SEPTEMBER 27th – World Migrant and Refugee Day

SEPTEMBER 27th – World Migrant and Refugee Day

Like Jesus Christ, forced to flee

The Church has been celebrating World Migrant and Refugee Day since 1914. It has always been an opportunity to show concern for different categories of vulnerable people on the move, to pray for them as they face many challenges, and to raise awareness of the opportunities offered by migration.

The theme chosen by Pope Francis for the 106th World Migrant and Refugee Day is

“Like Jesus Christ, forced to flee"

and will focus on the pastoral care of internally displaced persons.

MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR THE 106th WORLD DAY OF MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES 2020

This World Day was born in the context of the Catholic Church to spiritually and operationally call the followers of Jesus to mercy towards the last and historically precedes those established by the UN for Migrants (January 17) and for Refugees (June 20) to recall the followers of Jesus spiritually.  Today, more than ever before, we live days in which the abuses, favored by the West, risk to prevail over the primordial value that the West itself brings to the history of humanity: the right of each one to dignity for the sole fact of being a man, beyond any religion, race and culture. This is stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and, well before that, the message of Jesus Christ that establishes an unprecedented sense of encounter with the foreigner: mercy and compassion whoever the other is, as in the parable of the Samaritan.

(Escape to Egypt, Guttuso)

THE PRAYER OF POPE FRANCISCUS

Father, You entrusted to Saint Joseph what you had most precious:
the Child Jesus and his mother,
to protect them from the dangers and threats of the wicked.
Allow us also to experience his protection and help. He who has experienced the suffering of those who flee because of the hatred of the powerful,
that it may comfort and protect all those brothers and sisters who, driven by war, poverty and necessity, leave their home and their land.
to set out as refugees to safer places.
Help them, through his intercession, to have the strength to move forward,
comfort in sadness, courage in trial.
Give to those who welcome them some of the tenderness of this just and wise father, who loved Jesus as a true son and supported Mary along the way.
May he, who earned bread with the work of his hands, provide for those from whom life has taken everything, and give them the dignity of a job and the serenity of a home.
We ask this through Jesus Christ, your Son, whom St. Joseph saved by fleeing to Egypt, and through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, whom he loved as a faithful bridegroom according to your will.
Amen