that they come a foot from the altar, and hearing them sing so loud and from their guts that I could cry aloud,” he says.