This weekend marks World Refugee Day. The United Nations observes Sunday, 20 June as World Refugee Day and is making a plea, particularly during this time of pandemic, for refugees to have access to health services and education. As is so often the case, it is those who are the poorest and most destitute who seem to suffer the most exclusion from these basic services. It is staggering to think that there are over 30 million refugees fleeing oppressive and violent situations around the globe and over half of these are under 18 years of age.

Our Church continues to advocate for refugees and asylum seekers and for their rights. Pope Francis has already anticipated his message for later in the year when the Church will celebrate Migrant and Refugee Sunday. His message is that we develop a wider understanding of the human race as ‘we’! By this statement he is calling the human family to remember our origins, created by a God who made a human family, not just individuals without connection.

He goes on to say: “The truth however is that we are all in the same boat and called to work together so that there will be no more walls that separate us, no longer others, but only a single “we”, encompassing all of humanity. Thus I would like to use this World Day to address a twofold appeal, first to the Catholic faithful and then all the men and women of our world, to advance together towards an ever wider ‘we’ “.

On this World Refugee Day Pope Francis offers us a prayer. Perhaps if we all prayed this prayer together, it would be the beginning of a further awareness and development of the human race as a ‘we’ for which each of us has co-responsibility.

Prayer

Holy, beloved Father,
your Son Jesus taught us
that there is great rejoicing in heaven
whenever someone lost is found,
whenever someone excluded, rejected or discarded
is gathered into our “we”,
which thus becomes ever wider.
We ask you to grant the followers of Jesus,
and all people of good will,
the grace to do your will on earth.
Bless each act of welcome and outreach
that draws those in exile
into the “we” of community and of the Church,
so that our earth may truly become
what you yourself created it to be:
the common home of all our brothers and sisters. Amen.
Pope Francis.

By Brendan Reed