ROME – Pope Leo XIV celebrated a special Mass for the Jubilee of Missions and of Migrants Sunday, urging a welcoming and unprejudiced attitude toward migrants and indicating that what it means to be a missionary in the modern world is changing.

“Brothers and sisters, today a new missionary age opens up in the history of the Church,” Leo said in his homily for the Oct. 5 Mass.

It is a jubilee celebration that’s especially dear to Pope Leo given his decades of service as a missionary in Peru, and his own involvement in the migration issue during that time.

While bishop of Chiclayo, then-Bishop Robert Prevost volunteered to be on the board of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference’s Social Action Commission, choosing specifically to oversee the migration issue.

In that capacity, he played a frontline role in managing Peru’s own migration crisis in 2018, when his adoptive country was hit with a massive influx of Venezuelans fleeing acute poverty, violence, and social and political unrest.

Leo XIV in his homily said that to be a missionary no longer implies going out to distant lands, because “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.”

Pointing to the plight of migrants, he said they are a clear example of this through “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.”

“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!” he said.

He said today’s jubilee celebration was an opportunity to renew awareness of the vocation all believers have to be a missionary in some way, especially to those experiencing painful or difficult situations.

To this end, he said that many migrants leave their homeland and loved ones behind, enduring loneliness, fear, violence and discrimination along their route in search of a better life.

“Each one of us should be able to say with joy: the entire Church is missionary, and it is urgent…that we ‘go forth and preach the Gospel to all: to all places, on all occasions, without hesitation, reluctance or fear,’” he said, quoting from Pope Francis’s exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.

Noting that God can often seem silent and absent in the face of anguish and suffering, Leo said this apparent silence from God can often be painful and can give the impression that God is distant, but he insisted that the opposite is true, and that God’s response, even with silence, “opens us to hope.”

“If the prophet denounces the inescapable force of evil that seems to prevail, the Lord, for his part, announces to him that all of this will end, will cease, because salvation will come and it will not delay,” he said.

In this sense, Leo said there is “a new possibility of life and salvation that comes from faith, because it not only helps us to resist evil and to persevere in doing good, but it transforms our lives so as to make of them an instrument of the salvation that even today God wishes to bring about in the world.”

This happens through “a lowly strength” that does not impose itself through power but rather works through faith “the size of a mustard seed,” he said, saying even this small seed “can do unimaginable things, because it carries within it the strength of God’s love that opens the way to salvation.”

Leo said this path of salvation is lived “silently and apparently without success” in daily life, through one’s words and actions, sowing small seeds that God then nourishes and makes grow.

“It is a salvation that slowly grows when we become ‘unworthy servants’, namely when we place ourselves at the service of the Gospel and of our brothers and sisters, not seeking our own interests but only bringing God’s love to the world,” he said.

With this spirit, Christians are called to “renew in ourselves the fire of our missionary vocation,” the pope said, saying this is a responsibility at a time of unprecedented potential, but also concern, in history.

Pope Leo said that being a missionary is no longer about departing but “remaining” in order to proclaim Christ through hospitality, welcome, compassion and solidarity.

Christians, he said, must “remain without fleeing to the comforts of our individualism; to remain so as to look upon those who arrive from lands that are distant and violent.”

To be a missionary in this sense, he said, means “to remain and open our arms and hearts to them, welcoming them as brothers and sisters, and being for them a presence of consolation and hope.”

He thanked those who work with migrants, assisting them in a spirit of fraternity that goes beyond “stereotypes and prejudices,” and said everyone is called to serve in some way, “within the limits of our own means.”

This service, he said, entails both “missionary cooperation” and “missionary vocation.”

Leo urged cooperation among churches, especially for communities with an ancient Christian tradition, especially in the West.

For these communities, he said, “the presence of many brothers and sisters from the world’s South should be welcomed as an opportunity, through an exchange that renews the face of the Church and sustains a Christianity that is more open, more alive and more dynamic.”

At the same time, he also urged missionaries who serve abroad “to live with respect within the culture they encounter, directing to the good all that is found true and worthy, and bringing there the prophetic message of the Gospel.”

Pope Leo then reflected on the vocation to be a missionary. Referring specifically to the church in Europe, he said, “today there is a need for a new missionary effort by laity, religious and priests who will offer their service in missionary lands.”

“We need new ideas and vocational experiences capable of sustaining this desire, especially in young people,” he said. He extended his prayers to all those contemplating a missionary vocation, and offered a specific message to migrants, saying, “know that you are always welcome!”

“The seas and deserts that you have crossed, Scripture calls ‘places of salvation’, in which God makes himself present to save his people. I hope that you find this face of God in the missionaries that you encounter,” he said.

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