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4957(I)_How can we make our Christmas celebration more meaningful?

Welcoming migrants and refugees - welcoming the Holy Family

December 22, 2018

EAO, 22 December 2018 -- Jesus, Mary and Joseph: a perfect and complete refugee family is at the centre of our annual Christmas celebration. The Holy Family is featured in thousands of pieces of art, decorations, cribs in and out of our Churches.

However, for the disciples of Jesus, each celebration of Jesus' Birth can't miss noting the poverty of Bethlehem followed immediately by the refugee life of the holy family in Egypt.

A few days ago (18 December) the Australian bishops implored federal politicians to end the plight of asylum-seekers on Nauru and Manus Island (Papua New Guinea).

There are similar situation going on in almost all 23 EAO countries. We may ask this Christmas:

How do we welcome the family of Jesus - refugees in Australia?
How do we welcome the family of Jesus present in the Afghani refugees living in Pakistan?
How do we welcome the Burmese migrants around many parishes and cities in Thailand?
How do we welcome and accompany various migrant groups, like the Vietnamese in Japan?
How do we welcome the Yemeni refugees in Jeju island or North Korean refugees in South Korea?
How do we welcome the young migrant families from the North in our parishes in the South of Vietnam?
How are we interested in and welcome the migrants and refugees in our city?
...

Pope Francis, too, mentions these situations very often, including in his recent Christmas Address to the Roman Curia (21 December, 2018): "Many indeed are the afflictions ... all those immigrants, forced to leave their own homelands and to risk their lives, lose their lives, or survive only to find doors barred and their brothers and sisters in our human family more concerned with political advantage and power! All that fear and prejudice! All those people, and especially those children who die each day for lack of water, food and medicine! All that poverty and destitution! All that violence directed against the vulnerable and against women! All those scenarios of war both declared and undeclared. All that innocent blood spilled daily! All that inhumanity and brutality around us! All those persons who even today are systematically tortured in police custody, in prisons and in refugee camps in various parts of the world!"