Episcopal priest organizes ecumenical Christmas Eve service outside Massachusetts ICE facility

[Episcopal News Service] The ecumenical Christmas Eve service the Rev. Dave Woesnner is organizing for the Massachusetts Council of Churches will include the liturgical elements one could expect – choirs, carols, prayers and the reading of the story of Jesus’ birth – but the setting makes it far from ordinary.

The service will take place outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Burlington, Massachusetts, in the greater Boston area. It is an opportunity to stand in solidarity with the people being held inside the facility and, if the number attending is large enough, to provide a message of hope, in different languages, that detainees can hear through the walls, Woessner, an Episcopal priest who serves as the council’s congregational coordinator, told Episcopal News Service.

But he is clear that the service is just that – a church service involving Christians “of all stripes,” since the Council of Churches includes 18 denominations.

“It isn’t a protest,” Woessner said. “It isn’t theatre or a demonstration.”

There have been plenty of those outside the facility, though, as the group Bearing Witness @ ICE has organized 34 straight weeks of Wednesday protests, which can draw more than 600 people from Massachusetts and other parts of New England, Woessner said.

The reason for both the service and the protests stems from the fact that the Burlington ICE facility isn’t equipped to serve as a detention center, he said. It was built as a field office, and in fact is housed in a nondescript building in an office park next to the Burlington Mall.

What had been a field office where people would apply for protected status or green cards has been turned this year into a place from which teams of ICE agents set out on raids and where people are being detained in terrible conditions, he said.

Rooms that served as offices now hold up to 20 men in spaces so small they can’t lie down. “There is one communal toilet in the middle of the room,” Woessner said, “and not enough food.” The spaces where women are held are even smaller, he added. Some people are held in the facility for weeks, with many of detainees caught up in ICE raids of the area.

“I work with teachers, who tell about students with no home to go to after their parents have been detained. Mom and/or dad has been taken, leaving kids with no food.”

As a part of his job with the Massachusetts Council of Churches, Woessner sometimes accompanies people as they report to the facility, although clergy are prohibited from entering the building. The council would like to be able to provide more pastoral services for those detained.

It is that same Christian ministry that is driving the Christmas Eve service, Woessner said. “For those people being held, the service hopes to tell them that they are not alone, and that God does see them and remembers them.”

The story of Mary and Joseph being turned away as they searched for a place where Jesus could be born continues to echo today, he added. “They were told there was no room for them in the inn, and for those being detained, they are being told there is no room for them in America.”

All are welcome at the Dec. 24 service, which begins at 10 a.m. and will last about an hour. Woessner said that while the setting is unique, for those who worship in most Protestant churches, the service will feel familiar, much like a version of Evensong or Lessons and Carols.

Of course, the service – like so many others taking place on Christmas Eve – will be centered on the Gospel account of Jesus’ birth, which Woessner said has the power to open eyes and break open hearts.

And on the sidewalk outside the Burlington ICE facility, it will be told where those who are detaining people inside “seem to have forgotten it.”

— Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.