Sep 23rd, 2021
The WDMR –World DAY of Migrant and Refugee is now in its 107th year, with a message from Pope Francis that is inclusive and in solidarity with the increasingly vulnerable groups of people on the move.
For this year's celebration on September 26th, Pope Francis' chosen theme is "Toward an ever wider we", sending the clear message that we are all part of a common journey. In fact, "this horizon is present in God's own creative project: “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:27-28). God created us male and female, different yet complementary, in order to form a “we” destined to become ever more numerous in the succession of generations. God created us in his image, in the image of his own triune being, a communion in diversity”. (Full text of the message HERE).
In particular, the Holy Father invites the Church to embrace its universality according to the will and grace of God. It is in fact "encountering the diversity of foreigners, migrants, and refugees, and in the intercultural dialogue that can emerge from this encounter, we have an opportunity to grow as Church and to enrich one another. All the baptized, wherever they find themselves, are by right members of both their local ecclesial community and the one Church, dwellers in one home and part of one family”.
Hence the global appeal addressed to all the faithful to walk together to build a future of justice and peace, no one excluded, to ensure that the "we" is stronger than the single individual.
The theme of migration, a global phenomenon involving millions of people around the world, is still today one of the most delicate issues to be addressed and which sees the encounter, but also the clash, of different realities. Often, indifference towards migrants and refugees stems from the fact that we are unable to see the other in his or her dignity and humanity. Therefore, we must learn to live together, as brothers and sisters, as inhabitants of the same Earth created by God, and not as enemies, in order to renew the community spirit.
Migrations have always taken place, they are a natural and constant phenomenon, and they remind us that man is by nature a being on a journey and in a Christian vision that existence itself is to be considered a journey towards the fullness of God.
For this reason, the invitation to prayer for this World Migrant and Refugee Day is to welcome the other in his diversity and fullness, as a child of God and as an inhabitant of our own Earth, of our own community.
