At Mass, Pope Leo said ‘the frontiers of the missions are no longer geographical’
VATICAN CITY — The joint celebration of the Jubilee of Migrants and the Jubilee of the Missions is an opportunity to remind all Catholics that the duty to welcome and assist migrants is also part of each person’s obligation to share God’s love, Pope Leo XIV said.
“Brothers and sisters, today a new missionary age opens up in the history of the Church,” the pope said Oct. 5 during a Jubilee Mass in St. Peter’s Square with tens of thousands of migrants and missionaries from around the world.
For centuries Catholics have thought of missionaries as people who leave their homelands and set off for distant lands to minister with people who live in poverty and do not know Jesus, said the U.S.-born pope who served for decades as a missionary in Peru.
“Today the frontiers of the missions are no longer geographical, because poverty, suffering and the desire for a greater hope have made their way to us,” Pope Leo said.
“The story of so many of our migrant brothers and sisters bears witness to this: the tragedy of their flight from violence, the suffering which accompanies it, the fear of not succeeding, the perilous risk of traveling along the coastline, their cry of sorrow and desperation,” he said. “Those boats which hope to catch sight of a safe port, and those eyes filled with anguish and hope seeking to reach the shore, cannot and must not find the coldness of indifference or the stigma of discrimination!”
The pope said in his homily that today, “mission is not so much about ‘departing,’ but instead ‘remaining’ in order to proclaim Christ through hospitality and welcome, compassion and solidarity.”
Being missionaries at home, he said, means not hiding in the comforts of one’s own life and turning a blind eye to “those who arrive from lands that are distant and violent,” but rather opening “our arms and hearts to them, welcoming them as brothers and sisters, and being for them a presence of consolation and hope.”
However, he said, Catholics cannot leave the work to others. “This precious service involves each one of us, within the limits of our own means.”
In its efforts to fulfill Jesus’ mandate to share the Gospel with all people, the Catholic Church has relied on “missionary cooperation” with people in traditionally Christian lands supporting the foreign missions with prayer, donations and personnel.
Pope Leo called for a new form of missionary cooperation that taps into lively faith of many migrants and refugees.
