28 September 2024 – 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) (Sunset Mass) | World Day of Migrants & Refugees

by Fr Joachim Robert

Dear friends,

Today we celebrate World Day of Migrants and Refugees, 110th Celebration. And the theme of the celebration is ‘God walks with His people‘.

And as we look at migration, dear friends, many of us are people who have descended from migrant families. Those who have come from afar, made home in this land and they have made a family here and they came here because of the hope of a better life, an opportunity of a better life.

Many of them often would flee oppression, abuse, insecurity, discrimination and perhaps lack of opportunity. But they come trusting that the distant land will be one that is full of hope. 

But when they come, how do we treat them? How do we relate with them?

And I think, as I look through my whole experience in Rome too, where I went there for some time, for 6 months, and when I arrived there, there were people who were very friendly. There were people who took time, took effort and to ensure things were in order for my stay there for my studies.

But there too, I also encountered people who were not so comfortable of finding foreigners being there. And that sometimes effects you. Sometimes you feel unwelcome, sometimes you feel disillusioned. But how do we navigate ourselves in and through these kind of challenges that we are confronted with?

And I am sure everyone of you have some form of these experiences in one way or the other, whether is it in the family, whether is it in a foreign country, whether is it in the church, whether is it in your working place. I am sure each one of you have people who see you differently.

And today’s Readings, dear friends, invites us to take a deeper look at our disposition, to take a deeper look at where we are in our relationship with God and how we relate and see one another.

In the First Reading, there is this situation where Moses was in the tent together with Joshua, in the cloud, and there was these two men who were not from the camp who was Eldad and Medad. And they too were prophesying as how Joshua would or perhaps those who were in the camp.

But when Joshua looked at this, he looked at them as one who was against them. Not among them but one who was against them.

Similarly, if you look at the Gospel where we see John who saw a man who was casting out devils or demons in the name of Jesus. And he came to complain to Jesus and say: There is a man who is casting out devil in your name and we try to stop him.

And here too, dear friends, how Jesus relates with John is very different.

If there are goodness that is happening around, Jesus allows it to happen. Jesus allows them to magnify the goodness that God has placed before them and He sees it as a plan of salvation, of how they too complement in that work of salvation in the world.

So as we look at these two Readings, dear friends, we have to ask ourselves how do we approach our own life, how do we approach situations that we are confronted with?

And very often when we are confronted with a situation like Joshua and like John, we often see ourselves as exclusive and see others as the other.

There is this thing about ‘we‘ and ‘them‘, ‘I‘ and ‘you‘, and we see things differently because we don’t include them as part of our decision. We don’t include them as part of our family. And when we do that, dear friends, there can never, never, never be a solution moving forward.

And you look all around the world. With so much of dissension, so much of darkness, so much of gloom, so much of war, all of them because they choose to see in the way of how humans see and the wisdom of the world.

And because they see as ‘one‘ or ‘the other‘, they are not able to dialogue, they are not able to come together to find a common path together in one brotherhood.

Locally, how we relate to our migrants who are responsible for so many work that they have to do for the building of this nation, for the upbuilding of our community. Do we see them as one who threaten us or do we see them as one who builds us, who is part of us and to walk together in this path of fraternity?

And for our parish too, dear friends, as we approach our whole orientation in terms of inclusivity, care and unity, how have we responded to one another?

Do we just say that we are inclusive or do we really make effort? Do we really take time to dialogue with one another? Do we take time to find that moment to talk, to discuss and to care for the other person so that they are able to find a common destination together as one church?

And very often we also care for ourselves more than we care for others. And it is important too that we care for ourselves but the care that we show towards others as a community must reflect God’s care for us, dear friends.

And when we are able to reflect God’s care for us and for the community, then we can walk in this path of humility and fraternity.

As I mentioned earlier that in order to talk this path, firstly we must have respect for one another. We must be able to recognise the other person is a child of God, the other person is one who is made in God’s image and God’s likeness. And if we have that common basis of who we are as a human family, then we can take that path together.

And secondly is that we need to embrace humility. Because very often, dear friends, when we look at others as one against the other, we think that we are superior than the other. And when we do that, we are allowing pride to dictate our actions. We allow pride or our superiority to colour our vision.

But today’s Readings invites us to take the path of humility together with Jesus because the vision that Jesus has for us is far wider than the vision that we have for ourselves.

And lastly, in every single action that we do, we are called to make that action in love. And when we are able to take that action in love and allow the love of God to transform us and mould us, then we are able to make the change that we want to see.

And Pope Francis recently said that in order to change the world, we need not have any big system. What we need to have when we want to change the world is that we need love.

And we are able to love, we can have the dynamic power of transforming the world and reaching out to one another in love.

So let us pray, dear friends, let us pray that as we as a community, and as we strive ourselves to grow in inclusivity, care and unity, that we may always make love at the centre of everything that we do so that God may be magnified, that God may reign in our lives, our parish, our family and our community.

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