World Day of Migrants and Refugees – Celebrated Oct. 4-5
Excerpts from Pope Leo XIV address for the 111th World Day of Migrants and Refugees:
Dear Brothers and Sisters!
The current global context is sadly marked by wars, violence, injustice and extreme weather events, which force millions of people to leave their homelands in search of refuge elsewhere….
Faced with frightening scenarios and the possibility of global devastation, it is important that there be a growing desire in people’s hearts for a future of peace and of respect for the dignity of all. Such a future is essential to God’s plan for humanity and the rest of creation. This is the messianic future anticipated by the prophets: “Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets… For there shall be a sowing of peace; the vine shall yield its fruit, the ground shall give its produce, and the skies shall give their dew” (Zech 8:4-5, 12). This future has already begun, since it was inaugurated by Jesus Christ (cf. Mk 1:15; Lk 17:21), and we believe and hope in its full realization, for the Lord is always faithful to his promises….
Migrants and refugees remind the Church of her pilgrim dimension, perpetually journeying towards her final homeland, sustained by a hope that is a theological virtue. Each time the Church gives in to the temptation of “sedentarization” and ceases to be a civitas peregrine, God’s people journeying towards the heavenly homeland (cf. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, Books XIV-XVI), she ceases to be “in the world” and becomes “of the world” (cf. Jn 15:19). This temptation was already present in the early Christian communities, so much so that the Apostle Paul had to remind the Church of Philippi that “our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself” (Phil 3:20-21).
On this Jubilee, when the Church prays for all migrants and refugees, I wish to entrust all those who are on the journey, as well as those who are working to accompany them, to the maternal protection of the Virgin Mary, comfort of migrants, so that she may keep hope alive in their hearts and sustain them in their commitment to building a world that increasingly resembles the Kingdom of God, the true homeland that awaits us at the end of our journey.
– According to the UN, in 2024, 123.4 million people were forcibly displaced across the world . Vatican News/UN photo.
