The debate this past year over "illegal aliens" has become so contentious and defamatory it dictated the theme for my images from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Colletion for the Advent and Christmas seasons: the Flight into Egypt. How you interprete this tragic postlude to the story of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem largely depends on where you see yourself on the American political spectrum these days, but for me, the text in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, where Joseph is warned in a dream to save the Baby Jesus from the murderous wrath of King Herod and flee to Egypt, puts the Holy Family front and center among the many multitudes of displaced people down the ages who left their homes in search of a better and safer life elsewhere. A trio of German artists spanning two centuries and various schools of art created the images of the Holy Family at rest now on view on The Flight into Egypt page in The Coming of Christ gallery of The Life of Christ section. Hans Thoma shows Joseph and Mary with the Baby Jesus in the German Realist style of the late 1800s. Heinrich Stegemann's abstract expressionist print of the resting family is a 1996 restrike from a woodblock cut in the 1920s. Otto Dix depicts the scene in a more representational expressionist variation in a 1960 lithograph for a illustrated version of the Gospel of Matthew. You can also find a meditation on an icon of the Flight into Egypt by Ukrainian Greek Catholic Artist Lyuba Yatskiv in the Art Reflections gallery of the Moments with Masters section. Pray for Peace in Ukraine and Gaza this holiday season. (John Kohan)