Welcome, Protect, Promote and Integrate | Paul Cherukoduth, CP | Passionist Sisters

Pope Francis greets refugees at a Mass for migrants on 7 June 2018 (Vatican Media)

In a recent issue of the Peace Newsletter from the JPIC in India, Vice Provincial Paul Cherukoduth, CP recognizes the staggering numbers of refugees and migrants world wide.  It is truly a global crisis.  Paul discusses a May seminar in Rome organized by the JPIC desk of USG and UISG (the Unions of Superiors General of men and women Congregations respectively) on the theme: “Prophetic Religious Life and the Four Verbs on Migrants and Refugees”. The four verbs are Welcoming, Protecting, Promoting and Integrating and are taken from Pope Francis’ 2018 Message for World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

Paul says, "Undoubtedly, to protect, promote and integrate migrants and refugees one must begin with an act of welcoming which then becomes an encounter with the Christ, the unknown guest in our midst.  On a global level the number of international migrants and refugees are estimated around 270 million and we know that that number keeps growing every day. In India, the inter-state migrants are numbered around 139 million, of whom 40 million work on constructions sites, 20 million are domestic workers, 2 million are sex-workers and the others fall into various other categories... To rephrase Paul of the Cross: May we be able to see the name of Jesus written on the foreheads of the Migrants and Refugees. May we learn to love the stranger as ourselves!"
 
From the U.S. Vision Statement of the Passionist Sisters' Communities of Dodge City, Kansas, and Lincoln, Nebraska:

May the Passionist charism continue to be embodied in our migrant people, and in the future, we will be able to work together with Passionist sisters and brothers in the same mission of building the Kingdom. 
Read the vision statement here