Given at the International Mass in Westminster Cathedral on the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, 25 September 2022
Our celebration of Mass this evening is rich in texture and vibrant, full of colour and energy. Thank you!
Yes, this International Mass is my opportunity to thank you all for your presence and participation in the life of the Church in this diocese. A diocese, you know, is described as a ‘local or particular church’. It has its ‘base’ in a place and time. It has its roots in a locality, a history and a particular culture. But this evening we see that this ‘local church’ is international, broad-based, embracing people from so many different places, and traditions and cultures. This evening I thank you for all you bring to this local church, giving it energy, diversity, and, so often, deep devotion and shining faith.
Our International Mass is celebrated today because this day has the title of ‘The World Day of Migrants and Refugees’. Migrants and refugees: two words resonant with hardship, suffering, exploitation. Yes, the movement of people across the world, provoked by war, persecution, poverty and dramatic changes in environment, is marked by a desperate desire to find a better place, to provide for a family, to shape a new future. Yet these aspirations are so often exploited by people smugglers, traffickers and traders in human slavery. We need a Day of Prayer for these brothers and sisters of ours. We need to look again at how we all respond to these human dramas and tragedies.
Pope Francis has given us a lead. He gives this day the theme of ‘building the future together’. In doing so he picks up the message of the second reading we have just heard, the words of Jesus ‘who spoke the truth in front of Pontius Pilate’ (1 Tim. 6:13). We remember what Jesus said: ‘My Kingdom is not of this world’ (John 18:36).
The future we build together, then, is that Kingdom, whose fulness will be revealed ‘at the due time’, as St Paul says, and yet whose presence is already within us. We might say that this Kingdom of heaven, to be seen here and now, is our birthright. It is the purpose for which we have been created and the shape of the dignity and greatness written into our hearts, even in those the world considers the least and most disposable. So, too, in building the signs and characteristics of this Kingdom into our daily reality, no one is to be excluded. It is a work to which everyone can contribute, and in which every contribution is needed. We have to state that most often, but not always, migrants and refugees are willing labourers in this work, if given the opportunity to contribute. To release that potential, we need routes of safe passage, a response of welcome and a fairness of hearing for those who, in despair, in fear for their lives, come seeking safety and wanting to make a contribution. Each has a contribution to make and gifts to bring. None of it should be wasted. So, as Pope Francis urges us, we must work together with patience, sacrifice and determination. He reminds us that this is God’s work, for God is the architect of this Kingdom, both here and now, and in its fulness.
Pope Francis says: ‘The tragedies of history remind us how far we are from arriving at our goal, the new Jerusalem, “the dwelling place of God with men” (Rev 21:3). Yet this does not mean that we should lose heart. In the light of what we have learned in the tribulations of recent times, we are called to renew our commitment to building a future that conforms ever more fully to God’s plan of a world in which everyone can live in peace and dignity’ (Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, 2022).
This Cathedral itself can help to focus our thoughts right now. It was here, last October, as many of you may remember, that we welcomed the great puppet, Little Amal, who had replicated the migrants’ journey across Europe, searching for her lost parents and for love. Amal was warmly and movingly welcomed here. Let that image stay with us, and renew our determination.
Then, please, look around at this wonderful building. It is the fruit of working together. Did you know that there are 12.5 million bricks in the building, each one carefully placed, each one dependent on the bricks next to it, and only together, following the architect’s careful design, creating such harmony and beauty. Let us do the same!
But now I must return to the Scripture readings of today’s Mass, especially the first reading and the Gospel.
The first reading gave us a picture of decadent affluence, of ‘those ensconced so snugly in Zion’, of those ‘sprawling on their divans’, dining on lambs from their flocks and bawling out their drunken songs.
The Gospel told us the parable of the rich man, ‘who used to dress in purple (the colour of power) and in fine linen and feast magnificently every day’, contrasting him with the poor man, Lazarus, lying at his gate, neglected and hungry.
What lesson do we take from these readings about our task of building together the Kingdom?
I think it is this: that we must be on our guard, constantly, against the indifference to others that can so easily enter our hearts. Both the rich of Zion and the rich man of the Gospel are condemned, not for being rich but because of their indifference to those in need. Certainly, wealth can breed that indifference. But not necessarily. The same indifference can take possession of a poor person’s heart, too. This indifference is the temptation we all face: a self-centredness that shuts out the needs of others and closes our hearts not only to their cries, but also to the talent and gifts they have within them.
The challenge before us is great. But so is our God, so is our faith, so is our generosity. May God give us all the grace to build together the home-life, the neighbourhood, the enterprises, that never waste the talents of so many but bring into reality the beauty of God’s Kingdom. Amen.
✠Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster