In this month between Epiphany and the beginning of Lent, the new artworks presented from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection illustrate a biblical narrative spanning Christmas and Easter in its theme of the hope of salvation: the Flight into Egypt. The story of the Holy Family's journey in search of a safe haven in Egypt, recorded in Matthew 2:13-23, has special meaning at a time when America is divided over the immigration question. I have selected a trio of images depicting Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus in flight from King Herod in the context of the current debate over who is welcome in this country. New Jersey-based Artist Pam Malone presents the Holy Family as if they have come straight out of a child’s Sunday School painting, but the stick figures in the background of the picture are fellow refugees heading towards a beach, where the body of a child floats in the sea, a heart-breaking image of a Holy Innocent, based on a widely-published photo of a drowned Syrian boy whose family had fled their war-torn homeland for Europe. German-American Printmaker Fritz Eichenberg, a longtime illustrator for Social Activist Dorothy Day's newspaper, The Catholic Worker, presents a harrowing scene of refugees in an internment camp, where the central figures mimic the Holy Family at rest. The one who keeps watch over the mother and child in this variation of a traditional Flight into Egypt motif is not Joseph but the skeletal figure of Death. The Canadian-based artist and cartoonist, David Hayward (known as "The Naked Pastor"), depicts the the Holy Family (above left) as displaced people, peering out through the barbed wire of a detention camp, the victims of racial profiling. This trio of images can be viewed on The Flight into Egypt page in The Coming of Christ gallery in The Life of Christ section. There is also a meditation on the charcoal drawing, Holy Family Immigration, by Filipino-American Artist Wayne Forte in the Art Reflections gallery of the Moments with Masters section. Sacred art needs to speak to the troubling issues of our time, as these four images certainly do, whether or not you like what you hear! (John Kohan)