Ministering to migrants in a carport cathedral
The Eucharist is always a mutual gift, breaking bread and sharing cup, a holy communion of God and God’s people. It marks a two-way moment of dignity and respect among the Mexican workers and the American residents as the words of the Last Supper resonate: “I will not abandon you.”
ON A MID-AUGUST DAY, a tiny caravan sets out from small-town Plymouth, North Carolina for an hour’s drive across soy fields, then salty marshes to an isolated seafood processing plant near the Atlantic coast. Today the men and women who live and work at Mattamuskeet Seafood will celebrate the Eucharist. For many years, any Mass at all has been a rarity for these Mexican seasonal workers in a Catholic-minority area.
Glenmary Home Missioners serving in the area have taken on this mission within a mission, now coming twice monthly. Today it’s two SUVs, two priests, and a handful of parishioners from their parishes, 80 families combined across two counties. They are doing what Catholic missionary priests, brothers, and sisters do, both home and abroad. As Pope Francis says, they are “going to the peripheries.”
![Vision 2023 Feister 1 Ministering to migrants in a carport cathedral fields in the countryside](/images/cms-images/articles/2023/V23-803FeisterMissionaryPriests1.jpg)
![Vision 2023 Feister 2 Ministering to migrants in a carport cathedral Holy Spirit Catholic Church sign](/images/cms-images/articles/2023/V23-803FeisterMissionaryPriests2.jpg)
![Vision 2023 Feister 3 Ministering to migrants in a carport cathedral Workers in a crab processing plant](/images/cms-images/articles/2023/V23-803FeisterMissionaryPriests3%20.jpg)
![Vision 2023 Feister 4 Ministering to migrants in a carport cathedral Workers in a crab processing plant](/images/cms-images/articles/2023/V23-803FeisterMissionaryPriests4.jpg)
FAST AND DANGEROUS: Crab processing is rapid, skilled labor, extracting fresh meat with small, razor-sharp knives and moving it quickly to refrigeration. The boats come to shore in early morning, truckloads of crabs are brought a mile in from the docks, and the work begins. Some workers haul the crabs in and the empty shells out in 32-gallon drums; others rapidly harvest the crabmeat. Pay is an hourly wage plus piece-rate—the fastest workers send the most money back home. By midafternoon the work is finished. And if the catch is slow, there is downtime on the grounds, 2,000 miles from home.
![Vision 2023 Feister 7 Ministering to migrants in a carport cathedral Glenmary Fathers Richard Toboso and José Carlos Miguel López vest for Mass among chicken coops and mobile homes.](/images/cms-images/articles/2023/V23-803FeisterMissionaryPriests7.jpg)
![Vision 2023 Feister 8 Ministering to migrants in a carport cathedral A carport cathedral](/images/cms-images/articles/2023/V23-803FeisterMissionaryPriests8.jpg)
![Vision 2023 Feister 9 Ministering to migrants in a carport cathedral Glenmary Father José Carlos](/images/cms-images/articles/2023/V23-803FeisterMissionaryPriests9.jpg)
![Vision 2023 Feister 6 Ministering to migrants in a carport cathedral Small children sit on the steps of a home](/images/cms-images/articles/2023/V23-803FeisterMissionaryPriests6.jpg)
![Vision 2023 Feister 11 Ministering to migrants in a carport cathedral María Dolores Cerino García, has a big smile today at the Sign of Peace](/images/cms-images/articles/2023/V23-803FeisterMissionaryPriests11.jpg)
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