05/10/2025
Reflection Before the Message
In every departure, a seed of mission is sown. In every waiting heart, a sanctuary is kept. This is the sacred rhythm of migrant families— not scattered, but sent. Not forgotten, but entrusted.
As we receive the message of His Eminence Cardinal Fabio Baggio, we pause to honor the silent courage of those who stay, the enduring love of those who go, and the grace that binds them across oceans and years.
May this message be a balm, a blessing, and a call to walk together—pilgrims of hope, families of faith, builders of communion.
From: Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development - Video message of His Eminence Cardinal Fabio Baggio for the 4th Migrants Family Summit.
Your Excellencies, most Reverend Fathers and dear brothers and sisters, a blessed day to all of you. I especially wish to greet you, the families who are participating to the 4th Migrants Family Summit. I am happy that the Diocese of Cubao sees, honors and accompanies your journey. Your Diocese. See a fuller picture by including you. The families is essential part of a migrants life and story.
Many times in Ambadi Kasri, we bring attention to the plight of migrants, their struggles, their sufferings, their hopes and their longings. Now I wish to turn the lens on you.
The families will remain in the Philippines in many ways. When someone leaves to work abroad, a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, the person becomes a missionary for the family. It is a response to be a vocation of journeying together, offering service together and raising children towards fullness of life. It is part part of the missionary response to ensure a better next generation for society and the church. You all remain in your home country, you all the families heart together with the someone who may be at the other side of the world, and this is in itself a missionary endeavour.
Jesus tells us that I have come, that they may have life and have it to the full. John 10:10. This is what we see you do every day. You seek fullness of life for your families here, braving everyday work, performing service ministries and advocacies, raising and educating children. You ensure that integral human development is rooted in the family.
Pope Leo in his message for this year's Worthy of Migrants and Refugees, states that the migrants courage and tendency bear heroic testimony to a faith that sees beyond what our eyes can see and gives them the strength to defy death on the various contemporary in migration routes as families, you also bear that this testimony together with your loved ones and families abroad. You are not exempt from the longing, the loneliness and the difficulties that your loved ones feel from far away. In fact, this characterizes your unity, you to defy death by keeping your family's boat afloat.
In this pilgrimage this year, we remember that all of us are pilgrims of hope.
Let me hold 2 hopes with you on this occasion. First, the hope that you will unite your everyday journey with Christ, who is himself a migrant and who is himself a part of the Holy Family. His everyday journey was marked with challenge and anxiety, but remember also with joy a moment to moment grace. Second, the hope that this pilgrimage leads to whom? May your journey together lead you closer to each other as a family, no matter the distance. May your love and unity be your home, and may the day come when you feel Christ's tenders embrace as you hold yourself in each other's arms once again.
May God continue to bless your family.
