Migrants and refugees are pictured on a large bronze statue in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Sept. 29, 2019. Pope Francis attended the unveiling of the statue after celebrating a Mass for World Day of Migrants and Refugees. (CNS photo/Paolo Galosi, pool) See POPE-MASS-MIGRANTS-REFUGEES Sept. 29, 2019.
Typically on this Catholic Advocacy Day in Washington State, we would gather in Olympia for prayer and visits with our legislative members. This year, all visits will be virtual.
While politics is a worthy and lofty goal, we must remember that politics is not religion, and religion must not be wielded as politics. Our purpose as Catholics is to advance the Kingdom of God and advocate with the core principles of our Catholic thought about God, the human person, and the common good of society.
God is the Creator of all; the entire universe and all life within it. Everything created by God is good and sacred. Thus, God is our starting point, recognizing all we have and are is from the God of Love, Life and Salvation.
The earth and its environment is a ‘common home’ to the one human family of God. As such, we long to properly care for creation which God created for our sustenance.
The human person is the culmination of God’s creation, as each of us is created in God’s image and likeness. God’s love is universal, infinite, faithful, expansive and redeeming. This is our God – the God of every human person. Thus, every person is a part of the one human family. No matter where someone is born, or where someone lives in this world, we are all brothers and sisters, children of the one God.
As Cardinal Michael Czerny said to a group of US bishops yesterday, the human heart has no borders.
Let us pray and work together to build respectful relationships which advance conversations that break down barriers and lift up solutions to the many challenges we face as a human family today. Let us advance our belief and understanding of the dignity of every human person, the sacredness of all human life from conception to natural death.
I invite you to please listen to God’s Word in today’s Mass along with the homily below.
Peace!
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