In March, St. Mary's Parish in Yonkers, N.Y., hosted a program that enabled 2,402 immigrants from Mexico to get identification documents.

The pastor, Msgr. Hugh J. Corrigan, told Catholic New York's Claudia McDonnell: "I just loved the fact that the church was able to do something like this. The Catholic Church is universal, and all these different people belong to the family of God."

The documents were provided by the Mexican Consulate in New York, which has a program called "Consulate on Wheels." It issues either passports or identification cards to people who can prove they were born in Mexico.

While the documents do not affect the legal status of the immigrants, they do provide necessary proof of identity when people marry, go to the hospital, contact police agencies or go to a bank to open an account or send money to their loved ones back home.

The idea was so popular that up to 4,000 people came for the four-day program, many arriving at midnight to be there when the doors opened at 7 a.m.

"It was unbelievable," Msgr. Corrigan told McDonnell.

Compassion like this, not just by Catholic parishes and institutions but also by other denominations, is why one feels privileged to be a Christian, though, of course, compassion is also found in non-Christian churches. Sometimes it is something only church people can do.

Casa Juan Diego in Houston, Texas, founded by Mark and Louise Zwick after a transforming experience as missioners in El Salvador during the 1970s, welcomes, shelters and cares for hundreds of refugees and immigrants, most of them from Mexico and Central America.

Similarly, Annunciation House in El Paso, founded by Ruben Garcia, has provided hospitality and services to immigrants in El Paso for many years. Garcia also founded Casa Peregrino in Juarez, which helps Mexico's internal migrants find jobs, child care and housing, and has a program for abused women.

"We are really breaking the law by working with undocumented people," Zwick told me a few years ago.

But immigration officials have always allowed these institutions to operate, even sending hundreds of people to Casa Juan Diego when deportations are suspended. Thus, the authorities acknowledge a duty to a higher law.

The work in places like these is done by unsung short- or long-term volunteers.

Some are doctors and other caregivers who donate their services one day a week at Casa Juan Diego's the two medical clinics or at a residence for the sick and disabled receiving long-term care.

Others are retirees who spend a year or more as volunteers in Annunciation House. Then, of course, there are the thousands from all over the country who contribute financially and make the work possible.

When I last visited the Mexican border, Dr. San Juana Mendoza Bruce, a Mexican obstetrician, had a rudimentary clinic built on a landfill over a former trash dump in Juarez. She was a full-time volunteer supported by her husband, Charles Bruce, a physicist who did research at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

Others worked only on weekends or during their vacations, but, as Maryknoll Lay Missioner Susan Tollefson observed, they were all motivated by the conviction they were taking part in something important.

They sensed they were living the beatitudes: "I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me; naked and you clothed me; ill and you comforted me; in prison and you came to visit me" (Mt 25:35-36).

In working toward our eternal destiny, there can be nothing more important.

Moises Sandoval is a columnist with Catholic News Service.