Pope on migrants: God walks with his people
In his message for World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which the Church will celebrate this year on 29 September, the Pope writes: “How many Bibles, copies of the Gospels, prayer books and rosaries accompany migrants on their journeys across deserts, rivers, seas and the borders of every continent!” Blessing Okoedion, a Nigerian survivor of trafficking, says she “learnt again what it means to be a Christian.”
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Pope Francis released his a message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, set this year for Sunday, 29 September, centred on the topic “God walks with his people”.
In it, the pontiff writes that, “Many migrants experience God as their travelling companion, guide and anchor of salvation.” However, “God not only walks with his people, but also within them, in the sense that he identifies himself with men and women on their journey through history, particularly with the least, the poor and the marginalized. In this we see an extension of the mystery of the Incarnation.”
Linking it to the Synod, Pope Francis urges everyone to look at today's migrants in light of the Exodus of the people of Israel and their long journey from slavery to freedom, which foreshadow “the Church’s journey toward her final encounter with the Lord.”
“Their journeys of hope remind us that ‘our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Phil 3:20),” Francis writes.
“Like the people of Israel in the time of Moses, migrants often flee from oppression, abuse, insecurity, discrimination, and lack of opportunities for development. Similar to the Jews in the desert, migrants encounter many obstacles in their path: they are tried by thirst and hunger; they are exhausted by toil and disease; they are tempted by despair.”
“Yet the fundamental reality of the Exodus, of every exodus, is that God precedes and accompanies his people and all his children in every time and place. God’s presence in the midst of the people is a certainty of salvation history,” the pope notes.
“Many migrants experience God as their traveling companion, guide and anchor of salvation. They entrust themselves to him before setting out and seek him in times of need. In him, they find consolation in moments of discouragement.
“Thanks to him, there are good Samaritans along the way. In prayer, they confide their hopes to him. How many Bibles, copies of the Gospels, prayer books and rosaries accompany migrants on their journeys across deserts, rivers, seas and the borders of every continent!”
For the pontiff, “the encounter with the migrant, as with every brother and sister in need, ‘is also an encounter with Christ. [. . .] Every encounter along the way represents an opportunity to meet the Lord; it is an occasion charged with salvation, because Jesus is present in the sister or brother in need of our help. In this sense, the poor save us, because they enable us to encounter the face of the Lord.”
This leads the pope to call on the faithful to pray on the Day the Church has dedicated to migrants for more than a century.
“[L]et us unite in prayer for all those who have had to leave their land in search of dignified living conditions. May we journey together with them, be ‘synodal’ together, and entrust them, as well as the forthcoming Synod Assembly, ‘to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a sign of sure hope and consolation to the faithful People of God as they continue their journey’.”
Blessing Okoedion echoed the pope’s words at the press conference announcing this year’s World Day of Migrants and Refugees.
A survivor of trafficking originally from Nigeria, she now works as a cultural mediator in Italy and heads Weavers of Hope, a NGO that has helped about 150 girls and women since 2018 escape sexual exploitation and start on a path of social and work reintegration.
"God has truly walked with me, even through those whom he made me meet along the way. Traffickers dehumanise and turn their victims into objects, resulting in a loss of self-esteem and control over one’s life, freedom, and dignity,” she said.
“The meeting with the Casa Rut in Caserta, where I met Sister Rita Giaretta, helped me regain confidence in myself and in others. This also accompanied me to live my faith in a deeper and truer way.
“I rediscovered the values that my family had passed on to me and that I had lost a bit after being deceived and trafficked by a woman who claimed to be a Christian and who attended one of the many churches that proliferate in Nigeria.
“I have learnt again what it means to be a Christian, what is love, tenderness, giving, and faithfulness. Little by little, I felt that I was renewing myself as a person, as a woman, and also as a Christian. It was only after this journey that I decided to get back into the game, to tell my story and to fight human trafficking.”
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11/08/2017 20:05
