Pray for Desperate Refugee Families

by Letters Editor · October 1, 2015

A migrant with a child sleeps in a park near the main bus and train station in Belgrade, Serbia, Aug. 26. Catholic aid agencies have urged Europeans not to turn against migrants seeking refuge from Syria and other countries, in what media reports describe as the continent’s greatest refugee movement since World War II. (CNS/Marko Djurica, Reuters)

From Athaly Jenkinson, East London – Due to scanty local media coverage, many of us are unaware of the horrifying numbers, and even worse, scenes depicted on international news channels of refugees from the Middle East and parts of Africa.

These are of bombardments, starving populations, ruined buildings, people fleeing in droves by the thousands, walking with children and babies, shoulder to shoulder, in the rain, climbing through, over and under fences and coils of barbed wire, resisting police with batons, walking mile after mile, boarding boats, sinking, drowning (even babies).

Refugees are fleeing from the fighting, economic migrants from desperate poverty with nothing to lose but their lives.

The world doesn’t know how to find solutions to end the conflicts or the poverty.

Perhaps if we all took Jesus’ teachings to heart, we would find answers: love one another (Jn 13:34), love your neighbour (Mk 10:21), love your enemy (Lk 6:27).

Before people act, their hearts must be touched and we can do that only by praying for God’s almighty help, as it is a difficult task.

Join others who are saying the St Francis prayer with its plea to help us to forget ourselves and find unending peace with others.

And you can add: Lord, news reports reflect our troubled world, with conflicts and violence, corruption and poverty, and thousands of refugees and migrants fleeing across borders, homeless, desperate. Sensitise me to the sufferings of all my brothers and sisters, whoever they are, and let me never become indifferent to their plight, or that of those who cannot leave, or are deported again to their stricken lands. O Lord, grant justice and peace the world over. Amen.